There are asshole coaches, and then there is Rick Majerus, the St. Louis head basketball coach, who is legendary for his humor, his size, his crassness and, of course, for starring in Just The Ten Of Us.
Two years ago, Scott Price of Sports Illustrated wrote a detailed profile of Majerus that was filled with some pretty outlandish shit, including the following gems:
If they had spoken to any of his former Utes, Majerus's new players might know that he regularly called his players a vile word for the female sexual organ. That he lambasted stars and backups alike and wasn't averse to poking them in their chests. That he once brought Van Horn to tears after catching him looking at his stats after a loss to archrival Brigham Young. That during the 2001-02 season Majerus reportedly called Lance Allred, a backup center who was 75% deaf, "a disgrace to cripples" who had "weaseled [his] way through life using [his poor] hearing as an excuse."…
During a game in 1999 Majerus gathered his team around him during a timeout and zeroed in on struggling center Nate Althoff. "You've got none of these," Majerus growled, and then reached over and lightly backhanded Althoff's groin. "You've got no nuts!"…
"The first time, [ Utah was] recruiting me, and after the game I went down to the [ Utes'] locker room," says Jeff Johnsen, who signed with Utah in 1996. "His hair's everywhere and his sweater's off and he's just drenched, and he's eating a whole pizza in front of me and he's like, 'You want any?' I grab a piece, and then he starts undressing and gets in the shower and is still talking to me. It was funny. It was weird. How many grown, fat, naked men do you see when you're a high school kid?"…
Another player remembers Majerus calling him up to his hotel room on various occasions, and "he'd answer the door in his towel and I'd come in and the towel would fall off and it was like nothing had happened. He'd just be standing there buck naked."
But there are so many more tales about Majerus out there. Indeed, Price's profile was merely the tip of the iceberg. What follows are two stories. Fables. Myths. Grand urban legends of Majerus' boorishness, if you will. The first one is from an anonymous reader. Craggs reached out to two former Majerus players to confirm this story. Both claimed to have heard it before. Neither witnessed it firsthand. I reached out to Scott Price, who said he had not heard this particular story. It appears to be one of those Majerus stories that gets passed down from one generation of players to another, like a poem from the classics. Only poopier. Its veracity is questionable. Its entertainment value is not.
Everyone has heard stories about Rick Majerus. His propensity for nudity and calling his player's "cunts" has survived long enough that they are both accepted facts of playing for Majerus. A friend of mine used to coach with Majerus. He was always eating, drawing up scouts in front of the team in the nude, making vulgar comments, and treating the managers like shit. Until a few months ago, my friend had been saving the best incident yet.
We were playing pickup and one of Majerus's ex-players was there. My friend called him over and told him to tell me the worst thing he had ever witnessed Majerus do. I could sense by both of their shit-eating grins that they both knew what story I was in for. It went like this:
"Rick was always a jerk to the managers. Every season he went out of his ways to never learn their names. They were only referred to as ‘manager'. One day, Rick was drawing up a scout in our team room about 2 hours before tipoff. Things were going well, considering he was fully dressed and we hadn't been referred to as cunts yet. From the white board he started yelling 'manager, manager, bring a towel over here!'.
"Not knowing what to expect, we sat back eagerly awaiting his next move. What happened next still haunts me to this day. Majerus took the towel, pulled his pants down, and quickly took a dump into the towel, which he was holding under his ass. After he was done he used part of the towel to wipe, wrapped it up, and HANDED IT BACK TO THE MANAGER, and told him to throw it away. The kid looked like a deer in giant Rick Majerus headlights. The whole room was silent. Rick just pulled his pants up and went back to the scout, never once mentioning it or acting like anything out of the ordinary had occurred."
This may seem shocking, impossible, or something made up. I have now heard multiple confirmations of this story as it apparently is openly passed down from generation to generation of Majerus players. Imagine what else he's capable of having done over the past 20 years!
Just for the record, Coach Majerus is not the only one who enjoys a good towel pooping.
Our second Majerus story comes to us from reader Matt:
I am from the Milwaukee area, and every summer Rick Majerus sponsors a basketball camp at a local College. The one I attended was for middle school aged kids. I was excited to go because I heard it was a good camp with a lot of good players, and I thought it would be cool to have a famous D-1 coach leading the camp.
So I was pretty disappointed when Majerus was nowhere to be seen for the first 3 days of a 5-day camp. All the while I hear other campers talk about how he likes to sit on kids. This confused me, but I didn't really think much of it. So, on the forth day of camp, he shows up about an hour into camp. It looks like he just got done working out because his whole crotch and inner thigh region was covered in sweat. I never been one to notice a man's crotch and inner thigh region, but he was just so fat and his shorts were so short and sweaty. It was crazy.
So he talks for a while about Keith Van Horn or something and then it is time for him to watch us do drills. The first one we do is the defensive slide drill. Majerus likes you to get low on your defensive slides. He just keeps yelling about staying low. So I did as I was told, but a couple other kids did not. He walks up to them and pushes them down towards the ground until he can literally straddle them and sit on their back. And he sits on them for a good amount of time, all the while I'm sure his crotch sweat was not keeping to itself. He came back Friday just as sweaty and he sat on more kids. All in all the camp sucked and the only thing I took away from it was that I was happy that I did not feel Rick Majerus' cool taint sweat on the nape of my neck. I guess it could have been worse.
It was nothing like sexual or anything like that, and he didn't crush anyone, which he easily could have. It was just so fucking nasty.
I forwarded Matt's story to Chuck Yahng in the University's Media Relations Department on December 7th. Chuck said he would look into it, but has yet to reply. Hopefully, not because Majerus was, you know, sitting on him. Has Rick Majerus ever sat on you or pooped in your bathroom linens? Let me know.