Quote:
Originally Posted by Savvy27
I do hope that people treat this reckoning with some compassion and understanding for the coaches in addition to the players. Especially the older coaches who were trained in the environments that people are now trying to change.
Obviously, there are and will continue to be stories of abuse that are extreme or so terrible that the coach would deserve the criticism and vitriol. I'm talking about the cases that are more borderline, where a bad decision or action is used to completely define a person and undoes every other thing they have done in their coaching career.
The other thing that a mob mentality does (imo) is it discourages people from reporting issues because they do not believe that a coach deserves to have their reputation completely destroyed or their career ended over a mistake (even if that mistake caused significant damage).
Being a coach is a difficult, but rewarding task. It is undoubtedly a position of power and accountability is important because of that power. One positive that I am able to take out of this moment is an appreciation for the coaches I have had in life who were great and had a very positive impact for me.
Overall, I just hope that people remember that this 'reckoning' should be focused more on the changes that will improve athletics for everyone and less on the spectacle of tarring and feathering people.
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This stuff is always going to be messy, and if anything will actually come from this, there's going to be tar and feathers. There's just no way around that.
The way I see it however is this: most of the people tarred and feathered are going to be rich guys in their fifties, but there's not going to be that many of them, and most of them are going to be people I really can not sympathize with. On the other hand, a big reckoning could help countless young and vulnerable people every year.
Do I hate the fact that it has to be a tradeoff? Yes.
On the other hand, everyone who is going to get caught up in this (if something does actually go down, which I think is far from guaranteed at this point) will be someone who has participated in this culture. It's going to hit people who at the very least have risen through the ranks while staying silent about the problems around them. They might not deserve to be tarred and feathered, but they've been complicit.
It's not fair, but it's not super unfair either.
Do I enjoy the tar and feathers part? No I don't. As a rule I'm against internet lynch mobs. I forcefully support the idea that punishments should be limited to removing abusive people from positions of power, and nothing more. They don't deserve to have their personal lives destroyed, they don't need to be isolated from society as a whole, they don't need to be financially ruined.
But it will likely take at least the threat of a lynch mob to force a change in the culture.