Being right is not always a comfortable place to be. It can positively stink to be correct at times, especially when being right means avoidable harm has come to a young athlete.
Way back on May 20, 2021, in describing five mistakes coaches would make this summer, right here in this very space, I laid out in detail what these mistakes were and how to avoid them. https://cultureinsports.com/five-mistakes-parents-will-make-this-summer-as-sports-begin-again/
Sadly, less than two weeks later we have a news story coming out the famed McKinley High School in Canton, Ohio, that seven football coaches have been fired for making a 17 year-old student-athlete of the Hebrew Israelite faith, a sect that follows strict dietary rules that include a prohibition against eating pork, eat a pepperoni pizza as punishment for missing a voluntary work out with an injury. https://www.cantonrep.com/story/news/2021/06/03/canton-mckinley-high-football-coach-marcus-wattley-six-assistants-fired/7517670002/
There is no joy in being right, to have stated only two weeks earlier that coaches should refrain from misusing power against an athlete and never discriminate against an athlete, and it offers no satisfaction to have called it. As the lawyer for the young man, said there are no winners here. Nothing could be truer than this assessment. The young man who was allegedly made to violate his religious beliefs is distraught. The careers of seven men are in tatters, as they perhaps should be, but they are now represented by counsel and disputing the facts and how the investigation into this was conducted.
Finally, teammates of the young man who was made a victim are stepping forward saying that they are now victims, too, and have been stabbed in the back by the decision to dismiss the majority of their coaches. Illustrating that among the unfortunate side effects of team unity and the power of sports hold over us are the tendency for to pile on victims and for misplaced loyalty. There are no winners for sure in this. There are lawyers and likely litigation but no winners.
Stipulating that we do not know precisely what happened at the famed McKinley High, which is adjacent to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, plays its games in the stadium at the hall of fame, and counts a litany of famous players and coaches among its alumni, it is fair to say that an entirely avoidable situation has mushroomed in to a crisis and its harmful consequences will touch dozens of families and affect many lives.
What lessons can we take away from this sad set of circumstances, while there is unquestionably a hunger to win and be successful, how the collective “we” go about trying to win means everything. It is crucial to be reminded again that it is the young athletes in our care, who are “our why,”- the reason we coach and who must be protected and that any discipline should reflect making that athlete a better and more responsible teammate and person and not humiliating or diminishing him as a fellow human.
Told You So: The McKinley High Crisis
Written by Robert Boland in Articles on