Former Rutgers men's basketball assistant Eric Murdock says Mike Rice treated players ‘like slaves’
In recorded rants, Murdock also accused Rice of pocketing money from ticket sales and basketball camps.
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS STAFF
Eric Murdock, the former Rutgers men’s basketball assistant who blew the whistle on Mike Rice’s over-the-top practice behavior, said in an 11-minute, profanity-laced recording that the former coach treated his players “like slaves.”
“Treating mother f------ like slaves, just cracking the whip,” Murdock said in the rant to assistant coaches David Cox and Jimmy Martellli. “That’s all you do is crack the whip. When the mother f------ can’t deliver, you cut his toe off like f------ Kunta Kinte.”
The recording, from June 29, 2012, was obtained by The Chronicle of Higher Education, a weekly scholastic newspaper, through public records. The periodical said the recording was made by either Cox or Martelli.
In the rant, Murdock also accused Rice of pocketing money from ticket sales and basketball camps.
“Where’s it going? In this mother f------ pocket,” Murdock said. “He’s a greedy f------ pig.”
Rice was fired in April after video of his maniacal practice habits emerged. The video, which was taken by Murdock, quickly went viral.
In the wake of the scandal, athletic director Tim Pernetti also submitted his resignation “reluctantly,” as he wrote in a letter released to the public two days after Rice was fired.
Murdock has filed a wrongful termination suit against Rutgers in New Jersey state court. The suit claims the university ignored Murdock’s warnings — and videos that showed Rice punching, kicking, throwing basketballs at and belittling players — for six months before the disgraced coach was finally suspended for three games and fined $50,000 on Dec. 13.
The suit says Murdock, a former Providence College and NBA guard who also played pro ball in Italy, “never experienced a coach whose behavior and treatment of his players and others crossed the line into aforementioned assaultive, abusive and other unlawful conduct.”
The bad news at Rutgers has continued with new athletic director Julie Hermann, who has had to answer questions about her past, particularly when she was the head women’s volleyball coach at Tennessee.
Players from the 1996 team signed a letter in ’97 that accused her of physically and verbally abusing them — the same behavior that got Rice fired — including calling them “whores,” “alcoholics” and “learning disabled.” Hermann quit coaching the Lady Vols after that episode.
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