Legendary gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi died on Friday. He leaves behind a complicated legacy of harsh, anachronistic coaching of very young girls and having revolutionized gymnastics, first in his native Romania and later to the […]
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Tag: Toxic Culture
Isolation
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Season 4 of the Culture in Sports Podcast continues with Dr. Jeremy Piasecki and Lori Okimura having a discussion with Shannon Webb about her lived experience in the toxic culture at a NCAA Division I […]
Read MorePlaying in a Continuous State of Fear
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Season 4 of the Culture in Sports Podcast continues with Lori Okimura and Dr. Jeremy Piasecki having a discussion with collegiate volleyball player Emma Patterson about her own current lived experience during a toxic and […]
Read MoreUncovering the Truth
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Season 4 of the Culture in Sports Podcast continues with Lori Okimura (World ParaVolley) and Dr. Jeremy Piasecki having a discussion with investigative reporter Scott Reid, from the Orange County Register. Scott broke the story […]
Read MoreSafeguarding Athletes
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Season 4 of the Culture in Sports Podcast is here! In this episode, Lori Okimura (World ParaVolley) and Dr. Jeremy Piasecki take a deep dive into a current #toxic and #abusive #culture on a collegiate […]
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Coaches Do Make Mistakes
Coaches do make mistakes. Are these “mistakes” intentional or actual mistakes that a human being can make? Are coaches and other sports leaders willing to self reflect, identify toxic and abusive behavior, and take corrective […]
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Recovery From Toxic Culture
Teri McKeever, former head coach of the University of California, Berkeley’s women’s swimming and diving program, was recently fired due to allegations of toxicity and abuse from former athletes and staff. These allegations have been […]
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Another Toxic Culture Uncovered
The owner of the Phoenix Mercury and Phoenix Suns was suspended and fined by the NBA. For 17 years, the toxic culture prevailed. All personnel in both organizations were impacted by Robert Sarver’s toxic leadership […]
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The NFL’s Problems with Women: Why They Matter
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell boldly declared back in 2010 that the league, which had earned a bit more than $8 billion in annual revenue the prior year, would generate $25 billion annually by 2027. The […]
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Something to Look Into: Real Madrid Femenino
Recently, a soon-to-be-former Real Madrid women’s team player and Swedish international, Kosovare Asllani, talked about the “unhealthy and dangerous environment” at the club. This kind of story could be very damaging for a club of […]
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Saber Youman on Athlete Development
In this new podcast which is part one of two parts, Wesley Livingston and Mike Scaramella speak to Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Saber Youman about his views on athlete mentorship. Youman discusses his supported upbringing […]
Read More Is Bad Behavior in Sports on the Rise?
Last week, Owen Woodward of the Weatherford College baseball team decided to run at full speed and tackle a base runner after his home run hit. While baseball is not known for hits, fights, punches, […]
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Repairing Culture Through Transparency: Rugby Canada’s Courageous Example
Amateur sports organizations everywhere are making headlines for the wrong reasons. Whether it is human rights abuses casting a shadow over the Winter Olympics, less than desired performances in a long-delayed Summer Olympics, or calls […]
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Negative Criticism in the Sports World
Steelers’ quarterback Dwayne Haskins was recently involved in a tragic fatal accident on April 9, 2022. As his family, fans, and the sport mourned his loss, sportswriter and analyst Adam Schefter came out with an […]
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True Coaches: Creating A Happy Sunset For Someone Else
A true Coach is not really in it for themselves, he/she is in it for the athlete and the people they care about. They’re creating a future for the family they’ve chosen, i.e, a happy […]
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Toxicity and Receding Mental Health in the 2022 Winter Olympics
Since the beginning of sport, international competitions such as the Olympic Games have represented so much more than the athletes competing. A handful of contestants bear the weight of a country on their shoulders during […]
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Mean Girls
I was reading a social media post about bad behavior in relationships and I was astounded by the statement “boys will be boys”. Is this perhaps a sterling example of poor or toxic behavior being […]
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Recovery After an Extremely Toxic and Abusive Culture
Is your organization at rock bottom? There is no trust, little communication, people are scared and confused, employees are bracing for the worst, employees and athletes trust nobody, and athletes are looking elsewhere because of […]
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Leading Change
Combining my studies, my job, this crazy condition we find ourselves in globally, and the topics I explore for Culture in Sports, I have found that the most prevalent unifying issue is the constancy of […]
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Fragile Athletes and Coaches
I recently wrote an article about When Coaches Are Unwilling to Adapt or Change. In that article I discussed that “Coaching strategies that may have worked at one level may not work at another” and […]
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When Coaches Are Unwilling to Adapt or Change
Over time, there have been many athletes that could not adapt to higher level competition for a variety of mental, physical, or emotional reasons. Sometimes athletes choose to pursue other directions in their lives or […]
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Driving Change in Artistic Swimming Culture
The latest podcast from Culture in Sports features Californian coach, mentor, and elite athlete Ali Williams. Ali discusses her views on toxic culture within her sport of synchronized swimming, now known as artistic swimming, with […]
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Video: Experience, address, and assess Toxicity as an Elite Athlete
Do you want to watch the video version of this week’s podcast? Here it is! Ali Williams, an Olympic artist swimmer, discusses identifying and experiencing a toxic culture as an elite athlete.
