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Money Changes People
The question of how legal sports betting has changed, and will continue to change, the culture of sports is a complicated one. The wide array of platforms and products certainly increases opportunity and decreases risk for bad actors to influence athletes or impermissibly utilize inside information. On the other hand, […]
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Life in the Fast Lane: ‘Bad’ Boys on Bikes
Marco Lucchinelli is an Italian former professional, and legendary, Grand Prix motorcycle road racer, who in 1981 won the FIM 500cc World Championship with Suzuki. He is known for being fast … very fast, and he lived his life that way too. Lucchinelli had a taste for the seamier things in […]
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Competition Is a Great Time for Reflection and Discussion
There are many coaches who say that they remember their losses the most. After the losses, many coaches begin a period of reflection as to why the loss happened, whether the athletes or coaches could have done something differently, or maybe a change to a small part of the training […]
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My Game of the Century
In Nebraska, where I grew up, everyone knows about the 1972 Nebraska-Oklahoma game. It is known as the “Game of the Century.” Lyle Bremser’s call of the classic Johnny Rodgers punt return is legendary. Still today, it is considered the best game in the history of college football. Unfortunately, it […]
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Rings of Loyalty
Okay, full disclosure here, even though this is only my second article, I may ruffle some feathers with these next few statements. I am a native New Englander, which means I have a passion for all things related to New England sports, and a significant distaste for a certain professional […]
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Forever Changing Goalposts
On Monday 22 February the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnston, unveiled the UK’s latest road map to lead the UK out of lockdown into the new ‘normal’ of existing with Covid. 12 April being the date set to resume all sport for those under 18 years old. Lockdowns in the […]
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Louder Cheers and Less Boos
What role do we have as spectators and fans when it comes to sports culture? We know how toxic it is to have rude parents in the stands of youth games, but why does that seem to be lost at the professional level? Support and loyalty to a team is […]
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What Can I Do to Make the Culture at My Sports Team Better?
There are so many great ideas on how to influence positive change in an organization that are spoken about in academia, leadership circles, and in the news. Everyone has an idea. Everyone is an expert. Everyone wants to give you their idea, but at a cost. The cost normally starts […]
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The Problem With Professional Franchises
There are two hallmarks that make North American (U.S. & Canadian, specifically) professional sports different than their global peers. The first of these is that North American pro leagues, going back to the turn of the 20th Century, have been have been aligned toward maximizing the value of their individual […]
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‘Trivialized, Infantilized, and Sexualized’
His name was Eddie… he was my first unfortunate experience of sexism in sport, before that I always felt safe on the swimming team and playing netball and softball with my classmates at my girls-only school. Eddie, whose image is forever burned into my memory, was a ‘little’ man and […]
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Flopping
Last week, LeBron James earned a warning from the NBA for his acting. While his acting was not good enough to win at the Oscars or Golden Globes, it did fool the officials on the court and they called a foul on the opposing player. The Lakers were down by […]
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Black Sox and Whistleblowing
Anyone familiar with sports, and baseball in particular, is sure to have heard of the infamous 1919 scandal involving the Chicago White Sox and the allegations that they “threw” (no pun intended) the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds that year. The background, for those unfamiliar, is that members of […]
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Stitched Up: Racism in Australian Football
The Australian Football League (AFL) has a long unfortunate history of systemic racism. Although the AFL was the first major sporting code in Australia to adopt a no-tolerance stance over racial-sledging on-field, the sport is proliferated with shameful incidences. Australian sporting fans, it is theorized, struggle to include the indigenous […]
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Why We Need More Parents in the Stands
Bruce Arians already won points in my book when he added two females to his coaching staff. He recently won a few more when I read that he told his staff if they missed their child’s sporting event, he would fire them. His reasoning, he missed too many of his […]
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Jalen Johnson, Journalism, and Business Decisions
“It takes courage not only to make decisions, but to live with those decisions afterward.” – Coach K Who is Jalen Johnson? He’s a top prospect with the Duke Blue Devils who was going to be a “one and done” player from the very start. Great! He’s a 19 year […]
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Why Doing the Right Thing Seems So Hard
In trying to define the focus of Culture in Sports, and what we should be writing about on this site, the Led Zeppelin song title, What Is and What Should Never Be, comes to mind. Making a Led Zeppelin reference threatens to reveal both my age, (decidedly, middle) and my […]
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Fuel-injected Leadership: Motivational or Menacing
Recently, Australian Supercar Erebus Motorsport team boss Barry Ryan has come under fire for his arrogant and insensitive style of leadership. Ryan suggests that he is the victim of clever editing to make him appear to be a ‘villain’ for entertainment’s sake. This is not the first time Ryan’s leadership […]
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The President of the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee Is Really a Reflection of Sports Around the World
Over a week ago, Yoshiro Mori, the president of the Tokyo Olympics organizing committee suggested that women talk too much in meetings. I was shocked to hear what Mr. Mori said, especially for the Japanese Olympic Committee’s focus in increasing female representation in their leadership ranks. While he admitted that […]
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Doing the Right Thing Is Still Only Reactional
The Jacksonville Jaguars made a short lived hire this week, with Chris Doyle lasting a little more than a day before resigning. Their new and now director of sports performance came with a checkered past, most notably rumors of racism and abuse of athletes. This coach was supposedly vetted thoroughly […]
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Nightmare for the ‘Dream Team’
It’s a fine line between confidence and egotism, a lack of self-confidence can be terribly disabling in terms of reaching one’s potential in all aspects of life and certainly in sport. But at what point do cumulative successes and accolades begin to create monsters; divas whose demands threaten the stability […]
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Old School Behaviors
What do you do when a leader in your organization makes backwards and derogatory comments about a group of people you identify with? Do you quit? What if you are passionate about the organization’s mission? Do you let it roll off your back? Do you complain? Can you complain? We […]
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More Cases of Sexual Misconduct in Cheerleading
Another week, another story about another sexual misconduct issue within cheerleading in the United States. Last week, a 25 year old coach was arrested for indecent liberties with a child and a 23 year old college cheerleader, who was also featured in Netflix’s “Cheer” and NBC’s “America’s Got Talent”, was […]
