What We Can Learn from the Miami Dolphins Scandal

Today's blog post is written by Clark Power, Professor of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame and co-founder of Play Like a Champion Today.  The blog first appeared on the Huffington Post.

For almost a week now, allegations of hazing and bullying have rocked the Miami Dolphins football team. In response, Dolphins players have defended Richie Incognito as a "team leader" and Jonathan Martin's mentor and friend. Martin, not Incognito, was the problem. Martin was "standoffish," lacking in mental toughness, and unwilling to pay his dues like other rookies. Martin's worst offense was walking out on his team and making his grievances public. He ratted out a teammate and revealed his lack of character by failing to work out his issues with his teammates in the locker room. Is Martin really the victim here or a crybaby, not fit for the rough and tumble world of the NFL?

The debate swirling around Martin has gone well beyond the sports pages and involves far more than the "code" of the NFL locker room. At issue is the responsibility of those who have power to look after those who are marginalized because they don't seem to "fit in." I am talking about the responsibility of not only NFL owners and coaches but also of athletic directors and coaches. I am talking about the responsibility of athletes who wield power in their peer groups and who can turn a whole group against an individual at the slightest provocation. We all know their "victims." They are the children, adolescents, and young adults, who have endured taunts, ridicule, and exclusion because they stuttered, dressed out of style, were socially awkward, or got "A"s in class. What price should they be asked to pay to be accepted into the group?

I have spent most of my career as an educational psychologist, working with teachers and more recently with coaches to address the cultures of the classrooms and teams. Left unattended, I find that classroom and team cultures can become uncaring and even cruel. Under the direction of morally aware teachers and coaches, however, they can become welcoming and engaging. In an ongoing study funded by the Templeton Foundation, we are finding that at in the early adolescent years sports teams are on the whole more successful at discouraging bullying and encouraging inclusiveness than classrooms and even religious groups. One reason for this appears to be that sports teams tend to engender a sense of family that extends to everyone regardless of athletic ability or friendship group. Of course, the cultures of sports teams vary widely according to the coach. Many coaches embrace the role of moral leadership and look after all of their players. Sadly, some coaches ignore the social dynamics of the locker room or are themselves bullies, who punish and demean their players under the guise of "motivating" them or toughening them up for the next level of competition.

I know of no research that shows that punishing or demeaning others is a successful strategy for goading them to higher levels of achievement. I am afraid that we all too often allow the end of winning to excuse the means of intimidation and abuse, and we too easily confuse incivility and conformity with toughness and loyalty. The discussion over the culture of the Dolphins' locker room will, I hope, lead us all to greater clarity about the moral principles that ought to inform the relationship between the group and individual and between those who have power and those who do not. How we evaluate the Dolphin's team culture will have consequences that reach well beyond the NFL locker room.

Where do our Priorities Lie?

Play Like a Champion Director Clark Power offers some insight on the current storm at Rutgers, and how it reflects the current state of college athletics.

Once again President Robert Barachi is on the hot seat. He chose Julie Hermann as Rutgers' new Athletic Director in a move designed to restore integrity to Rutgers' beleaguered athletic department. Hermann replaces Tim Pernetti, who resigned under pressure for not responding more decisively to a videotape showing basketball coach, Mike Rice shoving his players, throwing basketballs at their heads, and berating them with slurs. Maybe Barachi wishes he had Pernetti back. Hermann, it appears, may have been abusive herself, something that Rutgers' search committee was unaware of when they hired her. The search committee, in fact, viewed Hermann as the answer to an athletic department culture more protective of coaches than players. In a press release announcing the search committee's decision, Kate Sweeney, the co-chair, noted that the "committee was particularly impressed with Julie Hermann's student-centered approach to athletics."

Less than two weeks after Herrmann's selection, Hermann's "student-centered approach to athletics" was challenged in a New Jersey Star-Ledger story, which published a copy of 16-year-old letter written by former student athletes, who alleged that they suffered "unbearable mental cruelty" while Hermann was their volleyball coach. Players recalled reading that letter to Hermann and the women's athletic director, Joan Cronan, in an intense and uncomfortable meeting. Hermann denies knowing about that letter. She also denies the allegation in the letter that she called her players "whores, alcoholics and learning disabled." "For sure, I was an intense coach," she explained, "but there is a vast difference between high intensity and abusive behavior."

Cronan couldn't have been too bothered by the student athletes' discontent because Hermann went on to become an assistant coach for USA Volleyball before becoming an Assistant Athletic Director at the University of Louisville. Louisville Athletic Director, Tom Jurich, who hired Hermann admits knowing that "things didn't end well at Tennessee" but that "everything was clear sailing" after speaking with the AD at Tennessee and the coach of the Olympic Team under whom Hermann coached while still at Tennessee. He admitted, "She is intense" but added, "I don't know a coach who isn't."

Kim Tibbits, Hermann' assistant coach at Tennessee upholds Hermann's side of the story, "I was by Julie's side in every meeting and every practice, and she never did what they're saying. What they are saying is not true. She was the most supportive coach. She loved those kids. What I'm hearing and seeing now is just shocking." Cronan said that couldn't recall the letter itself or the high drama of the team meeting that precipitated Hermann's departure. She does remember, however, that the players were somewhat "disgruntled." But she attributed their displeasure as due to "frustration" at their team's lack of athletic success.

Those who defend Hermann, including Hermann herself, see her as the real victim in all of this. Without a videotape like the one that led to Rice's demise there is no way of verifying the players' story. All we have is the testimony of the student athletes themselves, all of whom received counseling following their unanimous expression of "irreconcilable differences with their coach." The only uncontroverted part of this unfolding story is that none of the administrators, who vetted Hermann as she rose up the administrative ladder, ever bothered to ask her players why "things didn't turn out well" at Tennessee.

If we can learn anything from this latest Rutgers controversy, it is that in a "student-centered" athletic environment, the student athletes ought to be consulted and taken seriously, particularly when allegations of abuse arise. Students may well be in the best position to help the athletic community to determine the difference between being intense and being abusive.