Read More Experience, Assess, and Address Toxicity as an Elite Athlete
November 16, 2021
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Ali Williams, an Olympic artistic swimmer, discusses identifying and experiencing a toxic culture as an elite athlete.
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The Strongest Athletes in Sports
Last week the women of USA Gymnastics testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee about their stores of abuse, assault, and being ignored. One of the highest elements of government heard their stories, and made these […]
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Why Have Several High-Level Personnel Left the Las Vegas Raiders’ Front Office?
I can only imagine that running a professional sports team is not easy, especially one with historic success, at times, and tumultuous periods. During the good times, everyone wants to be involved, but during the […]
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Competitive Sport: A Window on National Cultures
Australia’s modern day suffragette, Madeline Groves, withdrew from the nation’s Olympic Swimming Trials in protest against misogynistic behaviours exhibited by some members of her National Governing Body (NGB). This must have been an extremely difficult […]
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The Power of One
We know there is no I in team, but there can be one (or sometimes a few) player that heavily influences the team. I recently read about Miami Heat veteran player, Udonis Haslem, and his […]
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“Change the Routine”: The Ugly Side of a Beautiful Art
After an undiagnosed stress fracture led to an horrific ankle fracture during a routine, aspiring Olympic gymnast Georgia Simpson came to the realization that she would never compete again. Simpson was told that she should […]
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The Evolution of a Bully
In an organization or team, a weak culture is an inspiration killer and demotivates, nobody is likely to stand up and be noticed, or do anything noteworthy, unless they feel safe to do so. In […]
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Escaping Toxic Culture- The New York Mets Challenges
There is little purpose in rooting for or even loving a team that fails to extend an honest effort or reasonable level of respect to their fans. That’s true of players and management alike, and every franchise should begin to make a reasonable effort to eliminate sexual and gender based harassment from their culture because it is the right thing to do.
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Why Do We Overlook Toxicity In Leaders Simply Because They Perform Well?
As someone from New England, anything that has to do with bad news for New York sports teams generally makes me happy, especially if it has to do with New York’s American League baseball team. […]
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The Coaching Relationship; Avoiding Toxicity
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 […]
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Today Is a New Day
As a leader and coach, I have always gone to bed always thinking about what I could do better for the athletes, team, or the people that I lead. I always try think of ways […]
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Use Your Powers for Good or Evil
Do you remember listening or watching coaches, teachers, or other adults when you were a young child? Do you remember when they would tell you to do something, you just assumed they had the authority, […]
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Fear is Never an Efficient Motivator
This week Sara Davis, in her article What Are You Afraid of? Your Fear May Be Keeping You From Your Destiny, we were reminded to not let fear limit our possibilities. When there are unchecked […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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, […]
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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 […]
Read MoreI Believe in You
Did you ever have a coach tell you that she believed in you? If you did, that coach may have been onto something. That same coach probably told you that he was proud of you […]
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When an Athlete Is Injured
Last time I wrote about “Ed”, a retired professional athlete who also participated in the Olympics. Ed experienced an extremely toxic environment the last few years of his professional sports career. During my discussion with […]
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Team Culture Can Make or Break Athletes
I recently conducted an interview for research about organizational culture. I interviewed a professional athlete that has played at the highest levels, and even attended the Olympics. He unfortunately had to retire from his profession […]
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Treat Those Two Imposters Just the Same
We have a chance here to demonstrate that while winning and losing have value, they are as Rudyard Kipling- talk about a complicated potentially toxic legacy-correctly observed, two imposters to be treated the same. Victory is a neutral, not definitively a positive concept.
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Team Culture Is a Top Down Concept
Some teams have a great culture and some struggle with it. Ultimately, the leadership of a team comes from those at the top, the CEO, president, GM, head coach, and a few others. They set […]
Read MoreTreating Teammates Horribly
The National Basketball Association (NBA) season has officially started, and James Harden is in the news again, even before the Houston Rockets played their first game. Shams Charania, of the The Athletic, reported on an incident during practice on Monday where […]
Read MoreWhatever James Wants: A Toxic Culture Surrounding One Player
Russell Westbrook, who was recently traded to the Washington Wizards, recently spoke about the #organizationalculture of the Houston Rockets. Tim MacMahon of ESPN wrote an in-depth piece of the extremely #toxicculture at the Houston Rockets where he shared the extents of the #toxicity. #Toxic organizations can be extremely successful, […]
Read MoreInappropriate Relationships With Athletes
Last week, British Cycling dismissed one of its top coaches after finding him guilty of gross misconduct, to include inappropriate relationships with athletes. Kevin Stewart, who was the head men’s sprint coach, was given repeated warnings about #inappropriaterelationships and […]
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