As the highly-anticipated March Madness tournament approaches, people may be feasting their eyes on college basketball for a completely different reason, as two different coaches, Kansas’ Les Miles, and Creighton’s Greg McDermott, have become trapped in separate controversies recently (Miles for sexual harassment, and McDermott for racist comments), with Miles being relieved of his duties and McDermott being suspended.
In the case of Miles, who had coached the Jayhawks for two seasons, he was fired after an investigation from LSU (Louisiana State University), the college that Miles had previously coached, discovered allegations from female students there that Miles engaged in inappropriate conduct around them.
The allegations against Miles were a big contribution to his firing from LSU, but, according to the investigation, the situation was apparently “mishandled” and never revealed to Kansas before they hired him. One student in particular claimed that Miles “kissed her twice and told her she was attractive,” an incident that stems back as far as 2013.
In addition to Miles’ exit, Kansas athletic director Jeff Long will no longer be carrying out his duties, a decision that was considered to be “in the best interest of the KU student-athletes and the program.”
As for Coach McDermott, he was suspended by the Creighton Bluejays’ basketball program after a speech made to his players, McDermott likened Creighton’s basketball program to a “plantation,” a reference to African-American slavery. After a loss to Xavier, McDermott was quoted as saying to his players, “I need everybody to stay on the plantation. I can’t have anybody leave the plantation.” McDermott, who has coached Creighton since 2010 and is the father of current NBA player and Creighton alum Doug McDermott, has recently been reinstated, and issued an apology, saying, “I have never used that analogy and it is not indicative of who I am as a person or as a coach. I’m deeply sorry.”
Creighton players weren’t about to let McDermott’s apology distract them from how they actually felt, as they made a video talking about the impact of their coach’s comments. Creighton forward Damien Jefferson said, “If I was your son, would it matter then? Let’s not be OK with racism.”
Guard Shereef Mitchell went further with his comments, talking about how nightmarish life on a plantation was for African-American slaves. “For slaves, life on a plantation was filled with mental, emotional, physical, psychological, and sexual abuse. You were owned as property and not human. Slaves had no rights and no voice. They were branded like cattle, forced from their homeland and stripped of their culture, language and basic human rights. They worked 18 hours a day six days a week.”
Coming into the March Madness tournament, Kansas is the No. 3 seed in the West, while Creighton is the 5th in the same region. Kansas will play East Washington, while Creighton will go up against UC Santa Barbara.
