Hello Followers. Hope you’re enjoying a Happy, New York City bound Thursday.
Those of you who have followed my weekly inchoherent rants know that I have often been critical of some of the moves made by our Athletic Director, Bill Moos. For instance, I have criticized Moos’ handling of Paul Wulff on many occasions, and I also have criticized his handling of Paul Wulff on many occasions.
But, as noted on the blog last night, the decision he made to reinstate Casto was absolutely the right one.
So, if you want to check out my reasons for this stance, then click on the jump.
Followers, last night on the halftime post, I tried to provide a marker that I liked Moos’ decision even if we lost last night’s game. In fact, had we lost, I already had the headline for today’s post. That headline was: “Lost the battle, But won the War?”
There are several reasons for this stance. And given that it is early morning on the east coast and I stayed up to nearly 3:00am last night watching the game (and then trying to come down from it), I’ll try to be both coherent and concise in the following rant.
(ya, right)
****
When news of Casto’s possession of Marijauna broke, my heart sank. Not only did I get a horrible pit in my stomach because of the prospect of a lost season, I also felt bad because it was painfully apparent that we have a serious problem with drug use in our program.
Mind you, there are good arguments on both sides of the issue regarding whether or not pot should be considered legal or illegal, and within, whether or not pot use (outside of its legality) should be considered qualitatively different that use and/or abuse of alcohol (which I am not sure it is).
But, since marijuana IS currently illegal, the continued use and/or possession of pot among our basketball and football program is alarming. In this respect, when you add the Campus Commons bust along with recent incidents with Moore, Montgomery, Klay, and Casto you can see that pot use can be considered an epidemic in our athletic program. And clearly, that has to change.
So, given that we have a problem, the question then becomes “What is the best way to be able to deal with it?” And, for me, Moos took a vital first step in addressing this most important question.
When Policy Doesn’t Matter
The ideal way to eliminate any type of undesirable incident is to create a culture that effectively “self-polices” itself away from bad practice. One way to do that is to institute the type of leadership council evident in the Football program. The idea behind that approach is simple: Create a culture and climate of mutual accountability, and within, develop leaders who are better able to inspire and perhaps monitor the behavior of others on and off the field.
Recognizing that such an approach often takes time (to realize its full effect), the more common approach is to implement a set of “team rules”, norms, and/or santions from the top down. To the extent that there is sufficient buy-in as well as sufficient threat of santions, then this conventional approach can also be effective.
But, when the threat of sanctions represents the primary reason to NOT do something, then it becomes all too easy for policies to fail. On on end, we saw the failure of the “threat of sactions” policy with Kevin Norrell, who following a marijuana arrest a few years ago, was suspended for two months. Of course, he then left the program.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have the example that was started with Reggie Moore–you break the law, you violate team rules, you get a one game suspension. And where the basketball team was concerned, we saw the same sanctions at work when Klay and then Casto committed similar violations of team rules.
Ultimately, what these incidents showed us is that, in spite of both strict and lenient responses by coaches and players (in the case of Norrell), the behavior continues. And in instances where policy fails to change behavior, it becomes necesssary to RETHINK THE POLICY–even if the behavior remains highly undesireable.
Changing Culture=Building Trust
When the threat of sanctions doesn’t change the way people think and act, then the charge of leaders is to focus on changing the culture which contributes to the behavior. While the methods of changing culture are broad, the common ingredient in most approaches is building consensus, and within, trust.
And so, as Moos, Bone, and Wulff struggle to help students make the right decisions (for the right reasons), the bottom line is that college students are NOT going to change their behavior unless they are highly engaged in rethinking the actions, thoughts and feelings that led up to them. And, as we’ve seen with WSU football and basketball, that type of engagement is NOT going to happen simply by getting our kids to agree on what NOT to do. Instead, what Moos recognized under difficult circumstances is that in order to change the culture of the athletic program, it is first necessary to build a foundation from which students can make better decisions on what TO DO.
Because let’s all face it, most of these kids have been hit with the DARE approaches of “don’t do drugs” since they were in second or third grade. They’ve been told about avoiding drugs at every turn throughout middle school, high school, and now college. And still it hasn’t worked.
So, when we move toward asking the question “what would work?”, Moos realized that these kids need to be inspired to do something else. And while it is fine and dandy to suggest that such a desire should come from within, many of us simply do not alter our daily actions or behaviors until/unless we are inspired by others to do so.
Moreover, those of you who are familiar with the habits and worldviews of other cultures, ethnicities, and social classes know that “inspiration” is not something that happens by way of words or the threat of sanctions alone. Instead, for many cultural groups, inspiration is generated by ACTIONS–especially those that communicate “loyalty”, “kinship”, and from that, communicating that come hell or high water, “I’ve got your back.”
Reciprocity
When Moos made the decision to lift Casto’s suspension he sent a message out loud and clear to players and the Pullman community alike. For one, he let the Pullman police department know that their efforts to illegally target and profile our kids would not be tolerated. But even more than that, he let his athletes know that the targeting and profiling of THEM would not be tolerated by HIM. And by effectively protecting Casto’s backside in this one, Moos sent out a message to all of his players that he has THEIR BACK, is loyal to them, and will protect them against wrong-doing, even in cases where player’s lack of judgement helped cause it. In this respect, Moos acted as a true father figure: If a family member is treated wrongly, you act and react to that FIRST: You focus on the causes and conditions of your child’s wrongdoing AFTER YOU PROTECT THEM FIRST.
And so, while the critics will suggest that Moos’ decision was to win a basketball game, the exact opposite is true:
MOOS MADE THIS DECISION IN ORDER TO BETTER LEAD A SOLUTION TO THE POT PROBLEM AT WASHINGTON STATE.
So, in the coming weeks, we can all expect that Moos will convene players and coaches–either publicly or privately–to address this issue. And when he does so, he will be positioned to tell his athletes that because “he has their backs,” they also need to have his.
And while the problem related to drugs is both difficult, deep, and resistant to change, you can bet on the fact that Moos will have our athletes’ attention in ways that may still not be possible for either Bone or Wulff.
Creating a New Policy/CLIMATE
In the coming weeks and months, I think that we will see that Moos’ credibility among our athletes will lead to a better and perhaps more restrictive set of policies and standards.
But, in the meantime, by lifting Casto’s suspension by himself yesterday afternoon, Moos took Bone off the hook for having sanctions and rules that were (a) too lenient to deter undesired behavior; and (b) not interalized by the players.
In the short term, this decision allowed WSU to move in helping the basketball team develop a culture of winning, that eventually, may also translate to better actions off of the basketball court.
In the long term, Moos showed his athletes that he is also “in it” for them. And in my view, such a committment by a white administrator to a large pool of African American atheletes living in a rural, white community, provides the groundwork for building the type of culture we all want to see at Washington State.
And that culture is based on the idea of creating Winners on the field, winners off the field– by way of hard work, perserverance, and strong character.
Moos showed he has all of those qualities and more yesterday. Now he’s positioned to help his athletes become the same.
Go Cougs.
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