Greg McDermott said what he meant and meant what he said when he spoke of the ‘plantation’

Simply awful.

Creighton basketball coach Greg McDermott has apologized for telling his players, after a loss late last month, that “I need everybody to stay on the plantation. I can’t have anybody leave the plantation.”

McDermott got out in front of the story by being the one to reveal what had happened when he sent out his mea culpa — typed on Notes, of course — Tuesday night. He says that he has “never used that analogy” and that it’s “not indicative” of who he is as a person.

That may very well be true, and McDermott is saying the right things about how he’ll try to move forward: There’s still work to be done and he’s going to listen to his Black players as they work through this.

Creighton assistant coach Terrence Rencher, who is Black and a member of the Coaches For Action coalition that seeks to use basketball to raise awareness of social injustice, also released a statement decrying McDermott’s language and saying he was focused on helping the players through this time.

We’ll have to wait and see what comes from this. Of course Creighton’s Black players want to push through now; they’ve spent hours upon hours this year, and throughout their lives, trying to get better so they can win games and are 13-5 in Big East play. Asking them to disrupt the season because their coach said something racist would be absurd.

After the season, though? McDermott is going to need to do more than just meet with a savvy public relations pro for more advice on how to spin this. Let’s give him the chance to do that work.

But let’s also acknowledge that he absolutely meant what he said — and that his charged language had very clear targets. McDermott wanted more from his Black players, and wanted them not to falter under the most difficult conditions. So he literally invoked slavery.

That’s horrifying, but also indicative of the attitude that still pervades among college coaches. Players have got to be all in, even though they don’t own the rights to their own name, image and likeness. They’ve got to be willing to go the extra mile, even though their scholarship isn’t guaranteed. They’ve got to listen to Coach when it feels like he’s trying to break them, but also never forget that student comes first in “student-athlete!”

As an athlete you’ve got to go all out — don’t for a moment think about running toward the transfer portal, that’s ungrateful — even though you know your coach is on the phone with his agent when a bigger job opens up.

If McDermott survives this and if the Blue Jays manage to go on any sort of run in March — and I hope they do — it will purely be because of the strength and grace of the players he aimed his unfathomable diatribe toward.

McDermott should give them space to lead here and turn his attention to coaching them: by working on technique and strategy, finding weaknesses in opponents and lifting players up when they sag under the pressure he helped to create.

Maybe that will be enough to make McDermott truly understand he should not run his program as if he’s an overseer pushing his players to fill baskets. He can find other ways to win.

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