Leadership and Coaching: An Ethicist’s Quote

 “You should reward what you value. When you undermine the meaning of fair competition, you celebrate something that has nothing to do with competition or excellence in sport.” –Tom Murray

I came across this quote while down a rabbit hole regarding steroid and PED abuse in terms of the Olympics. I think it’s relevant for more than the issue of drugs.

As a coach, what do YOU value? Is it the scoreboard? Can you summarize it clearly?

For me: I value the spirit and letter of the rules. I value the camaraderie of teams and the experience with teamwork, work ethic, and leadership sports offers young people. I value the positive emotion of victory and value the humility we learn in defeat.

(It’s actually tougher than you think to be short/specific with this…I think it’s a good exercise for all coaches to think about regularly, too.)

But…when I look around at the sports world, I think there’s truth in the quote–I think in a global-sense, we’re guilt of his criticism

Is amateur athletics now really about fair competition? Or–has it EVER been about fair competition?

The Olympics–look at the emphasis on national medal counts Pro sports–teams intentionally losing in the hopes of using that for an advantage down the road College sports–where’s the fairness in watching Alabama’s football team play Mercer University? We idolize a BB coach who’s protected his players against sexual assault allegations, protected a school doctor committing sexual assault on athletes…he was called a ‘national treasure’ this weekend on ESPN. High school sports–most people can name coaches/schools in their state breaking recruiting rules or the private schools providing tuition benefits to ‘students in need’ (often 6’6, 290lb linemen, 6’8 swingmen who hit 40% from 3-pt range, etc). You can name the schools which break out-of-season restrictions on practice, the ones which demand attendance at voluntary open gyms. [That’s not a private school bash in re recruiting…plenty of public schools recruit as well for the sake of the scoreboard] Travel ball–tryout times and payment are all done now to force kids to decide far in advance of playing…many organizations openly recruit players from other teams, bad-mouthing those smaller clubs, etc. Shocking, right?

Of course–I go back and read all this and it sounds preachy. I’m not in a glass house. I’m competitive. I frickin’ hate losing. It eats at me, makes me wonder what I could have done differently–whether coaching or in a boardgame with friends/family. It’s worse when I lose to a team I know is permitted to blatantly break the rules. Sometimes I lose sight of what I value–and it can take a bit of time to remind myself of what I really value.

[NOTE: ‘bit of time’ can be anywhere from a day to a couple months]

And that’s something funny–my favorite teams as a coach aren’t the ones that were most successful necessarily…they are the ones where we shared a massively horrible moment together and stuck it through over time, down the road–together. (That’s a shout out to my 2000 and 2010 teams…but my former players never read these so they’ll never know I’m giving them a shout-out.) Weird. There’s also my club team from 2011…a bunch of 15s-16s who loved being put in 18s tourneys–they backed down from absolutely NO challenges.

One last thing–I really hate that we hold up coaches/teams that have taken shortcuts to win and hold them up as ideals. We put those coaches in Halls of Fame, other coaches imitate those ‘winners’, and we treat their path to victory as one to emulate–when ultimately, those coaches are killing off fair competition, succeeding without integrity.

When (or if…because this is going rather well….) I return to coaching, I guarantee I’ll continue to follow the rules in letter AND spirit…and I’ll still shake my fist at the coaches taking shortcuts to win. You know who you are–and I tell you, there’s still time to come over to the good side of the fence and do the right thing! It is NEVER too late to do the right thing!

EDIT: Obviously since writing this, I’ve gone back to coaching. The issue of teaching ethics/modeling integrity is practically no different at this level than it was with jucos. With many programs–it unfortunately is not emphasized. Now in Year 2 of HS coaching again, I think it is actually MORE important at this level (and with my Jr High program as well) because THIS is where kids’ values are shaped, not when they are 18-21. JH/HS–THESE are the ages where we shape young people, help them with learning life skills from teamwork to overcoming adversity to–integrity in all situations.

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I don’t get to know who reads these–in some ways, this is a written coaching diary for me, a place to organize thoughts/ideas for my personal benefit. In that regard, doing this now for several months has been quite helpful. It’s good to reaffirm what I do right–and also to see where I’ve screwed things up and where I can get better still.