The Sports Doc Chalk Talk

There is a delicate balancing act between integrity and success when it comes to sports fans and their desire to align themselves with a sports winner.  On the conservative side of the argument, it appears that some fans will tolerate very little from coaches/programs that lie, cheat, and break every rule of integrity in their quest to become a winner.  In these instances, the fan base believes that winning should come a distant second to “doing it the right way,” implying that playing by the rules is paramount to a credible sports program.  On the other side of this argument is the “win-at-all-costs” type of fan who could care less about playing by the rules as long as the team wins.  Rules, ethics, and sportsmanship are merely words to these fans, as the only thing that is really important is winning.

The reality is most people actually fall in between these two polar opposites – meaning most fans would like to win and play by the rules, but if the rules need to be tweaked a little (or conveniently overlooked) it’s still OK if the team is winning.  In some cases, sports fans feel the need to align themselves with a winner so much so that they will put on convenient blinders when their team/program gets in trouble.  The most recent example of this behavior is at Arkansas where Head Football Coach Bobby Petrino is catching fire for his less-than-professional behavior involving an extramarital affair with a 25 year old office staffer.  Conservative fans have already called for his resignation, while “win-at-all-cost” fans have minimized the incident as Petrino has proven to be a pretty good football coach on the field.  In fact, there have already been rally’s in Arkansas to save Petrino’s job!

The big question I have is why is there such an incredible desire by some sports fans to be a part of a winning program, so much so that many will completely overlook, disregard, challenge facts, or even fool themselves into thinking “nothing happened” when many of these stories break?  The urge is so strong to be aligned with a winner that these fans will not only tolerate, but even accept behaviors from their coach and athletic program that they would never tolerate or accept from a family member, friend, or employer.  But when it comes to sports, we commonly hear things like “It was no big deal,” or “Look at what other programs do.”  In some cases these fans even justify the crimes in their mind, pointing to the unjust system as the reason why it’s OK to break rules.

From a sport psychology vantage point, it makes perfect sense that we as people strive to be the best, and aligning ourselves with people and programs that exemplify excellence also makes sense.  The problem, however, is when this urge to be the best contaminates our objective, logical, and fair thinking — sometimes so much that we lose our own sense of what’s right and wrong in our efforts to defend “the winner.”  For example, take any one of the NCAA problems that have surfaced over just the past year alone.  If you were a fan of one of these schools, there is a good chance you minimized (or even outright dismissed) the “crimes” that were reported.  But how would you have reacted if the same thing happened at another school? Or how would you have reacted if the same crimes occurred at your rival school? Would you have reacted the same way?  Honestly?  Do you think the Arkansas fan base supporting Coach Petrino right now would think the same, no-problem-here way if these same circumstances happened at another rival SEC school?  I don’t think so, and neither do you.

My point here is to not to push a high and mighty position of moral authority, but to challenge sports fans to think about the relationship they have between winning and doing it the right way.  Where do you draw the line?  If you happen to be from the “who cares” so long as we win camp, is this the same set of values you would want your kids to espouse?  And if you are from the “win the right way” camp, have you set your standards so high that they are impossible to live by?

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As a college sports fan, do you ever wonder where all the corruption, loss of integrity, and sometimes outright cheating originates?  More specifically, I am talking about the stories about student athletes receiving improper benefits followed by extremely light penalties  from the university?  Alvin Kamara’s recruiting experience with the University of Alabama might just provide us with many of those interesting answers.

It should be noted that to date Kamara is still an uncommitted high school junior RB from Georgia and has done nothing wrong, nor has he been accused of any wrongdoings to my knowledge.  Similarly, as bizarre as the story you are about to hear sounds, apparently Alabama has done nothing wrong yet, either.

It was reported today that Alabama is so incredibly interested in recruiting Kamara that they sent him 105 recruiting letters…in one day.

The Invincible College Recruit

Of course, in this day and age where amateur athletes receive many more valuable “gifts” than recruiting letters, this story seems at first to be nothing more than funny.  Upon closer inspection, however, it becomes much easier to see where the future potential problems lie after this stunt, and how blurred the paradigm between university and student athlete has just become due to Alabama’s actions.  Some might say this “genie” isn’t going back in the bottle anytime soon.

When student athletes are recruited to colleges there is a normal ego rush in learning that they are one of the select few to be chosen to play at the next level.  The job of the coach, and athletic department at-large, is to entice the athlete to choose their school, and to do this they usually give the recruit the royal treatment.  As you might expect, there are always potential problems during this process, most notably when the psychological paradigm between college and player shifts so dramatically that the player knows he actually calls all the shots.  In these instances, the athlete becomes infallible, invincible, unstoppable, and inevitably “the man.”

