Monday, July 24, 2023

LOOP NORTH NEWS

 





 

Northwestern athletic scandal: ‘The buck stops here’ isn’t enough to stop the rot

(Above) The Northwestern University “Wildcat” Marching Band performs at the 2005 Sun Bowl on December 30, 2005 (Mlehrer/Wikimedia Commons).

Every business is going to face unexpected problems, challenges, and disappointments. What matters more than anything is how you, as the leader, respond.

By Howard Tullman

23-Jul-23 – Watching the administrators at Northwestern University shimmy and shake and try to scramble their way out of the worst athletic scandal in the school’s history looks like just as fruitless an exercise as sitting quietly in the stands at any typical NU football game on a sunny Saturday afternoon in Evanston as the Wildcats get their asses kicked for the zillionth time by a bunch of oversized Big 10 giants from any of the other teams in the league that prize steroids over scholarship. The NU team lost 11 out of 12 games last season.

We all knew that the fans and the players were all gluttons for punishment – why else would we keep showing up to watch the weekly shambles and slaughter – but we didn’t know that – in addition to the on-field beatings – dozens of the players were also hazed, harassed, and humiliated by the older players – encouraged, aided, and abetted by the coaching staff – in practices, in the locker rooms, and at training camp.

Anyone who thinks for a minute that the players decided on their own – year after year – to punish the newer players in darkened locker rooms for perceived playing mistakes or just for the hell of it is a bigger moron and just as complicit as the assistant coaches, trainers, and other enablers who let this crap go on – on a regular basis, year-in and year-out – without ever speaking up. Why the school thinks that any of these losers should be retained is beyond me.

And, of course, the abuse wasn’t limited to the gridiron. The baseball team, the cheerleaders, and probably every squad except the chess club paid the price and suffered at the hands of a bunch of testosterone-maddened and insecure scumbags and bullies who ran these programs and who violated every bit of trust, faith, and confidence that the players, their parents, and the public had placed in them for decades.

NU’s president tried at first to bury the whole thing – even after a six-month investigation – with a despicable two-week suspension of the head coach accompanied by a bland and clearly mistaken statement asserting that no one on the coaching staff – up to and including the head coach – knew anything about what was going on.

This contention was so patently stupid and unbelievable on its face that the statement needed to go on to admit that there was more than ample opportunity, evidence, and reasons for all of the coaches to have discovered what was happening right under their noses – and obviously with their blessings – but somehow, they all missed it. These clowns were apparently more Inspector Clouseau types rather than Columbo types. My guess is that NU will have to eat their words and try to get out from under this obvious lie as the evidence grows and more credible student athletes come forward.

But the Daily Northwestern, the school’s student-run newspaper, wasn’t buying this pile of baloney and published lengthy articles with student-athlete disclosures about the true state of affairs. Somewhat surprisingly, given the arrogance, obliviousness, and reluctance of university administrators worldwide to ever concede error, NU’s president shortly after the paper’s disclosures was shamed to his senses, and fired the head coach. He seized upon the old and tired rationale that “the buck stopped with the boss” even as the University continued to suggest that the coach knew nothing and the University retained all of the other assistant coaches and promoted one to be interim head coach.

The lawsuits have begun to mount – there are at least a dozen plaintiffs and three or four suits already on file – and the daily damage to the reputation of the University, the growing scale and scope of the scandal as it spreads through other parts of the athletic program, the almost immediate impact of the recruiting of new players, and – interestingly enough – the prospect that the scandal may impair or shut down the school’s grandiose plans to rebuild the football stadium are all just accelerating parts of the debacle.

The fact that the head coach was only part of the way through a massive ten-year contract that the University may have to honor and pay out is just icing on the greed-laced cake that treats these coaches as economically-critical supermen.

But the most important lesson for every entrepreneur trying to build his or her business isn’t simply that hazing is horrible. Or even that it’s sickening and sad that so many people in responsible positions knew what was going on, claim they were unhappy with it, and still did nothing.

