Texas Tech suspends basketball coach Mark Adams for inappropriate comments
Texas Tech announced that basketball coach Mark Adams has been suspended for an “inappropriate, unacceptable, and racially insensitive comment” he uttered to a player.
Maven – Sports Illustrated National, Maven – Sports Illustrated National
In the span of about three years, Texas Tech has had four coaches investigated for mistreatment of athletes: the women’s basketball coach, the softball coach, the women’s tennis coach and now the men’s basketball coach, Mark Adams.
Those first three coaches ended up leaving the school. Adams is currently suspended but will likely never coach another game at Texas Tech following an almost comically absurd misuse of a Bible quote. Cool. Easy decision. Good riddance.
That’s four coaches gone because of alleged mistreatment of players. Currently, the school has only 13 full-time head coach employees. That means – excuse me while I do the math here … divided by two, carry the one – at various points over the past three years almost one-third of all Texas Tech head coaches have left the school or in the case of Adams are likely to be gone because of accusations of mistreatment of players. That’s got to be some kind of land speed mark.
“It’s a disturbing pattern,’’ said Jonathan Katz, a sports psychologist who has worked with professional and college athletes and has served as a sports psychology consultant for the University of Texas men’s and women’s tennis teams, in 2022. “That’s clear. I don’t think somebody could ignore that.’’
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That was a year ago. It’s gotten worse. The school may want to explore giving the athletic director a permanent leave of absence.
What Texas Tech is apparently trying to do is set a world record for not understanding today’s athlete is firmly set in the 21st century. In the current world, where dignity and decency are important, racism, verbal abuse, and treating players like they’re robots isn’t tolerated. Maybe Texas Tech will get it by the 22nd century.
But there’s a larger lesson here than just one man’s Bible quotation gone wrong. It’s a lesson that applies not just to college sports, but all sports, and all workplaces. The lesson, mainly, is people are done taking your bullbleep.
Well, not your BS specifically, but bullbleep in general. Athletes are done being treated like they’re robots. People of color are done with all of the racist crap in the world. Workers are done with not being paid a livable wage. There’s a general sense of fatigue and irritation I think many people have with what’s happening in the country (and maybe even the world). The gaslighting politicians, the extremism, the rich getting richer. The wars and the strongmen. The loss of personal rights.
If you don’t think this Texas Tech story is part of that larger one, you haven’t been paying attention.
Lots and lots of people are just done.
I think after Adams said what he did, the player, who hasn’t been publicly identified, thought: I’m not going to be the tolerant one yet again. You’re a grown man, coach, you should know better. You should have put in the work and you didn’t.
This isn’t the 1950s. Bobby Knight, thankfully, ain’t walking through that door.
Assistant Corey Williams is the interim head coach for this week’s Big 12 Conference Tournament but it’s highly likely Adams won’t be back. He was suspended Sunday for “…the use of an inappropriate, unacceptable, and racially insensitive comment last week,” stated a news release from the school.
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“Adams was encouraging the student-athlete to be more receptive to coaching and referenced Bible verses about workers, teachers, parents and slaves serving their masters,” the release said.
Athletes today, especially ones of color, are less inclined to stay quiet on issues like the Texas Tech one because they’ve watched other players, like Colin Kaepernick and LeBron James, use their immense power to address social justice issues. There’s less fear doing so.
Younger players watched Kaepernick protest systemic racism in law enforcement, and instead of being nervous about suffering Kaepernick’s fate – he was essentially banned from the NFL – I believe many were emboldened by his bravery.
Doug Baldwin, who was a key component of the player protest movement in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd, told Seahawks.com in February why it was important for him to speak up in support of Kaepernick.
“I couldn’t sit around and not do anything about what was going on in our country,” said Baldwin. “Or at least address it from a perspective or an angle that I thought that I could have some impact in.”
Some collegiate programs understand this phenomenon and get it. Some want to stay stuck in the past. Texas Tech seems to be an institution that doesn’t get it at all.
Over and over and over and over.
