IS RICK MAHORN THE DEVIL?

In case any of you missed the last five-seconds of the L.A. Sparks v Detroit Shock WNBA game last night…there was a bench clearing brawl which resulted in Candace Parker, Lisa Leslie, Delisha Milton-Jones and Detroit assistant coach Rick Mahorn getting ejected. “To be honest, I don’t recall exactly what happened,” said Parker, who led Los Angeles with 21 points. “I’ll have to watch the tape.” The brawl started seconds after LA’s Parker was fouled by Detroit’s Cherly Ford…Parker then got tangled up with (Detroit) player Plenette Peirson, fell to the ground and as she was getting up, Pierson intentionally ran into her, setting off the melee…Parker threw a punch at Pierson before being tackled by (Detroit) player Deanna’s Nolan. Players and coaches from both teams joined in, and that’s when Rick Mahorn pushed Lisa Leslie to the ground…Mahorn also grabbed the arm of Sparks assistant coach Laura Beeman…

“I was trying to protect the whole game, the integrity of the game,” said Rick Mahorn; “The WNBA is very special to me because I have four daughters. I don’t even raise my hand to them, and I would never push a woman. This game, I love this game too much.”

Mahorn isn’t sitting pretty in my book. Number one, pushing Leslie seemed a bit excessive to me, even IF he was trying to be a ‘peace-maker.’ Number two- ah, obviously you do ‘push women’ because you did. Heat of the moment? Nah…Really, Mahorn, you kinda seem like the type of guy that would lecture someone about the dangers of artificial sweeteners while washing down a baguette the size of Italy with a six pack of Diet Coke. Hypocrite much.

I’m not really sure who’s to blame here. Was Mahorn really trying to keep the peace, or did he lose it and make a bad decision? Sure there’s scuffles between female athletes all the time-whether its Danica acting a fool and getting a towel in the face, or fierce tension between balling chicks. It happens. Again, the thing Im having difficulty swallowing, is Mahorns behavior. Why don’t they have a female coach? Would we be beating up on Mahorn for ‘pushing a woman’ if he were a She? I kinda doubt it. So does that make it okay to have this sort of physical-confrontation between staff and players?

I, for one would have flipped a gasket if a coach put his hands on me like that..there would have been much more than ten-minutes of ESPN coverage…Mad love to Lisa Leslie, after the game she was interviewed…she was classy, calm, collected and incredibly eloquent despite the circumstances. “It’s really sad it happened,” Leslie said, “As a role model, it’s just really difficult-this is not the way we wanna represent ourselves, you know? I’m a mom, I don’t wanna represent myself like this in front of my daughter and then to have a coach push me down, I don’t even know why he was pushing me, I wasn’t swinging or hitting anybody. I was just gonna go help my teammate up.”
The Sparks won 84-81.

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As always, thanks for reading. Delinda Lombardo
delinda@athlebrities.com