Lakers' Kobe: 'I would have smacked the hell' out of Rutgers coach Rice


blackrican23

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Mike Rice is lucky Kobe Bryant was not one of the players he abused while coaching.

 

The Lakers star let the world know what he would have done if he was one of Rice’s players at Rutgers, where the now-ousted coach flung basketballs at student-athletes and spewed gay slurs at them.

“I would have smacked the hell out of him,†Bryant said during an interview on Jim Rome on Showtime. “No question about it.

“Probably wouldn’t have been the best way to react to it, but that’s how I would have reacted to it.â€

 

Bryant has dealt with controversy himself. In 2003, he was arrested for sexual assaulting a 19-year-old hotel employee in Colorado. The case was ultmimately dropped after the accuser refused to testify against Bryant. She would file a civil suit against Bryant and that would be settled out of court with Bryant apologizing to her without admitting guilt.

Rice was fired from his head coaching job at Rutgers last week after ESPN’s "Outside The Lines" aired a video taken at practice that showed Rice throwing basketballs at players, putting his hands on players and insulting them with gay slurs.

The video, which surfaced months after Rice was originally suspended for three games for the incidents shown, also resulted in the resignation of the school’s athletic director, Tim Pernetti. Prior to the video’s surfacing none of Rice’s players brought his actions to the attention of anyone at the school.

“I’m not sure [why no one said anything],†Bryant said. "Everybody was trying to do the right thing by kind of just holding your tongue and not say anything. That’s abusive man, you cannot take that form of abuse, that’s crazy.â€

Bryant, who went to the NBA straight from high school, never had to deal with a college coach, but had no doubt he would have gotten into it had he been coached by someone like Rice.

“Just a year [after high school] I was going at it with Shaq (Shaquille O'neal),†Bryant said. “You think I’m going to let a coach throw a basketball at my head. Not a chance. The only person that had the license to hit me was my mom with a belt.â€



Read more: Lakers' Kobe: 'I would have smacked the hell' out of Rutgers coach Rice http://www.nypost.com/p/blogs/backpage/lakers_kobe_would_have_smacked_rice_Zu9mD0OVhV6lPXzLYKU9GI#ixzz2Q69lhgqS

 

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