From AP News:
"Pat Chambers resigned as Penn State's basketball coach Wednesday following an internal investigation by the school into allegations of inappropriate conduct.
Chambers, 49, had been at Penn State for nine years and was coming off the team’s best season under his directions."
https://sports.yahoo.com/penn-state-coach-pat-chambers-221011678.html
Assistant Coach Jim Ferry (formerly the Duquesne head coach) will serve as the interim basketball coach for this season.
Ridiculous. A player is too stupid to understand figurative language, so a good coach gets fired.
I mean, I hate the PC crap too but telling a black player he has a noose around him is just plain STUPID. Also, I doubt he got fired for a one off.
I mean, I hate the PC crap too but telling a black player he has a noose around him is just plain STUPID. Also, I doubt he got fired for a one off.
I agree that he should have known that some blacks are very quick to associate the word "noose" with the KKK's past lynching of blacks, but the vast majority of nooses were used otherwise, and there was nothing racial in the context at all. The same way that kid at Miss. State went off the rails because of a harmless (admittedly unwise and perhaps in poor taste) cartoon Mike Leach sent out.
If there are other alleged instances of racism or other offenses, I would be interested to hear them. But the fact that this is the one that gets mentioned repeatedly implies this is by far the worst. Should someone have pulled him aside and said, "Never again mention nooses when talking to black kids"? Sure. But firing him over this, if this is indeed the worst offense, is at best ridiculous and possibly cause for a substantial lawsuit, if Coach Chambers should be so inclined.
@mean-green-lion: I believe the Pat Chambers' resignation was the result of three (3) incidents of misconduct in the eyes of Sandy Barbour:
1) Incident #1 -- Chambers shoving of Myles Dread in January 2019. This was the incident that generated the 1 game dispensary suspension for Chambers.
2) Incident #2 -- The "noose" comment made to Rasir Bolton. This was the most serious issue.
3) Incident #3 -- Josh Reaves reporting to PennLive in July 2020 about Chambers' "messed up" apology and explanation of the "noose" comment during a private meeting Chambers held with Reaves. This last item is discussed in the PennLive link I have provided below. It's a long article but towards the end of it, Reaves discusses his private meeting with Chambers about the "noose" comment made by Chambers. The article says the following:
(a) "The noose comment festered with at least one important member of the team – senior winger and captain Josh Reaves."
(b) Reaves commented: "“I don’t know if I’m allowed to curse. It was just f---ed up, to say the least. Saying that, in any type of context, is wrong. Regardless of how you try to make it seem like you’re speaking, what type of tone you’re trying to take. Regardless, it’s wrong."
(c) Reaves said that "he was soon after called by Chambers in an apparent attempt at damage control".
Reaves: "He called me into a meeting with him. I don’t know whether he was trying to cover it up, or what he wanted to do. But he called me into his office asking me to, like, help clarify what he was trying to say. And then, he just made it worse. Because he then told me something that wasn’t as bad but still bad.”
Reaves goes on to say: "“He ended up saying: ‘That’s not what I meant to say. I tried to say, I wanted to be in the field with him.’ Which really isn’t any better because that’s just dumb.”
Reaves said that the comment made by Chambers was "fuzzy" but that he thought that perhaps Chambers was referencing being "like a fellow slave in the cotton fields".
As I said, all this was reported by PennLive and is at the link below. In my opinion, these three (3) incidents are what bothered Barbour and led to Chambers basically being asked to resign. I believe that the PennLive article on July 6, 2020 was the final straw and that Barbour felt Chambers just had to go.
I mean, I hate the PC crap too but telling a black player he has a noose around him is just plain STUPID. Also, I doubt he got fired for a one off.
I agree that he should have known that some blacks are very quick to associate the word "noose" with the KKK's past lynching of blacks, but the vast majority of nooses were used otherwise, and there was nothing racial in the context at all. The same way that kid at Miss. State went off the rails because of a harmless (admittedly unwise and perhaps in poor taste) cartoon Mike Leach sent out.
If there are other alleged instances of racism or other offenses, I would be interested to hear them. But the fact that this is the one that gets mentioned repeatedly implies this is by far the worst. Should someone have pulled him aside and said, "Never again mention nooses when talking to black kids"? Sure. But firing him over this, if this is indeed the worst offense, is at best ridiculous and possibly cause for a substantial lawsuit, if Coach Chambers should be so inclined.
I would say that it's the one talked about the most because the kid transferred and told everyone about it. Very possible that others didn't want to go public, but instead reported the instances to the University. Not everyone wants publicity, in fact I would gather more would rather not go public because while the singular issue could get solved, they may be branded a snowflake or locker room troublemaker.
@mean-green-lion: I believe the Pat Chambers' resignation was the result of three (3) incidents of misconduct in the eyes of Sandy Barbour:
1) Incident #1 -- Chambers shoving of Myles Dread in January 2019. This was the incident that generated the 1 game dispensary suspension for Chambers.
2) Incident #2 -- The "noose" comment made to Rasir Bolton. This was the most serious issue.
3) Incident #3 -- Josh Reaves reporting to PennLive in July 2020 about Chambers' "messed up" apology and explanation of the "noose" comment during a private meeting Chambers held with Reaves. This last item is discussed in the PennLive link I have provided below. It's a long article but towards the end of it, Reaves discusses his private meeting with Chambers about the "noose" comment made by Chambers. The article says the following:
(a) "The noose comment festered with at least one important member of the team – senior winger and captain Josh Reaves."
(b) Reaves commented: "“I don’t know if I’m allowed to curse. It was just f---ed up, to say the least. Saying that, in any type of context, is wrong. Regardless of how you try to make it seem like you’re speaking, what type of tone you’re trying to take. Regardless, it’s wrong."
(c) Reaves said that "he was soon after called by Chambers in an apparent attempt at damage control".
Reaves: "He called me into a meeting with him. I don’t know whether he was trying to cover it up, or what he wanted to do. But he called me into his office asking me to, like, help clarify what he was trying to say. And then, he just made it worse. Because he then told me something that wasn’t as bad but still bad.”
Reaves goes on to say: "“He ended up saying: ‘That’s not what I meant to say. I tried to say, I wanted to be in the field with him.’ Which really isn’t any better because that’s just dumb.”
Reaves said that the comment made by Chambers was "fuzzy" but that he thought that perhaps Chambers was referencing being "like a fellow slave in the cotton fields".
As I said, all this was reported by PennLive and is at the link below. In my opinion, these three (3) incidents are what bothered Barbour and led to Chambers basically being asked to resign. I believe that the PennLive article on July 6, 2020 was the final straw and that Barbour felt Chambers just had to go.
Thanks for the info. I still disagree with the firing, seeing as that "the most serious issue" should not have been an issue at all.
From comments that I have seen, the other players stood with Coach Chambers.
If what Coach Chambers said was stupid--in some ways, it was--Reaves' utter inability to comprehend his comment manifests a much more remarkable level of stupidly.
Was this firing justifiable? Perhaps. Was it necessary? No way.
And once again, PSU's hoops program takes two steps back.
