Mike Montgomery Shoves Allen Crabbe During Timeout, Sparks Cal Victory Over USC [Video]

Cal was getting thumped by lowly USC at home Sunday, and then this happened: during a timeout, as the Bears players came over to the bench, coach Mike Montgomery directed his ire at his best player, Allen Crabbe. After shouting at him, Montgomery shoved him with two hands in his chest, as if to ask, ‘what the hell is wrong with you?’

Crabbe, not surprisingly, didn’t take it well. He said, ‘don’t push me’ and then kept talking before teammates stepped in to diffuse the situation. Then, Crabbe walked away from the bench to cool down.

Cal proceeded to go on a 44-24 run the rest of the game to beat the Trojans, 76-68. Said Crabbe afterward:

“Coach used his way to motivate me,” Crabbe said. “There’s nothing wrong with it; spur of the moment. He was trying to motivate me. Everything is fine. He’s my coach.”
Asked if the shove did indeed motivate him, Crabbe said, “Yeah, obviously. I think it woke me up. My teammates kept me up. They told me to keep my head in the game.”

Crabbe led the Bears with 23 points, including 14 after the shove.

Montgomery and the school apologized for the incident this morning. No mention in the apology about how the Bears, at 16-9, have vaulted themselves on the NCAA tournament bubble (RPI: 54, SOS: 35, 3-5 vs. the RPI Top 50).

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5 Responses to “Mike Montgomery Shoves Allen Crabbe During Timeout, Sparks Cal Victory Over USC [Video]”

Shining Base Path Says:
February 18th, 2013 at 9:47 AM

the responsible thing would be for monty to apologize, for the yoot of northern california

MeandWillieMcGee Says:
February 18th, 2013 at 10:23 AM

That should be a suspension. There’s no classroom (if this is education) or workplace (if this is a job) where it’s acceptable to lay hands on someone in anger.

Riggs Says:
February 18th, 2013 at 11:54 AM

There’s no classroom (if this is education) or workplace (if this is a job) where it’s acceptable to lay hands on someone in anger.

I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that in sports, when the coach and player are the same sex, this type of “shove” is acceptable. The coach has to obviously have a tight relationship with the player because it’s a risk on his part. It could certainly backfire – but in this case – the coach knew his boundaries, knew what he was doing, and it seems to have paid off.

charliewade Says:
February 18th, 2013 at 12:34 PM

That’s the problem: we’ve come to accept that laying your hands on a subordinate in any workplace is acceptable so long as it involves sports. That’s asinine.

What Montgomery did was unacceptable and he should draw a suspension for it.

dikembemutomballs Says:
February 18th, 2013 at 12:37 PM

No beef with this at all.

Of course I also said since I was about 7 or 8 Bob Knight was the only coach I’d want to play for in college basketball (and was never an IU fan)…and I still stand beside that statement twenty years later.