Majerus is now someone elses problem
January 31st, 2008, 6:18 pm Hobbies Ideas
Brilliant, bodacious basketball coach Rick Majerus is in trouble again. Not so much on the court as off. And not because he’s driving drunk or dealing drugs. Those were never his vices. His problems always come from his mouth the food he puts in it and the words that come out of it.
No doubt about it, the Big One-Liner is back.
This week, the former Ute coach drew criticism after saying in a television interview he supports abortion rights. Initially, he said he didn’t want to comment but later allowed he is pro-choice. That seems fairly uncontroversial, until you consider he now coaches at Catholic-sponsored Saint Louis University, and his harshest critic is Archbishop Raymond Burke, who complained that Majerus’ remarks “can lead Catholics astray.”
Burke went on to say the school should take “appropriate action” against Majerus.
Like what, confiscate his Diners Club Card?
Majerus wasn’t being loud or obnoxious. Just a private citizen, showing support for Hillary Clinton at a rally. It’s not like he was pretending to speak on behalf of the church. He was actually speaking on behalf of Majerus World, which is a pretty big place. Here in Utah, all we can do is sigh and say, “Get used to it, St. Louie.”
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This is only the beginning.
Majerus can be boorish, exasperating, hilarious and even touching, but he’s always newsworthy. When he had been at Utah only months, he was reprimanded for telling a Milwaukee radio talk show that in women’s athletics “there’s a great deal of, uh, irregular sexual behavior.”
Big Rick’s apology: “I meant nothing by it. Everybody knows I’m a flippant guy … I made a joke about sheep in Wyoming. I said something about passing the microphone and catching a communicable disease. The other night at the roast for (NBA coach) Del Harris, I’m talking about Del’s underwear. What does that mean?”
It means Majerus is a hurricane waiting to happen. Sometimes he stirs up a storm, other times his remarks go fairly unchallenged. There was the time he complained about the parking situation at the Huntsman Center, saying, “Anyone who found parking around here, that’s a greater miracle than anything that’s going on down at the temple.” No negative reaction whatsoever.
He did take mild heat for saying on ESPN, “I’m trying to find Ashley Judd in the crowd. It beats the adult videos at the hotel.” But he didn’t get censured for comparing scheduling games with UCLA to dating. “There’s three cheerleaders out there I’d like to take home tonight,” he said. “All three would tell me no. They won’t go. UCLA won’t play.”
To borrow a cheerleading phrase: Ewwww, gross. Nor did he get in trouble with the University of Utah for saying, “I have trouble recruiting whites, blacks and anybody else. It’s a hard place to recruit to. Period.” Or for saying his squad was so white it “looks like the ski team.”
He did run into trouble when stories surfaced about him blasting hearing-impaired Ute center Lance Allred with religious slurs, profanity and references to female body parts and the handicapped. In fact, that incident probably contributed to Allred’s departure.
Then the laugh track is back on. In his first press conference at Saint Louis, he said the biggest mystery of religion to him wasn’t the resurrection or the virgin birth, but this: “I want to know if the Corinthians ever wrote back.”
The abortion controversy isn’t the first time endorsements have come up with Majerus. Over a decade ago, he said he was told at Utah he could endorse political candidates as an individual but not as the team’s coach. “So if I am ever on a road trip and happen to get in a bar fight, remember I did not get in the bar fight as University of Utah basketball coach,” he said, “but as Rick Majerus the private person.”
Which raises the obvious question: Is there really such a thing?
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