Written by A few hours after this article drops, Culture in Sports will be presenting its first webinar in conjunction with Drexel University’s School of Education’s Sport Coaching Leadership Program.
The title and subject matter of this webinar is” A Bad Playing Field: Recognizing and remedying toxic cultures in sport: Perceptions for administrators, coaches and athletes. Like so much of what Culture in Sports does, this content grows out of its founder and driving force, Jeremy Piasecki’s, doctoral work on identifying (and hopefully repairing) toxic cultures. It was this work that introduced me to Jeremy and drew me to Culture in Sports. In spite of the fact that so much of my work as a lawyer, educator, or investigator is spent looking for or at shortcomings in athletic culture, I strongly believe that the relationship between a coach and athlete, when it is a healthy one, is the most influential and meaningful of all educational relationships. It is the one that all other pedagogic relationships try to emulate. It is a relationship I’ve been fortunate enough to have positively experienced many times in my life and it has the power to be both transformational and lasting. My relationships with my coaches and their influence on me are far more meaningful and enduring than anything I ever did athletically for darn sure.
But because these relationships are so special, so sought after and so difficult to properly achieve, they are also easily subverted, twisted, or simply abused. When these relationships go bad the extent of harm can range between the publically tragic and damaging to the entire fabric of sport itself, to being merely unfortunate. But even one young athlete turning away from sport because of a poor and avoidable experience with a coach is one too many. These negative situations have commonly identifiable roots in many cases, and can be avoided, or at least identified early and this article (and the webinar) contains thoughts for coaches and athletic leaders to use in preventing athletic cultures from taking toxic turns or in recovering from less than ideal situations.
My wife gave me a little desk sign this Christmas, it reads: I became a teacher for the money and fame. In fairness my teaching career has allowed me to do everything from The Today Show to Sports Illustrated to the front page of The New York Times, often talking about sport’s worst stories. I’ll be the first to admit I can be motivated by notoriety and a bit of glitz. But even the most glitzy work I’ve done, whether representing professional athletes or consulting in pro sports, has usually come with more than its fair share of drudgery- time spent alone in snowy airport concourses hoping my flight will take off or late nights on dark roads in rental cars just trying to get home. The most uplifting and fulfilling work I do and have ever done is connecting with and staying in the lives of the students I teach- about sports. In doing this, I draw from the lessons of my best and most effective coaches, firmly believing most every coach or teacher I’ve ever met wants to do well and have impact on those they teach and would do it without regard for the compensation or fame. This belief has traveled with me through teaching and leadership stints at three outstanding universities and it is reinforced by the work I do with coaches now.
How then can coaches who in their heart of hearts want to do well, avoid toxic situations or lead their athletes back from one? The old Tom Selleck version of “Magnum, P.I.,” (the one with the comma in its title from the 1980s) used to have a common voice-over narration of Selleck as Magnum talking to the audience about, “when he writes his book on being a world class private investigator,” here a few snippets from when I write “my book for coaches,” to help protect them, highlight best practices for dealing with complicated and difficult situations, by a lawyer, educator, and precisely the type of person who might ultimately investigate them but who cares deeply about their success.
Have Active Mentoring & Supervisory Relationships– Coaching is not the only professional relationship that doesn’t prioritize having active mentoring and supervisory relationships but any coach without a strong mentor and/or supervisor who can tell her the unvarnished truth and positively redirect his actions is sailing without a rudder. The higher a coach climbs up the ladder, the more important these grounding relationships become and the less likely they are to exist. If we were to relate the presence of these relationships (or the lack of them) to the biggest sports-related scandals, they’ve usually occurred when negative behavior begins to present itself but goes unrecognized and uncorrected over time allowing for harmful behaviors to metastasize and their harm be too great.
Failure to Recognize Power and Control Dynamics Unique to Sports– The nature of sport and the coach-athlete relationship supports power dynamics that aren’t found in most other relationships and would not be tolerated in many, if not most, other settings, today. Such power and control dynamics are taken for granted in sports but a thoroughly modern coach must be cognizant and careful in how they use this power, if at all. There is also a special allure attached to athletic success and participation that furthers this power imbalance putting the athlete further at risk of being controlled of the coach. A common thread in bad coaching outcomes is related to the failure to recognize the inherent imbalance of power a coach has in his relationship with an athlete and then the abuse of that power.
Fostering a Consistent Neutral Structure and Climate that Favors Reporting and Openness– Where complaints about coaches and coaching behavior are reviewed in earnest and not dismissed out of hand. Examination and reporting do not equal a bad outcome or guilt. In fact, coaches are best served by a climate or structure where neutral review of alleged misconduct is available and reliable. There will be bumps in the road for athletes, coaches, and parents, but they are best resolved early on and by a consistent level of review. These structures can be costly to hire and maintain but they are protective of good coaches, help weed out bad ones, and help turn coaches struggling to find success or define culture on more positive terms get better. Also sports are an area where the fear and risk of retaliation is high and having a neutral structure to help examine these issues fosters disclosure and limits the fear and harm caused by retaliation, which makes a potentially correctable problem worst and can be more damaging than the initial issue.
Organizational Success or The Need for Success Causes Blindness & Corner Cutting- I’ve written before about winning being a masking agent and the pressure to succeed creating additional pressures that blind us to ethical concerns or cause us to cut corners, morally, ethically, and physically. Winning cultures usually are high performing cultures, but not always, and the pressure to maintain success can cause otherwise ethical people to do unethical things. As a nation we tend put too much pressure on coaches to win, but it is up to every coach to maintain their commitment to what is right and keep their moral compass pointing true north in difficult situations.