I don’t like Arkansas football coach Bret Bielema.
I haven’t liked him since he was at Wisconsin and, upset at the referees missing a holding penalty, ordered his team to chop block. Chop blocks – where one player blocks high and another blocks low on the same opponent – are illegal because they’re so dangerous and likely to hurt someone. Mad about a missed call so try to injury the other team? Not my kind of guy.
Bielema confirmed his backward worldview when referencing Stephen Curry and LeBron James.
Jon Solomon of CBSSports.com:“I told our guys [last year during the NBA Finals] here at Arkansas we need to be a little bit Curry and a little less LeBron,” Bielema said Tuesday at the SEC Spring Meetings. “We’ve got to be a little bit more about the team and working together and the chemistry.”
Bielema made the remark while going off a tangent when asked whether Baylor coach Art Briles’ firing will serve as a wake-up call for coaches to hold players more accountable for claims of sexual violence. Bielema used the anecdote as an example of ways he says he teaches Arkansas players.
“I listed all the guys that got drafted ahead of [Curry] that weren’t even in the league anymore, and I think about it a lot because I knew that [Arkansas] players were engaged in basketball,” Bielema said. “I don’t know anything about basketball. I probably shouldn’t even be commenting on it, but I knew the story of Curry. I think we use outside stuff like that all the time that helps us build our program in the way we want.”There are two types of people:
- Those who view Curry as an underdog because he’s 6-foot-3, got scholarship offers only from mid-majors and was drafted No. 7 overall
- Those who view LeBron as an underdog because grew up poor and without knowing his father, bounced between apartments and wasn’t the son of a millionaire NBA player
That Bielema brought up LeBron and Curry in reference to a question about sexual violence makes this even more absurd.
Bret, get some perspective.