When Does Coaching Behavior Cross The Line?

Growing up as football fans, we learn at a relatively young age that coaches, especially at the college level, often discipline their players in ways we might not agree with. But because it's supposed to make our favorite team better, we turn our heads.

While we sit and watch football coaches smack players on the side of their helmets on a weekly basis and accept it because they're wearing pads, but if a basketball coach were to do this, then all hell would break loose in form of a media frenzy.

Take legendary Indiana, and most recently Texas Tech, head basketball coach Bobby Knight for example. Over the years he has been accused of what seems like countless incidents of “unacceptable” behavior by a coach. At Bloomington, he was accused of choking Director of Athletics Kit Klingelhofer, throwing a chair and kicking his own son (just to name a few).

Once at Texas Tech, Knight had to be restrained during a game against Baylor when a fan started heckling him and, most recently in 2006, when he bumped Michael Prince in the chin in order to force eye contact, everyone seemed to take it as if the coach was assaulting his player.

Knight was a controversial figure throughout his entire coaching career; therefore, it didn't take much to put him under the spotlight of criticism. It took the University of Indiana 30 years to finally put their foot down about Knight's behavior that occasionally reached international headlines, nothing questionable he did ever stayed out of the newspaper.

So I ask you, why are football coaches given such long leashes in terms of what they're able to do with their athletes? Are football players just that much tougher than those who shoot hoops? Does wearing pads make everything OK?

But on the flip side, why after a football coach is accused of misconduct with a player is the termination process so quick?

Allegations against another Red Raider, Texas Tech head football coach Mike Leach, surfaced Monday, Dec. 28, 2009. His termination date? Dec. 30, 2009 – two days later. And Leach's allegations weren't even of physical abuse, but of psychological.

When former Kansas Jayhawks head coach Mark Mangino was accused of physically and verbally abusing his players, it only took three weeks for him to resign, but was able to walk away with a hefty $3 million settlement.

2009 has been an interesting year, not in terms of coaching conduct, but the safety of athletes with so much focus by officials being placed on their overall well being.

Keep in mind two head football coaches this season who were accuses of assaulting their assistants, New Mexico's Mike Locksley and Tom Cable of the Oakland Raiders. Cable's Raiders have played better the second half of the season, but the Lobos went 1-11 in 2009; still, both coaches retain their positions. Apparently it's OK to abuse grown men on payroll.

Now I don't know where the line is—that's what I am trying to figure out. During my playing days I had coaches grab me by the face mask and even headbutt me a time or two. Did it bother me? Not at all, it's football. But are we entering a different era of America? One where if a parent spanks their kid for running out in front of a car it's considered “child abuse.” I am in no way defending Leach or Mangino, I think both were out of line if the allegations against them are true.

Still I ask, where is the line drawn?