Larry Brown Sports

Notre Dame forward Jack Cooley took what was sure to be a memorable night on Wednesday and brought it to another level. During his team’s senior banquet, Cooley concluded his speech by calling his girlfriend Jackie Oberlander to the stage. His teammates, who knew what was coming, had their cell phone cameras rolling.

We all know what he did next. Cooley dropped down on one knee and proposed to Oberlander. She said yes. Junior guard Eric Atkins posted a quick clip of the proposal on Twitter.

vine.co/v/bUaYLb6K9LD

— Eric Atkins (@EAtkins0) April 18, 2013

Cooley, who was one of four seniors saying goodbye to the Irish, said Oberlander had previously told him that she wanted the engagement to be public and recorded.

“She told me that she wanted it public and recorded,” Cooley told The South Bend Tribune on Wednesday night. “She wanted me to do it around Senior Night (the March 5 game against St. John’s) but I had to focus on the game. I was running out of opportunities to do it in front of crowds like this so I just thought I would do it now.”

He also admitted that he didn’t purchase the engagement ring until last Thursday, but it appears everything went off pretty smoothly. It wasn’t quite as memorable as the most recent proposal we shared with you here on LBS, but anything beats ending up like this guy.

H/T The Dagger

Mike Rice has become a household name over the past two weeks for all the wrong reasons. Most of you have likely seen the disturbing video of Rice verbally and physically abusing his former Rutgers players by now, which has led many to conclude that he has no business coaching at all. However, it sounds like he has landed another gig coaching 12-year-old girls.

On Sunday, a Deadspin report citing Brian Geltzeiler of hoopscritic.com indicated that Rice was coaching 12-year-old girls in AAU ball over the weekend. Geltzeiler claimed in a series of tweets that a friend of his was at the game (his daughter was on the opposing team) and that Rice seemed like his usual animated self.

One of my moles is watching Mike Rice coach 12 year old girls at Holmdel High in NJ right now as crazy as ever yelling @ both refs and kids

— Brian Geltzeiler (@hoopscritic) April 14, 2013

Just this afternoon Rice told a 12 year old girl,”I can’t even look at you” and the ref told my guy he would have T’d him up 2x if it was HS

— Brian Geltzeiler (@hoopscritic) April 14, 2013

A source has reportedly confirmed to SNY.tv (via The South Jersey Times) that Rice is indeed coaching a girl’s AAU team and that he was coaching them while he was still at Rutgers. However, that same source said that Geltzeiler’s account of the way Rice was acting is in no way accurate.

“The Deadspin report is a gross misrepresentation of the facts,” the source reportedly said. “The team’s parents are fully behind Coach Rice and his instruction of their daughters.”

Whether Rice was acting “crazy” or not, the thought of him coaching children is still disturbing. This is the same guy who repeatedly threw basketballs at his players’ heads and yelled homophobic obscenities at them. He later apologized for his actions and said he has no excuse for the way he acted, but Rice looks like a guy with anger management issues. People like that should not be mentoring youngsters.

Mike Rice’s loss appears to be Eddie Jordan’s gain.

According to CSN Washington’s Chick Hernandez, Jordan is going to be the next head basketball coach at Rutgers.

The Rutgers job became available after Rice was fired in the wake of practice videos showing his abusive behavior towards his players went viral. There was tremendous backlash for Rice, and both he and athletic director Tim Pernetti were let go because of the scandal.

If Jordan accepts the job, he would be leaving his post as an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Lakers. The fit seems natural.

Jordan played at Rutgers in the ’70s and led the Scarlet Knights to the 1976 Final Four. After playing seven seasons in the NBA, he got into coaching as a volunteer assistant at Rutgers. He has served as a head coach of the Sacramento Kings, Washington Wizards, and Philadelphia 76ers during his head coaching career. He led the Wizards to the playoffs four straight seasons.

Jordan was also in consideration for the Rutgers job in 2010 but pulled out to remain in the NBA. The job went to Rice.

Jordan comes into a program that doesn’t have too high of expectations, and he should be energized to turn it around now that he’s getting another opportunity to be a head coach. He’ll have difficulties competing in the Big Ten and probably will be a bottom half team in the conference, but at least he won’t embarrass the school.