Assuming Alabama lands Kamara, can you see how upside-down this relationship has already become — even before he has attended his first practice??  How do you say “no” to the kid you gushed over so badly that you sent him 105 letters in one day??? How do you maintain the same discipline measures for this player as you do the walk-on players, or even any of the other scholarship student athletes from the other teams at Alabama?  This kid’s “different,” remember?

The Difficulties in Enforcing Discipline

If Kamara chooses Alabama and he eventually messes up, is it fair to hold him 100% responsible for his actions after his college treated him like Elvis during the recruiting process?  After all, this young man has been developed into a superstar by Alabama’s letter writing campaign (amongst other things) — and when 18 year old student athletes feel like this, it’s pretty easy to see why they sometimes make really bad decisions based on their self-perceived invincible status.

For the institution (Alabama in this case), how will they play by the rules if Kamara chooses their school and then goes out and breaks rules and laws?  How do you come down on a guy when this is the same guy you laid rose pedals at his door?  He came because of the royal treatment you gave him, and now you want to discipline him??  You want him to play by the same rules as every other player, but you didn’t treat him like that during recruiting — so why now the change? You did everything you could to make him feel immortal, and now you want him to be held accountable and responsible?? I mean, you sent him over 100 letters in one day telling him that he could walk on water, eat fire, juggle chainsaws, and leap tall buildings in a single bound —- and now you want him to comply with those silly NCAA rules and regulations???  If I’m Kamara and this eventually happens, I want to know who changed the game?

Kamara and Alabama are not the only examples of this warped psychological paradigm that often develops.  Letter writing campaigns like what was recently done at Alabama happen at other schools, too (or some other similar practice).  The student athlete is given the keys to the castle, while the university sports administrators and coaches nearly break their collective necks trying so hard to not look or notice when rules are broken.  I mean, how do you crack down on the new “money man” for your school?

How Does a Responsible Coach Really Act “Responsibly?”

Responsible coaches know the importance of playing by the rules and maintaining the integrity of the sport, but they also know that you don’t just roll up that red carpet you had out for the top recruit, throw it in the back of the van, and then all of a sudden crack down on him.  No, it doesn’t work that way — remember, this kid can transfer so you better learn to become aloof and look the other way — it pays better if you do.

Coaches also know that if you don’t roll out the red carpet and surf & turf dinners, then you probably won’t land him, as there are hundreds of other coaches out there that will spoon feed his every need if it results in an eventual signing.

“Amateur” sports are really an impossibility when you think of them in these terms.  In order to get the best kids you have to be over-the-top, outlandish, endearing, and full of promises.  Some might even say you have to sell your soul to the devil. But after the young man signs, it is expected that you alter the landscape and coach-player dynamics 180 degrees, and “hold the young man accountable” for his actions.  Then, when a kid screws up, society wants to blame him and hold him accountable — but the reality is he was never held accountable from the start of the recruiting process!

Unfortunately, this model simply doesn’t work, and it’s really obvious the reasons why.

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ESPN premiered “The Marinovich Project” last week, offering up close and personal views of the way Todd Marinovich was raised to play football under his father Marv’s relentless training.  This story was especially interesting to me, as I am about the same age as Todd, and even back in the 1980′s (before the internet!) I remember hearing about this “bionic QB” being built out in California by his dad.  Unlike today, where high school athletes are regularly talked about on ESPN and other national sport outlets, for us to even hear — much less watch video — of a high school quarterback from the west coast was simply unheard of.  I remember seeing Marinovich on television and hearing about all the hype surrounding how he was literally “built” to play football – and how his dad controlled his every meal and put him through unbelievable training workouts.

Since first hearing about Marinovich in high school, I continued to watch from afar as he went on to play college and professional football, and I went on to graduate school to study human thinking and behavior.  While I never obsessed on Marinovich, he was always in the back of my mind, especially later in my professional counseling career when meeting with parents at my office that seemed to be obsessed with their kid’s athletic development. After watching Marinovich burn out from football, his story (sadly) served as an example I used with parents who were clearly going too hard with their kid.

What one famous behaviorist once said…

Interestingly, I remember in graduate school learning about the famous behaviorist John Watson, and specifically learning about his claims that if he could control all the surroundings of a kid from birth onto adulthood, that he could essentially develop the kid into anything he wanted (i.e. a doctor, artist, accountant, etc.).  His argument was that environment, not genetics, play a much bigger role when it comes to human development.  In the Marinovich example, one could easily say Watson’s theory may have held up – at least for a short while.  While Marv did seemingly develop his kid into an elite-level QB, the price they both paid for the efforts seems to have been a hefty one indeed (ESPN revealed their personal struggles in the program – Todd with drugs, and Marv with failed marriages).

