Sports

Rutgers whistleblower took the wrong route to justice

Congratulations and best of luck to Jason Kidd, who overnight went from retired pro basketball star to NBA head coach. What a glorious professional ascent.

Kidd has a lot on his plate, like learning how to coach and how to speak fluent Russian, so he may not have time to appreciate this:

There are thousands of college, D-League, international and NBA assistant coaches who have never hit the coaching lottery Kidd did.

Most coaches begin as former Rutgers employee Eric Murdock did — director of basketball operations in college. Check that, most don’t get their first job at a Big East school.

Most coaches start at places such as Northern Michigan (Tom Izzo), or California — not that Cal, where Kidd played, but California of Pennsylvania (Shaka Smart) — or Navarro Community College (Buzz Williams).

When former Rutgers coach Mike Rice hired Murdock, the former Providence star and NBA journeyman should have been thrilled.

Sources tell us Murdock was not the hardest of workers. He thought he was better than the position of director of basketball operations and was owed something more than the $70,000 Rutgers was paying.

He was going to try to get it. One way or another, Murdock was going to get his.

So in December 2012, about six months after his contract at Rutgers was not renewed, Murdock, according to an ESPN report, tried to pry a $950,000 wrongful termination settlement out of the State University of New Jersey.

Murdock had a tape, a damning tape, showing Rice and assistant coach Jimmy Martelli physically and verbally abusing players. It wasn’t a smoking gun, it was a smoking grenade launcher.

Rutgers stood its ground. It wasn’t going to get taken by Murdock.

As it turns out, no one won. The tape was made public. Rice was fired. Former athletic director Tim Pernetti was forced to resign. The FBI, reportedly, is investigating if Murdock tried to extort money from Rutgers before filing the suit.

Yesterday, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported it had obtained an 11-minute audio recording made on June 29, 2012, several days after Murdock was told his second, one-year contract would not be renewed.

On that date, Murdock stormed into the Rutgers basketball offices and delivered a rant only Kanye West might envy. He bellowed that Rice treated his players like slaves. Murdock raged that Rice was always “cracking the whip’’ and when a player, “can’t deliver you cut his toe off like … Kunta Kinte.”

Murdock claimed in his wrongful termination suit he was fired for making complaints about the abuse. But Murdock’s claims have not been substantiated.

If Murdock was so alarmed by what he saw and heard, if he was concerned about the welfare of the players in the program — as he should have been — why didn’t he at least file a report with the athletic director if not a police report?

Why did he find an attorney before he found a conscience?

“We all have bitten our tongues,” he said. “Because why? Because he’s the boss, and you’ve got to respect the boss.”

He’s correct. You’ve got to respect your boss, though not to the point at which you betray your own beliefs. As it turns out, Murdock did not respect anything other than his own agenda.

On June 26, he blatantly defied instructions from Rice, who told Murdock he could not speak at his son’s high school basketball camp because it conflicted with Rice’s Rutgers camp. Murdock skipped out.

“I want to recognize him [my son] for the hard work and dedication he’s put in,” Murdock wrote in a text to Rice. “And you’re going to take that away from me.”

Rice responded: “Can’t tell u how many important things my staff and I miss on a daily basis.’’

College coaches love to steal a Hyman Roth line from the “Godfather: Part II”: “This is the business we’ve chosen.’’

The coaching business can be brutal on families. Camps are missed. Weddings, christenings, bar mitzvahs and Little League games are missed. Anniversaries are missed while coaches and assistants crisscross the country trying to recruit a 17-year-old player.

Kidd is the exception. But most coaches know the road to the top isn’t glorious. In Murdock’s case, it wasn’t even honorable.