wait for, you know, it to be public and blow up on national television on espn, on youtube, to go, okay, maybe we should stop this because we re getting, you know, negative exposure. reporter: and for the first time, we re hearing from former players who were subject to rice s attacks. tyree graham spent two years playing for rice and says he was just trying to motivate players. he s not as bad as the media right now is making him seem. coach rice, you know, he s one of those guys that, you know, he s a passionate, don t get me wrong, but at the same time, a lot of those times on the film when he s throwing a ball at a player, he was joking. reporter: a local basketball coach, rick pitino, who s known to get angry on occasion, says rice s extreme behavior is well beyond the norm. you know, i ve never seen anything like that before. and i m sure that there s a different side of him that really cares about his players, but that was difficult to watch
he s hurling balls at their heads, shoving them around, using some pretty bigoted language, which i won t repeat. all pretty unpleasant. i mean, i suppose the obvious question, though, is how unusual is this he s kicking somebody there. this can t be right, can it tyree? this is unusual behavior, even by sporting coach standards, isn t it? yes, it is. and i think he has come to the conclusion that he made a mistake or whatnot. but at the same time, if you were at the gym at the time and around coach rice and knew coach rice as the person that i know him as, you understand that he was just probably seeing something that day that you were lacking and he was trying to motivate you. i mean, we all have different ways of motivation. motivating others. and that was one of his ways to try to motivate players. when you were in the team playing with him, how did everybody feel about him? did most of the players agree with you, did they feel motivated? because there was an argument being p
support the decision to remove coach rice. we ll go to the campus of rutgers university right now for all the latest developments including what was a bonus, pam, for the fired coach. what s going on? reporter: that s right, wolf. we have been on campus today trying to get some answers. the day after firing head basketball coach mike rice rutgers university officials staying tight lipped over the athletic director and the university president over how they handled the situation after learning of allegations of player abuse. as you mentioned, wolf, we have learned today that mike rice will walk off campus with a bonus. he was fired for this. punching, grabbing, and kicking his players. but mike rice, whose annual salary was just increased to
too. i think the athletic director is probably going to get fired now. he deserves he let it go on for this long. why did he wait this long and wait for, you know, it to be public and blow up on national television, on espn, on youtube to go, okay, maybe we should stop this because we re getting negative eggs pxposure. reporter: and for the first time we re hearing from former players. tyree graham spent two years playing for rice and said he was just trying to motivate players. less not as bad as the media right now is making him seem. coach rice, you know, he s one of those guys that, he s very passionate. don t get me wrong. but at the same time, a lot of those times on the film when he was jacking up a player or throwing a ball at a player he was really joking. reporter: a louisville head basketball coach rick says his behavior is well beyond the norm. i ve never seen anything like that before.
if there is some reason they were hiding this information to protect the reputation of the university, i think he should resign immediately, and if he doesn t, he should be fired. reporter: there are also questions about university president, robert barche. in a statement, he said he had only seen the video a day ago. this is what his athletic director told wfan tuesday. i was aware of the tape when i handed down the suspension at the end of december. did your presidency this tape? yes. reporter: when asked about that, a university spokesman said pernetti meant the president only viewed it tuesday. one new jersey lawmaker says questions still need to be answered. i want to call the hierarchy of rutgers university down to the state house and conduct an investigatory kind of a hearing. i want to know if any of those student athletes ever went to the athletic director and complained about coach rice. it s interesting. he was repeatedly calling them