College coaches have new way to discipline players without hurting team: Fine them

Houston Nutt, left, and Mike Gundy have addressed the trials and pitfalls of disciplining players for off-the-field incidents.

It had been a long, emotional week at Arkansas in November 1998. The Razorbacks were still staggered from a 28-24 loss to No. 1 Tennessee a few days earlier. Then-coach Houston Nutt was trying to get his team to lock in for a game at Mississippi State that could clinch the SEC West and a rematch with the Vols.

“I met with the team 48 hours prior to the game — just myself and them — and I said, ‘Hey guys, let’s be in bed (early),’” Nutt recalled in a recent phone conversation with USA TODAY Sports. “Then my starting kicker goes and gets a DUI that night.”

It was the kind of scenario that has tormented college coaches for generations: A player violates a team rule, breaks a law or lands in headlines for embarrassing reasons. There’s pressure from some media and some administrators to punish the player in the name of upholding standards and sending the message that athletes don’t get preferential treatment.

And yet the coach knows that holding the player out of games as punishment could not only hurt the team’s chances of winning, but could imperil his own job.

Nutt ended up suspending the kicker, Todd Latourette, who was one of the best in the SEC that year. And without a kicker he had confidence in, Nutt passed on multiple field-goal opportunities, including one from 36 yards. Arkansas lost, 22-21, and Nutt has regretted it for a quarter-century.

Houston Nutt says he regrets how he handled discipline of one player’s off-field issues while coach at Arkansas.

“I hurt a good team,” he said. “I even had a couple seniors come to me before the game and say, ‘Hey Coach, if you let him go on the trip we’ll take responsibility and run him for you. We’ll make him throw up…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/college-coaches-way-discipline-players-110323079.html

Author : USA TODAY Sports

Publish date : 2024-10-16 11:03:23

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