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Volume 38 Issue 4
October 17, 2000

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Rice’s loyalty overshadows his flaws

MESA LEGEND
Submitted October 17, 2000

Call me Pedro Gomez, but there are a number of reasons why I could tell you MCC football head coach David Rice should be relieved of his duties and replaced by someone who can steer the Thunderbirds in the right direction.

First case-in-point being a horrific 1-4 start to a season that was supposed to be at least mildly better than last season’s 3-7 campaign. Not to mention eight consecutive losses to Western States Football League opponents, dating back to last season.

Add to the disappointing record that Rice, after not finding a more suitable candidate than himself, took control of the defense this year which has given up 155 total points to its first four WSFL opponents.

Jim Allen/MESA LEGEND
Coach David Rice scratches his head over yet another disappointing loss Oct. 7.

Rice, dissatisfied with offensive coordinator Ray Liang’s approach in the Oct. 7 matchup against visiting Dixie State (Utah), took the reigns out of Liang’s hands in the fourth quarter. Never mind that Liang had built a 13-0 lead for MCC in the first 15 minutes of the game, and that it was Rice’s defense who gave up the eventual 33-26 loss.

However, if I were to tell you that Rice should start pounding the pavement after spending nine years of his self-embellished career with the T-Birds, I’d be doing you and him an injustice by leaving out his obvious character flaws.

Rice loves excuses. It’s never his fault on or off the field.

Nor is it Rice’s responsibility to motivate his players, as he so profoundly declared at last year’s MCC Athletics Awards Banquet. His statement was so ridiculous that recently departed former tennis coach David Vande Pol quickly followed Rice’s comments by seriously questioning his judgment when he asked, “Isn’t that our job as college coaches and mentors?”

But for every reason I can give you to lend credence to dismissing Rice, I find those reasons outnumbered by the ones which say he should stay.

There are 75 of those reasons — Rice’s players.

After the loss to Dixie State, Rice could have blamed this flock of Thunderbirds for losing focus on the field, for not having the will to finish off the Rebels at John Riggs Stadium when they had the chance.

But he didn’t.

Rice could simply turn the other cheek when one of his players skips a class that his scholarship dollars paid for, copping-out again on that whole motivation thing.

But he doesn’t.

Rice knows too well what an education did for him, having had an unstable family life growing up and nearly faltering along the way, before graduating with honors from St. Louis’ Washington University with a degree in Russian history.

Players know that if they don’t follow through on their job description of being student athletes, Rice will boot them off the team.

Why does Rice care? Because he is loyal. Rice is MCC football. And he knows it. You won’t find a more loyal employee on campus — to Mesa, to the school, to his players.

So, despite his many gaffs, and before all 75 T-Birds come and kick the “know-nothing, never-played-a-down-of-college-football” tar out of me, let me say that Rice is currently the right man for the job.

Just don’t tell Pedro Gomez I said that.

J.W. Watson is the editor-in-chief of the Mesa Legend and a journalism major at MCC.

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