Way to GO HS Football Coach

[Racket_Man]

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/8...er.html?pg=all

A Salt Lake area HS Football Coach SUSPENDS the entire football team (80 players) when they find out about alledged cyber-bullying, skipping class, and disrespecting teachers. As a result he will require each and every member of the team to earn their way back onto the team by performing community service, taking a class on character development, AND improve their grades.

Wonder of WONDERS the School Admin APPROVES and supports the decision.

[fireheart17]

Hmm...I wonder if I should share this with a number of primary schools and high schools in the area.
Basically, Aussie Rules footy is known for having players who do stupid stuff and several of them have been hauled over the coals for it in the media. That said, the media tends to portray them like celebrities "SCANDAL! HORROR! OUTRAGE!"
If the students who play footy nip it in the bud early...

[HYHYBT]

...he was concerned about some of the players' actions and behavior off the field. He then instructed them all to turn in their jerseys and their equipment. There would be no football until they earned the privilege to play.

It's wrong to punish those who are not guilty. Period.

It’s not a punishment.

Yes, it is, no matter how you frame it. At least it is for those who already had decent character.

[Ginger Tea]

Cutting everyone from the team is harsh, but I guess he didn't want to be that coach if it ever came to another Studenvale (sp).

[monkeyboy]

It's wrong to punish those who are not guilty. Period.

I couldn't agree more. I've no problem with the team punishing the players who are "failing and skipping classes and showing disrespect to teachers." But to punish the whole team for the actions of a few players is completely ridiculous.


Also, I'm extremely confused as to why the team is being blamed for the cyber-bullying. According to the article:

there was no way for coaches or counselors to know who was harassing the young man

Am I missing something? This quote seems to indicate that no evidence exists that would implicate members of the football team.

[lordlundar]

It's the military approach to discipline and it's very effective for any team related activity. The idea is that when one tries to be a dick again, the rest of the team shuts him down instead of sitting back or worse yet, participating in it. He's choosing the approach of saying "see what these assholes cost you? do you want this to happen again?"

Whether you think it's fair or not, it is effective. Besides, I would imagine that there was enough players doing this or enabling it that only disciplining the "guilty" parties would still render the team unable to participate regardless.

[Andara Bledin]

What lordlundar said.

It seems unfair on its face, but when you have a team that spends that much time all together, the idea that those who didn't participate didn't at least know about the issues and do nothing to see that they were corrected is still a problem.

When there is a greater peer objection to being a "snitch" than there is to causing others harm, you have to force the peer group in question to police its own because the structure actively works against enforcement from a higher source.

[HYHYBT]

He's choosing the approach of saying "see what these assholes cost you? do you want this to happen again?"

Except that approach is a blatant lie. "These assholes" didn't cause innocent people to be punished. Whoever in charge chose to disregard basic fairness in punishment did that. The only way even to pretend the "punish all for the actions of a few" tactic is fair (as opposed to merely effective) is to make the absurd (in the general case, at least; there surely are specific instances where it's reasonably known) assumption that everyone at least knew what was going on.

It seems unfair on its face, but...

If you're going to start off like that, you're at least strongly implying that what follows will show how it's *not* really unfair at all. Would you mind doing that, please? Because instead of even addressing the issue of fairness, you instead try to excuse the unfairness on other grounds. And yes, there *are* other ways to solve the problem you list other than punishing the innocent. If there aren't, then they need to be found... and in the meantime, at least don't pretend that the way presented is anything other than grossly unfair, even if it were to turn out to be unavoidable.

[Andara Bledin]

If you're going to start off like that, you're at least strongly implying that what follows will show how it's *not* really unfair at all. Would you mind doing that, please?

Well, I could explain how those who were innocent weren't really, but I already did that once.

[Greenday]

Is it unfair? Absolutely, for those who aren't the problem.

Is that wrong? Absolutely not. There is no right to play football. Football is a team sport. You win as a team. You lose as a team. When you commit a penalty, everyone suffers. When you excel, everyone benefits. It isn't unfair to ask the team to improve as a group. You see your teammate acting like an idiot, call them out on it. The players who never get in trouble but do nothing to stop their teammates from acting out are not helping the team in any way.

Life will never be fair. It has never been fair. It's a fact of life. Either the team will learn from this and become better not only as players but also as human beings or they will continue the path they are on and be worse off. It's an opportunity to be better and has the potential to change everyone's lives in a very positive way.

