Once a ‘Bad Boy,’ Detroit Shock’s Rick Mahorn Becomes a Father Figure
Rick Mahorn with his Detroit Shock players during the first round of the playoffs. He was named the team’s coach in June. Credit -- Allen Einstein/NBAE via Getty Images https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/26/sports/basketball/26mahorn.html By Karen Crouse Sept. 25, 2009 Rick Mahorn grabbed a padded chair in the visitors’ locker room at Madison Square Garden and lifted it with such force that he cracked a plastic light cover and lacerated a ceiling panel. It was halftime of his fifth game as coach of the Detroit Shock, and Mahorn was so mad at his players’ lackluster effort against the Liberty, he could not see straight. “I started yelling and I felt dizzy, like I was about to clock out,” he recalled this week. Mahorn’s tirade stunned his players, who knew him as a father figure, not the “bad boy” who amassed more than $11,000 in playing fines during the Detroit Pistons’ 1988-89 championship season. “His eyes were all big, and then he started sweating,” forward Cheryl Ford said. “We though