16 ex-Michigan hockey players sue over alleged sexual hazing
Michigan Hockey Scandal
It’s all about Culture... what kind of cultural and behavioral framework do you set down and create for your program. Or any group or organization.
A good culture is going to spread out over an entire organization. And a bad or toxic one will do the same. Why? Because the vision and ethical framework is all emanating from the same (central) source and place that controls the organization. And whatever kind of culture you create is going to expand upon itself and become reinforced and multiplied.
When a scandal of any kind arises from any organization it is most likely not the only shady thing going on there. It just might be the one thing that happens to get out into the public awareness. And in the case of some organizations (as we have already seen)... multiple events do sometimes become publically known and the culture that exists there becomes common knowledge.
You can’t fake Culture. You live it. And if you have the power to set down the entire tone of an organization... you have a great responsibility to all those who exist within that organization and all those outside of it that you effect.
You can win with class or without it. You can lose with class or without it. You can run your program ethically or not.
And you can sometimes 'win' games when time magically appears out of nowhere to allow you to ‘win’ when you never should have.
A good culture is going to spread out over an entire organization. And a bad or toxic one will do the same. Why? Because the vision and ethical framework is all emanating from the same (central) source and place that controls the organization. And whatever kind of culture you create is going to expand upon itself and become reinforced and multiplied.
When a scandal of any kind arises from any organization it is most likely not the only shady thing going on there. It just might be the one thing that happens to get out into the public awareness. And in the case of some organizations (as we have already seen)... multiple events do sometimes become publically known and the culture that exists there becomes common knowledge.
You can’t fake Culture. You live it. And if you have the power to set down the entire tone of an organization... you have a great responsibility to all those who exist within that organization and all those outside of it that you effect.
You can win with class or without it. You can lose with class or without it. You can run your program ethically or not.
And you can sometimes 'win' games when time magically appears out of nowhere to allow you to ‘win’ when you never should have.
OrangeBlue98
Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)
- Des Moines, IA
It’s pretty clear that being a “Michigan man” means you care nothing about winning on the field. Nothing else matters, and your behavior in other areas of life doesn’t matter as long as you win on the field.
SHOCKED, I say, I am shocked!
OrangeBlue98
Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)
- Des Moines, IA
Fixed my typo. Auto correct at it again.
Round up the usual suspects.
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
I have a young colleague (late 20s) who's a Michigan alum. Great guy, very smart, high human capital. We regularly talk college ball. I hadn't seen him all week until late Thursday. I asked him about his Labor Day weekend and he brought up the WMU game. There followed a long discussion of Michigan's serial, and seemingly unending, scandals. They obviously have a serious problem vetting hires in the AD and, generally, have had rocky leadership lately at the presidential level (Santa Ono was an exception until he bolted for Florida only to fail to get that job.) I hadn't heard about the latest scandal in hockey until he told me.
Money quote from my colleague: "We've got a real problem: an arrogant 'we're the best' attitude that doesn't bear scrutiny. It's embarrassing."
Money quote from my colleague: "We've got a real problem: an arrogant 'we're the best' attitude that doesn't bear scrutiny. It's embarrassing."
My psychological/spiritual take on that:
When you project arrogance and superiority all the time this means you are actually masking and trying to compensate for a really weak internal (root) personality structure and you need constant propping-up and re-enforcement (and ‘Wins’ all the time). Your sense of self-worth depends on it. A loss crushes you and you don’t know how to tolerate it. You project superiority to hide your actual inferiority.
That is different from healthy competition and just seeing who is the better team that day. You can win or lose without becoming crushed inside and feeling worthless.
All of the College Programs-Of-Privilege exhibit these traits. Every one of them. The behavior is the same.
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
I respectfully disagree to an extent. Michigan as an institution (very high academic standards and programs of great reputation) stood out positively among universities for decades. I view its recent struggles as par for the course as every institution in American society has been corrupted and degraded over my lifetime, and particularly over the past ~30-40 years. Its Arts & Sciences college announced this summer an intent to eliminate grades for freshmen. (The provost in a meeting praised this as an effort to "blow up the transcript", i.e., to make academic achievement meaningless). This was done on the pretext of encouraging freshman to take risks in challenging courses. I believe that's cover for lower academic standards.
I don't view Michigan's general institutional troubles positively, even as I enjoy the schadenfreudelicious guilty pleasure of witnessing its public athletic struggles. Those entrusted with its legacy have been eating the seed corn of the institution for many years, which is a broad cultural disease.
And with that borderline diatribe, I'm off to the bar for the Illini game. ILL-!!!
Being a witness to all this generalized corruption of social structures of any kind is both upsetting and depressing. You can know and respect what an institution used to be – and then they become a degraded shadow of what that better state was.
This is reflected in Sports at all levels today. The NFL and other Leagues have ownership scandals as well as player ones. College ball has NIL chaos and magic time appearing on the game clock for favored programs and other problems. High school sports now has to deal with violent incidents that it did not use to. Even kids sports now see an adult running on to the field to stop a little kid from scoring a touchdown. Really? Is this what we have become?
Sports was supposed to be an oasis from the problems of real life. But now... problems have been steadily creeping into sports and taking away whatever innocence once existed. That is the Game Above The Game.
OrangeBlue98
Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)
- Des Moines, IA
Changed a word to make this even more relevant. The concept of civility and being able to accept a bad result and be resilient is not there anymore. This was creeping into society prior to mid-2015, but it's just gone into hyperdrive since that time. It's sad, and it's frustrating. Today, if you don't get your way, just scream loud and do whatever you think will make people think you're in the right. I don't know if we'll ever get back to a reasonable level of respect and civility unless those in leadership start to exhibit those behaviors again.