[Racket_Man]

UPDATE: Coach reinstates some of the team

http://msn.foxsports.com/collegefoot...es-some-092613

I think the Coach partially did do the right thing. Some may think that punishing all is wrong BUT IF you cultivate a TEAM mentality (as in come together and stop the stupidity of the fewer and the lax scholastic attitude AND get your shit together) to "convince" the stupid and slackers and nip the attitude problem to shape up then it does work.

REMEMBER football IS a privilege NOT a right just like any OTHER extra-cirricular activity. And as someone else said maybe he did not want another Stubenville situation.

I remember back in HS( in the mid 1970's in a larger metro area) the football players DID get a LOT of "leeway" just cause they played football.

WAAAAAAAAA I don't get to play football, BUT I signed up why can I not play???? Get your shit together and fly right and keep your grades up. Them's the rules. YOu no like??? Tough shit.

[hinakiba777]

This might sound unrelated, but bare with me:

At my high school there was a Grad Variety Show every year. The graduating class would do a variety show with songs, sketches, etc to celebrate graduation and their time together. It was a huge event, and they would even film it to show it on loop on the campus TV channel for the community. This usually happened at the end of May/beginning of June a little bit before exams. Most people started preparing their ideas while in junior high.

Now, the variety show was usually on a Wednesday or a Thursday and was usually followed by a party. Obviously the school did not sanction the party, and there was always a huge warning that seniors needed to be in class the next day, and not hungover. We never had senior skip day, but the day after the grad variety show was pretty close. Now this was a worsening problem. Finally, in 2005, the graduating class was SO bad in regards to their after party and such that the administration knew they had to do something. So they banned the grad variety show.

Now the obvious problem here is that the Class of 2005 had already had their Grad Variety Show. So who was this punishment for? My class, apparently. The graduating class of 2006 didn't get a Grad Variety Show because the class of 2005 had been so bad. We hadn't done anything, but we had to deal with the consequences. Funnily enough, the Grad Variety Show was reinstated in 2007.

I have to imagine that the good players on the team feel the same way I did regarding the Variety Show. They spent years preparing for something, only to have it taken away from them because of the actions of another group of students. I resented the HELL out of the Class of 2005.

So while I think the punishment might be effective in someways, I have to wonder if it might have broken the team a little. Yes it might make the team as a whole step up and tell their teammates to straighten up if they aren't acting properly, but there might be another outcome. I mean, imagine if one of the defensive line hadn't done anything wrong and the running back had, how easy would it to "forget" to block during a game? I honestly hope this plan works out for the coach, and I'm happy to see people are getting punished. I'm just wondering if punishing everyone is going to as effective over all as they hoped.

[Kheldarson]

Those are two separate issues, hina. In your case, the school was trying to affect a completely out of school event that was moderately related to a school function without making it a true learning moment. Or with continuous effect. Also it's hard to have a whole class thinking like a team to fix things.

In this case, there were multiple issues the team had, only one of which seeming to be off campus. Since a team has an initial motivation to work together, this type of discipline works well to create internal accountability and identity positive leaders, especially with the earn back privilege. It can also remove the non-team player elements.

Basically the coach's discipline has a positive goal and expected outcomes, while your school's punishment only had negative outcomes with no true end goal. Major difference.

[lordlundar]

So while I think the punishment might be effective in someways, I have to wonder if it might have broken the team a little. Yes it might make the team as a whole step up and tell their teammates to straighten up if they aren't acting properly, but there might be another outcome. I mean, imagine if one of the defensive line hadn't done anything wrong and the running back had, how easy would it to "forget" to block during a game? I honestly hope this plan works out for the coach, and I'm happy to see people are getting punished. I'm just wondering if punishing everyone is going to as effective over all as they hoped.

This is where the "win as a team, lose as a team" comes into play. In your example the guy "forgetting" to fulfil his role could still result in a loss and he would be removed from the team for throwing a game. It's a case of "cutting the nose to spite the face" but much more severe. There's no benefit in being a troublemaker but there's plenty benefit in stopping them.

[Andara Bledin]

Hinakiba77, your school was dreadfully stupid about it.

Since the show was on a 'school night' they could have merely made the next day a compulsory test day with an exam that could not be made up without a doctor's note or other "really good reason."

Now that would have been a learning moment for the students. If you party too hard that you can't get to school and can't take the tests, you lose a letter grade from every class.

As for the football team, again, there are no innocent parties. Sure, there are members of the team that didn't actively participate in the bad activities, but they also didn't report them or make enough effort to get their teammates to stop. Now, with a very real and dire consequence for members of the team acting like a bunch of shits, the entire team had a very real incentive to police their own.