Op-Ed: Russian coach deserves the boot

The coach of the Russian national team made remarks that now 38 years after the infamous '72 Olympics basketball game that he thinks the Soviet Union were the rightful winners. Really? Worst of all he is an American.

Everyone is allowed their opinion, I guess that is the beauty of free speech. Still, I was taught that free speech comes with responsibility and often at a price and now it is time for the David Blatt to pay the price for his free speech. Blatt holds duel citizenship in the United States and Israel, but he is coaching the Russian National Team, really? Yes, you read it right an American is coaching the Russian team in the FIBA Championships. So using my freedom of speech I have to ask how on Earth a citizen of America and Israel could coach that team? After all Russia or the former Soviet Union hates the United States and Israel, they even went so far as to support Israel's enemies, so how can this guy coach for the enemy? Now he is coming forward saying that he is convinced that the Soviet team deserved to win the gold medal in the 1972 Olympics. Obviously he hasn't been watching the same video tape the rest of the world has seen of the final three seconds of the game. Anyone with half a brain and the most basic understanding of basketball knows that the United States won the game but the officials were going to replay those final seconds and do whatever they could to make sure the Soviets won. What Blatt didn't realize by his comments, or just his plan lack of knowledge of basketball was that such comments would tick off Americans around the world and even worse tick off that Polish-Chicago kid named Mike Kzyzewski. Kzyzewski fired back Wednesday but that really doesn't matter, while he does get ticked off Coach-K is a master of using that to his team's advantage. The U.S. team is very undersized compared to the Russian team, and they could have used that to their decisive advantage if Blatt just had kept his mouth shut, but obviously that was too much for him to do, oops. Now he has gotten the attention of the entire U.S. team, and their fiery leader. I propose that once the United States kicks them back to that frozen tundra they call their "homeland" I think we need to revoke Blatt's citizenship as should the Israelis. I am sure that the Russians would be happy to give him an ice-farm in Siberia or somewhere comfortable like that. I wonder just how well a basketball bounces on a frozen court. The fact is, Coach-K is a lot like Rocky Balboa in Rocky IV undersized warrior against a huge foreign opponent. Hollywood's ending was pretty good, and Coach-K has the ability to pull out his own theatrics especially when he is given additional incentive by remarks made by opponents. So lets get rid of Blatt, both the United States and Israel. He has no loyalty to the two countries he is a citizen of otherwise he wouldn't be coaching the Russian team. Patriotism has to stand its ground, I am sure that our current administration would honor Blatt if the Russians win the World Championships, but that is an argument for a different day and time. For now the games need to play out and when the Russians make their exit lets just wire Coach Blatt a message and let him know he isn't welcome here any longer.