Though a college coach is an educator, the basketball court is not exactly a classroom. It can be visceral and heated, and emotions are often heightened by the roar of the crowd. Thus, for communication to be effective, it must be memorable — otherwise a message may not resonate in a crucial moment.
Turner said he now realizes it is inappropriate to use sexist expletives to chide players who complain about officiating. He has told his Black players that they should not use racist slurs with each other, even if they deem it socially acceptable.
Yet Turner has also borrowed something he heard in the N.B.A., when a coach wanted to emphasize how closely an opponent should be guarded: Put your genitals on him, the instruction went, using a more graphic term. If the defender still wasn’t close enough, the coach would remind the player that his equipment wasn’t that big.
“I think that’s OK for 18- to 22-year-old guys because they’ll remember that,” said Turner, while acknowledging that others might disagree.
The standards for appropriate behavior, though, are clearly shifting.
Michigan Coach Juwan Howard was suspended for five games, amid speculation that he might be fired, for striking a Wisconsin assistant coach after a game last month. A Duke assistant coach, Chris Carrawell, was roundly criticized for snubbing North Carolina Coach Hubert Davis in the handshake line after Duke’s loss on Saturday night.
Those incidents and others might have been shrugged off not so many years ago.
“We can’t be the aggressive people in pursuit of an edge and excellence without walking near boundaries from time to time,” Turner said, adding that Howard — like himself — was likely the victim of his own hubris. “But we all know the responsibilities we have not to cross them.”
He added: “I’m willing to take on some risk, but I don’t want to take on the risk of doing something like this again, so I’ve tried to be more aware of everything I say and try to catch myself. I’ve got to keep pressure on myself to be better.”