Every business is going to face unexpected problems, challenges to the institution’s integrity and core principles, disappointments from people you trusted and counted on, and issues that threaten to impact the business far more broadly than the simple unfortunate circumstances which may be immediately at hand. What matters more than anything is how you, as the leader, respond.

So far, everything Northwestern’s leadership has done after the fact is wrong. Needless to say, they also share boatloads of blame for years of facilitating and accommodating chubby old men, alums, and donors fondling cheerleaders in skimpy uniforms at pre- and post-game tailgate and cocktail events. Just part of the job, I guess. And frankly they still are doing a half-assed job by trying to keep the majority of the people around who were absolutely part of the problem.

They need to dump the whole football coaching group, maybe give some thought to cancelling the season, get some fresh new people into the job, and bite the bullet by bagging the Big 10 and playing in a group or division where their players have half a chance to win a few games and won’t have to take the losses out on their peers.

When – not if – you face a similar major and maybe existential problem and risk like this in your company, there are a few basic rules to keep in mind on how to proceed:

1 Blaming the big guy is never enough if the system stinks

Big deal – NU got around to belatedly firing the top guy after they were shamed into it and they think that through that simple gesture he’s going to absorb all the blame for the problems even after they’ve given him a complete pass and claimed that he actually knew nothing. He built the outhouse that is your football program over dozens of seasons and to think for a second that pushing him out without completely cleaning house is going to offer any comfort or consolation to any of the victims or convince anyone that the University is really committed to change is wishful and foolish thinking.

And to be clear, the head coach is not even the biggest guy – they need to dump the Athletic Director as well.

2 Slicing the salami instead of making deep cuts is stupid

Half-assed measures, slow steps, and hoping that the world will quickly lose interest in your problems are just as painful and destructive approaches as making a series of small layoffs instead of biting the bullet one time, digging deep, and cutting to the bone so that you’re in a position to start effectively rebuilding from a solid foundation. Northwestern – whether they admit it today or not – needs to promptly dump all the guys involved with the football and baseball debacles from top to bottom and not try to pretend that they were ignorant or innocent.

Waiting for the “new” guys who will eventually be hired to do the dirty work and cutting later down the line just delays the process, destroys any credibility that might have remained, and sends the wrong message to the victims that instead of fixing things, you’re trying to gloss over them and hope they disappear.

3 Start immediately to build for the future and forget defending the past

There’s no explanation, excuse, or justification for the flat-out abuse and other disgusting behaviors that the coaches and program administrators allowed to go on for years unchecked, uninterrupted, and likely encouraged. It’s a complete waste of time to even try to say that it goes on everywhere, that boys will be boys, that it’s just locker room horsing around, etc. As we’ve seen, it only ultimately serves to justify and encourage more outrageous actions and behaviors from the same bad actors.

The future starts every morning and each day you spend looking backwards is another day that you fall further behind in fixing the problem and building a firm foundation for the future.

4 Don’t leave anything important to the lawyers

There are likely to be threats of lawsuits and plenty of advice from counsel, but – whether the audience is clients, customers, parents and students, or the whole world – practically speaking, matters of reputation are decided in the court of public opinion, not some dusty courtroom, and having your lawyers speaking to the press for you with a bunch of denials and “no comments” is the most certain way to put your worst foot forward.

In the attention economy of today, everyone expects answers and, if you don’t get out in front with a comprehensive story, you can be sure that the vacuum will be filled by media trolls and anyone with an adverse position or a hostile agenda. Silence is no longer golden, it’s an invitation to a further mess.

Bottom line: Northwestern has been inept and badly advised to date and the situation keeps getting worse. They needed on Day One to come out and tell the truth and the whole truth and they didn’t do it. The truth only hurts when you don’t tell it. Nothing is going to get easier from here, and nothing will get better without an honest accounting and a complete break with the past and a new plan forward.