Indiana coach Tom Crean is among those rooting for former Rutgers coach Mike Rice to make a comeback.
“Everyone wants to cast judgment so fast,” Crean, the Indiana coach, told Bleacher Report. “It’s not our place to cast the blame or to press the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ button, especially on things we don’t know much about or have only seen parts of. That’s up to the people that are involved in it.
“Mike is a very talented coach. He has an edge to him. I would bet that he’s going to be a very strong comeback story.”
Rice, who was fired in 2013 for verbal and physical abuse of his players, now works for the Hoop Group in New Jersey.
He told Bleacher Report he hopes to get back into coaching.
“I’m sure most people have their mind made up about me,” Rice told Bleacher Report. “The housewives who saw the clips on their afternoon talk show or the casual fan who watched it on SportsCenter, that’s all they’ll ever know of me.
“But hopefully there are other people who are more open-minded. Those are the people I want to reach. I want change the narrative of who Mike Rice was.”
“I want to change the narrative,” he says, “of who Mike Rice is.”