Florida Gulf Coast University is one of the newer institutions of higher education in the country, having been established in 1991. As you might expect, that can make raising money difficult. Former FGCU basketball coach Andy Enfield spoke about that challenge during an appearance on “The Tonight” Show with Jay Leno earlier this week.

When Enfield, who is now the head coach at USC, was hired at FGCU, he was faced with the task of trying to collect donations from alumni who were only 15 or so years removed from college.

“My first (fundraising) job, I remember going to Naples and about 50 FGCU alumni were there,” Enfield explained. “My job was to speak and try to raise some money. So I’m looking out in the crowd and during my speech I realize they’re 25, 27, and 32 years old. Those are our alumni. I took my hat off and said let’s do the pass the hat and we raised $72. It was great.”

That should help explain why FGCU was reportedly scrambling to find the funds to keep Enfield after his magical season with the team but could not get it done.

Enfield also talked about how much of an underdog the Eagles were against Georgetown, telling Leno that even his own daughter was afraid to bust her bracket by anticipating the major upset.

“The 15th seeds were 6-106 (all time) going into the NCAA Tournament,” Enfield said. “I realized that not too many people in the country thought we could win. In fact, my 7-year-old daughter Ayla brought her bracket out and she had Georgetown in the slot. She said, ‘Dad, I’m gonna root for you but you can’t ruin my bracket.’”

Who can blame her? No one saw that coming. You can understand Tom Izzo being upset with his son for picking the Spartans to lose to Duke, but picking a 15th seed to beat a 2nd seed just wouldn’t be smart bracketology.

There have been a number of different reactions to the video clips that surfaced last week of former Rutgers men’s basketball coach Mike Rice physically and verbally abusing his players. One of Rice’s former players, Mike Coburn, said that Rice took it too far at times but that the team understood him. Chipper Jones said he thought the players should toughen up and that he has dealt with much worse from coaches.

Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant doesn’t agree with either Coburn or Jones. Instead, he told Showtime’s Jim Rome that he would have gotten physical with Rice if he was one of his players.

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Geno Auriemma and Jeff Walz exchanged some playful banter before Tuesday’s national championship game that revolved around the Louisville coach’s wardrobe.

Auriemma, the longtime UConn coach, observed that Walz was wearing a red and white checkerboard shirt while coaching the Cardinals in the Final Four. He remarked that it looked like a tablecloth at one of his Italian restaurants.

“He is the cockiest guy that I’ve ever met,” Auriemma said of Walz.

“He wears an Italian tablecloth of a shirt today. I was going to hire him for my restaurant,” he joked.

Walz gave it right back to Auriemma, only he laid on the sarcasm extra thick.

“As a women’s basketball coach, you go through times where you’re always wondering what you want to do when you’re finished. I’ve been to three national championship games. Now that I’ve got the opportunity to be a waiter at his restaurant, I don’t know what the hell else somebody wants in life. My goal is to become the head waiter. Not just one that sits in the back — I want to be the best damn one he’s got.”

Auriemma has led UConn to 14 Final Four and seven national championships (Update: he won his eighth on Tuesday) since taking over as head coach for the 1985-1986 season. Walz took over at Louisville for the 2007-2008 season and has already reached two championship games. Something tells me he doesn’t have to worry about being a waiter anytime soon, though, it was pretty funny to hear him mess with Geno.

Tom Crean used Twitter Tuesday to try landing a job for one of the Indiana basketball program’s assistants.

Aaron Weaver has given IU 5 great years, including now as our Video Coord. He is as good as any we have ever had. He is ready to move.

— Tom Crean (@TomCrean) April 9, 2013

Aaron really wants a operations or Administrative job in college or pro sports. I need some leads. [email protected] to help me help him.

— Tom Crean (@TomCrean) April 9, 2013

According to his bio on Twitter, Weaver is a grad student at Indiana and a graduate assistant for the basketball team. Maybe Crean didn’t have any room to give him a job on staff, so this is his way of trying to help out the kid.

Pretty cool gesture by the coach, right? I can’t think of too many others who would openly tweet like that in an effort to get a graduate assistant a job. But Crean also is a lot different from most coaches.