Michael Thomas Rice Sr. is a former National Basketball Association color commentator, one half of the Portland Trail Blazers' television broadcasting team. A former player and coach, he is the only broadcaster ejected from an NBA game.
Biography
Playing career
A basketball player at Duquesne University, Rice earned an All-American honorable mention selection his senior year, leading his Dukes to the 1962 NIT tournament. During the semi-final of the NIT, Duquesne lost to the St. John's Red Storm. During the game, Rice became involved in a fight with St. John's player Donnie Burks that lasted at least a minute. It was ultimately broken up by the New York City Police Department, who stepped in when members of the Madison Square Garden crowd tried to join the fight. No one was injured and referees did not call fouls on either Rice or Burks. The Associated Press described the event as a "lively brawl".
Although the NBA was calling and the Detroit Pistons selected him in the eighth round of the 1962 NBA draft, Rice decided that his skills could be better utilized from an educational standpoint and opted for a career in coaching.
Coaching career
Rice coached for 13 years at the high school level, posting a career record of 245–71, before moving to college coaching in 1977 when he accepted a position as an assistant coach at Duquesne. He was named the head coach of Duquesne for the 1978–79 season and over his four-year tenure he amassed a record of 62–49, garnering two berths in the National Invitation Tournament and twice being named Eastern Eight Coach of the Year.
Rice then moved to Youngstown State University, where he coached for five years, from 1982–83 through 1986–87. During this period the Penguins twice finished second in the Ohio Valley Conference, peaking with a high of 19 victories in the 1984–85 season. The team amassed 75 wins against 67 losses during the Mike Rice years.
During his final season at Youngstown State, Rice was instrumental in reviving the Greater YSU Holiday Classic basketball tournament, an event which continued annually through the 1991–92 season.
Broadcasting career
After his dismissal at Youngstown State in March 1987, Rice looked for work outside of basketball. He was hired as the vice president of sales and marketing for David Zarzmer Industries, a Youngstown based manufacturers' representative firm.
Rice moved from coaching to broadcasting for the 1987–88 season when he took a job working for ESPN as a college basketball analyst. Rice worked games as primary analyst for the Western Athletic Conference. From 1989 he also worked with SportsChannel America as its primary analyst for World Basketball League broadcasts.
Rice moved to the team-owned broadcasting operations of the Portland Trail Blazers in 1991. Rice was chosen by longtime voice of the Blazers Bill Schonely following a four-person tryout at the Blazers' 1991 Slam 'n' Jam held at Civic Stadium, organized by Blazer team president Marshall Glickman. Rice bested former Oregon State University guard Mark Radford, ex-Blazers assistant coach Jack McKinney, and retired NBA referee Earl Strom in the tryout, which gave each a quarter of the game to work alongside Schonely.
While Rice started as part of the radio team, since the 2006–07 season he has worked with play-by-play announcer Mike Barrett providing color commentary for the television broadcast.
Known affectionately as "The Wild One", Rice has been referred to by journalist Kerry Eggers as "part basketball expert, part entertainer, 100 percent character." Echoing these sentiments, Blazer television producer Scott Zachary has likened him to a "favorite uncle" and publicly pronounced him "a goofy dude."
Rice himself acknowledges a propensity for blurting out sentiments that more circumspect announcers would tend to internally filter. "I don’t give a damn about a lot of things. Later on, I think back, 'Now why’d I do that?'" he has said. This tendency to be what former broadcast partner Eddie Doucette has characterized as a "loose cannon," combined with his unabashed "homerism", has made Rice a figure of some controversy.
Rice's outspoken demeanor resulted in one of the events for which he is best known, his 1994 ejection from an NBA game while working a radio broadcast. As Rice tells the story: