Heads have begun to roll at Rutgers following the publication of coach Mike Rice’s controversial practice techniques that involved verbal and physical abuse of players.
Tim Pernetti resigns: Rutgers president Robert Barchi admits mistakes were made
A bad situation at Rutgers got even worse on Friday following Barchi’s meeting with the media.
The Star-Ledger-US PRESSWIRE
On Friday, Rutgers athletic director Tim Pernetti resigned. The decision came just hours after Rice was fired. To address everything that had transpired in the past 72 hours, Dr. Robert L. Barchi, the president of Rutgers, held a press conference.
More: On the Banks
Barchi repeated his feelings throughout: he wished he would’ve gone back and watched the full video when it was originally presented to him. It was a mistake on his part.
“If I could do it again, I would ask for the video,” Barchi said.
When first told of the video, Barchi said he was told it consisted of three years of practice tapes with verbal abuse, physical abuse and “some episodes of slurs.” When asked why he never took 30 minutes to watch the video when Rice was suspended three games earlier in the year, he once again said he should have.
As many analysts said in the minutes following the conclusion of the press conference, it seemed Barchi just kept digging himself into a deeper and deeper hole. He never once took full responsibility for being negligent, and instead elected to shift the blame on his staff and legal counsel for why action was not taken sooner.
“I did not see anything in the video that was out of keeping with what I was told,” Barchi said. “What I did see was evidence of pervasive behavior over a period of time.”
It seems the press conference did nothing but further complicate a bad situation at Rutgers. Very little was cleared up, and now it’s clear that mistakes were continually made within the program throughout the better part of a year.
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