Strib’s take on Gard-Howard scuffle
- Thread starter HawkNorth
- Start date
Wrestling has a handshake before the meet, after each match and a handshake line at the end of the meet.
You see coaches regularly grab another coach who is clearly pissed off and then get up in their face? Please do tell with specific examples. It should be fairly easy since this is so routine.
Just stop with this 'Howard didn't want to talk about it' bs.
Howard absolutely wanted to talk about it.
He glared at him several times over the last 30 seconds.
He intentionally went to the back of the HS line so that he could prolong his moment with Gard.
He pulled his mask down & told Gard, 'He was going to remember that TO.'
From prior interactions with Turgeon, etc...you can tell, Howard enjoys the confrontational aspects of the job. He enjoyed it as a player, he enjoys it now.
Howard just wanted to lob the grenade & not have to defend his own actions. That shit doesn't fly in life anywhere. Gard was right to tell him to go eff himself.
BirdistheWord
HB Legend
Dont forget Howard aggressively grabbed Gard's sweater AND aggressively pointed his big finger right in Gard's face.
BirdistheWord
HB Legend
You seem to have left off the part where Howard aggressively grabbed (and i mean grabbed hold tight, not the gently grab of the elbow like Gard did) Gard's sweater, and not letting go. Then aggressively points his giant finger right into Gard's face.
I don't know what post-game scuffle you were watching, but most of that is wrong. Howard is the one who escalated things at every opportunity. He escalated when he said "I'm going to remember that s***!" He escalated when he grabbed Gard by the sweater and waved his finger in his face. He escalated when he took a swing at a guy from behind two other guys, like a little bitch.
Gard did not escalate the situation when he attempted to stop Howard to have a conversation, like fully functioning, rational adults do every day. If Howard doesn't take a swing at Krabbenhoft, no other punches are thrown and no one gets fined or suspended. The fine on Gard was so the Big Ten could avoid criticism. Absolutely no other reason for it.
This, the author who wrote this commonly writes trash like this. Any Vikings fan knows to avoid his work.
did more than grab an elbow and much more aggressive than any other instance you are referencing
Gard 100% escalated the situation. Howard said something, sure. However he then looked past Gard and tried to walk past him. Gard grabbed his elbow and stepped into Howard's path. You must be a badger fan
The post game line is an opportunity to show class and character.
It also reveals deficiencies in these areas.
It also reveals deficiencies in these areas.
My take. I love it. Let me be entertained!! I didn't watch the game, but saw the replay. If I knew that'd there be a coach fight and a scuffle at the end of every game, man I'd pay extra for the ticket, buy a couple extra beers and maybe an ice cream cone for the after game fun!! 
I am not a Badger fan, nor am I a fan of Greg Gard. But only a moron would think Gard did anything out of line. His mistake was assuming a fellow head coach of a Big Ten basketball team could be spoken with like an adult, and didn’t need to be treated like a child throwing a tantrum.
Greg Gard didn’t do anything that a thousand other coaches have done. You could not have expected him to predict the kind of juvenile behavior Howard displayed.
Guess the league office has morons in it since they did fine Gard.
Gard grabbing an opposing coach who is visibly upset was wrong and I don’t give a crap if you think I’m a moron.
This is simply not true. There is a handshake by both teams at the conclusion of a dual. And your assertion that at least 50% of post match handshakes end in words being said is laughably wrong. Is there chirping from time to time? Sure. Over half the time? Not even close. I have watched every Hawkeye dual for at least the last 15 years as well as probably 200 other duals. The chirping is the exception and not the rule.
Just curious.
Why do you keep ignoring the assertions I, and others, have made that Howard had no reason to be upset? I assert that Gard was the one with a reason to be upset, based on how the end up the game transpired.
How do you respond?
Because you (and the others) would be right. I've said over and over this isn't about Howard, everything Howard did from the moment he got pissed off at the timeout onward was wrong.
I'm talking about Gard's actions, and only Gard. Gard was pissed off too, he was dropping F bombs in the huddle during the timeout and Howard set him off again which caused him to grab Howard and get in his face. His post game remarks were derogatory towards Howard. Gard did not need to grab a pissed off Howard in the handshake line. Howard was just running his mouth, Gard could have just shouted back or better yet just kept walking and address Howard off camera, after they both have cooled off. Instead Gard decided to settle it during a hand shake line, in front of 1000's of fans, and a television audience then have the audacity to lie about it in the presser saying Howard was the one who came after him pointing at his chest.
None of this is an excuse for Howard's actions and what he did was 1000+ times worse than what Gard did. Which is why the league office gave Howard a 5 game suspension while Gard only got a fine. Gard is not blameless in this incident and I don't get why some of you can't see that. Just because Howard was the one who set him off, acting like an idiot, doesn't exonerate Gard.
Going to have to agree to disagree, I guess, as I interpreted many of these things differently than you.
First, Gard was pissed at his scrubs for not handling the pressure Michigan was applying. He was chewing them out a bit for playing like the bad news bears. I saw no indication that he was pissed at Howard.
I also don't think Gard was pissed at Howard (maybe a little annoyed) as they approached the HS line. Definitely not enough to make a hub-bub about it. I think Gard was genuinely taken aback or surprised when, as he approached Howard, he gets an earful from Howard about "remembering the BS timeout". So, what you saw from Gard wasn't some angry/premeditated conflict. It was more along the lines of - WHAT? You're pissed at ME?!? YOU effed this up.
That's what caused Gard to stop Howard...surprise/dismay....Not, "you know what, we're both pissed, let's sort this out later..."
That’s the other thing I basically disagree on.
i don’t have a problem with two competitors beefing it out a bit a half court. These are hyper competitive people. I think it was much to do about nothing until Howard took the swipe.
If Gard wasn't pissed then it was bad judgement grabbing Howard like that. He should have had the presence of mind to know better, I'm using the idea he was upset as an excuse. Both of us are speculating as to what he was pissed about in the huddle, I'll give you that, it's just that it doesn't match up with what he said later using his reserves in that situation. But I can't rule out that wasn't the case, perhaps he was just giving them the F bomb because they couldn't get the ball up the court. To me it seemed out of frustration that Howard still had his starters in there, they were pressing, and then he was getting glared at by Howard.
If you were presented with a video of just the Wisconsin coaches actions without Howard I think we would agree they acted in appropriately. You start with Gard grabbing Howard as he was walking bye, you got an assistant coach going after a Michigan player, you got another assistant who charged after Howard and had to be held back, and then you have yet another assistant doing a hip check at Michigan in the background. I can't imagine any reasonable person just seeing those actions would think they were appropriate for coaches of student athletes or good roll models. Granted I get everything is in reaction to what Howard said and did but are coaches not taught self control and isn't that what they are teaching their players?
Having said that we do have common ground in Howard's actions. There's no excuse for it, none. Howard is a walking time bomb and I'm afraid it's only a matter of time until he does something stupid again. His apology seemed sincere but I couldn't help notice he did not mention Gard even once and I think he owes him an apology as well. Gard did nothing wrong until he grabbed Howard, he was coaching within the rules of the game. The fact that Howard doesn't recognize this is not a good sign. If you want your athletes to play until the final buzzer regardless of the score that's fine but expect the opposing coach to continue coaching the way he has too in order to succeed as well.