Some of my other observations from the Marinovich program included:

• This was a perfect example of erroneous human thinking – we often believe if somebody is “good” at something, they must also love doing it.  Todd admitted he liked playing football, but to objectively parse out that he “loved” playing was rather difficult, especially with his militant-style father never giving him a chance to experience life without football.
• The pursuit of playing in the NFL seemed to serve as a utopia for the Marinovich’s, leaving Todd in no-mans land once he finally made it to the league.  What do you do for the rest of your life once you have played in the NFL at the age of 21??  Todd struggled with this, and admitted on the program he really didn’t know what to do “next” as this was his end-all, be-all lifelong pursuit.
• Marv Marinovich appeared to be a very loving and caring father, but also a troubled one.  He clearly obsessed with Todd’s development, even to the point of losing jobs and marriages.  Supporting your child is one thing, but living your entire life through your child is another.
• It was really no surprise for me to learn about the drug usage Todd admitted to while playing football.  Of course, it’s never advised to recklessly use street drugs, but in the case of Todd Marinovich it’s easy to see why he would turn to drugs (or anything for that matter) that would provide a respite from all the pressure and expectations placed upon him.  Again, this doesn’t excuse or endorse the behavior, but instead hopes to explain it.
• I found Todd to be a very interesting, thoughtful, and caring guy.  Most of us simply saw him as some kind of super-human machine when we first heard of him in the 1980′s, but after all that he has been through he came off in the program as a level-headed and cerebral guy.  No bitterness, no animosity, and no hatred toward his dad (or anyone else).  If anything, he appeared more confused by all that has happened the last 25+ years of his life – almost as if he had been on the sidelines watching his life play out based on a story written by his dad.

I’m sure there are other parents out there today similar to Marv Marinovich, obsessed with their child’s athletic development to the point where all other life pursuits are thwarted.  This is unfortunate for a number of reasons, the least being the fact that even with 24/7 training the pursuit of one day becoming a professional is still an unbelievable long-shot for most kids (even if John Watson would think differently if he were alive today!).  Not only are the odds against “making it” (even Todd Marinovich admitted to his God-given talents being just as, if not more important as his training was), but leading an imbalanced life as Todd did often sets people up to be unprepared in many other important ways.  Even in the best-case scenario when an athlete does “make it,” the average professional sports career is only 3-4 years, making holistic life skill development that much more important than exclusive sport training.

Every sports family should watch the Todd Marinovich story and talk openly as a family about the tradeoffs that often come part and parcel with 100% devoting to sport development.  At the end of the day, we should, at minimum, learn a few basic things from this story:

- While it sounds great in theory, John Watson’s original idea of creating a persona (i.e. a football quarterback) is really more of a talking point for balancing nature vs. nurture when it comes to personality development. To try an control a young persons surroundings like Marv Marinovich did is not only unhealthy, but potentially dangerous.

- When people feel overwhelmed, pressured, and don’t see a way out of their circumstances, it is very common for them to turn to drugs, alcohol, or a number of other reckless and dangerous behaviors.  The short answer for this is that they provide a temporary “break,” or respite, so that the individual doesn’t have to continue to stress out over his or her circumstances.

- Perhaps the biggest oversight by Marv Marinovich was that while he taught his son how to succeed on the field, he apparently stopped short of teaching Todd how to use his athletic skills off the field.  When an athlete compartmentalizes all his learning through sport into only being useful in sports, he has missed an incredibly invaluable learning opportunity.  Ironically, Todd Marinovich learned countless athletic transferable skills (i.e. discipline, teamwork, goal setting, etc.), yet was never taught how to parlay those skills into everyday life experiences (like learning how to successfully deal with stress).

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Gordon Gee, president of The Ohio State University, made headlines last week when he made harsh comments regarding D1 college football teams Boise State and TCU’s strength of schedules this year.  Essentially saying the both schools play pansy schedules, he overlooked that his own school (and my Alma mater, OSU), has played a schedule eerily similar to the schools he called out.  Furthermore, Gee has talked about never wanting a playoff system due in large part to making championships possible for schools like Boise State and TCU!

You can read the rest of my article for The Examiner here.

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This Thanksgiving it’s a great time to remember many things, including family, friends, and all the wonderful things we have in our lives to be blessed with at this time.  While you are getting ready for the holiday, I encourage you to stop by your local department store and pick up one of Nerf’s new sports products and relive some of your great memories form childhood.  If you haven’t checked out Nerf since you were a kid, you might find the new Vortex Mega ball, complete with tail and propeller-like fins, to be just the thing needed to impress your family this Thanksgiving!

You can read the rest of my article for The Examiner on Nerf sports here

Have a great holiday!!

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