Weekly Affirmation: The Year Of The Do-Over

In a society and culture that resist the toughest yet most worthwhile conversations, it's hard to raise another challenging set of issues as the college football regular season gives way to the bowls. However, that's what the Weekly Affirmation is here for. The final column of 2011 focuses on the clear common thread which runs through the worst stories in big-time collegiate athletics.

By Matthew Zemek
 
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Do-Overs Versus Second Chances: An Exploration of Character, Consequence and Cost in American Collegiate Athletics

We begin the final Affirmation of 2011 with a set of closely related reflection questions: When does a human person deserve vigorous punishment, and when does a person deserve rehabilitation? When has a person paid a price to society for his/her misdeeds, and when must that person pay a price? When has a person violated a core value or done violence to persons such that s/he must forfeit time, treasure or power in some combination? When does a person simply make an honest mistake in the heat of the moment, the kind of error which should not bring about a loss of money, independence or status? When, if ever, should a group suffer for the sins of one or a few of its members, even though the larger group did not share in the waywardness/sinfulness/maliciousness/negligence of the offending individuals? Is it possible that a group can avoid suffering when one of its members does something grievously wrong, or is that an unrealistic, untenable view of punishment in a healthy and properly oriented society?

Let these questions sink in. They're frankly far more important than the opinions of this or any other columnist. What matters is not what you conclude from this piece; what counts is that you - and your friends, and your relatives, and your fellow alumni at the school(s) you support - wrestle with these questions. A society declines not because it collectively arrives at the wrong answers; that's not really a precise identification of the way in which communities deteriorate. The first source of social collapse, of an erosion of sound values and reliable moral principles, is the failure of the citizenry to wrestle with the big questions, to grapple with the meanings of various actions and attitudes in a vast array of situations. You probably don't hear this from columnists very often, but you need to hold the following statement in the forefront of your mind as you go through life: Agreement with another person's views is overrated; using proper methods of discernment and evaluation is the true mark of wisdom for a species that can (and does) contemplate morality, ethics, and other entities most animals can't fully understand.

Yes, that's right: I don't want your agreement, especially if it's for the wrong reasons. I'd much rather you disagree with me - vehemently, if necessary - on principled and intellectually consistent grounds, using rigorous moral reasoning which leads you to a different place. It is with this foundation in place that the rest of this essay can unfold.

You can establish a different definition or framework if you'd like, but it seems to me that there's a difference between a do-over and a second chance on matters of appreciable importance and weight (that last phrase is significant). In relationship to the reflection questions listed above, it's critical to make a distinction between the two terms and what they mean for the individual and society. The notion of a do-over (at least, if the words themselves mean what they indicate) represents a repeated process in which little to nothing is lost in a more profound sense. Yes, it is an unquestionably negative experience to have to write a research paper from the beginning when your computer crashes and fails to save the previously existing copy. That kind of "do-over" is a loss, a source of frustration. In that kind of a situation, "going back to square one" or "starting at zero" is not pleasant at all. On the flip side, getting a "do-over" on a missed free throw thanks to a defensive lane violation is certainly a positive experience. One could certainly view that particular scenario as an example of a "second chance." If the terms "do-over" and "second chance" are viewed within the totality of life's ups and downs, there's a fair amount of overlap between the two. However, if you focus on the italicized phrase "matters of appreciable importance and weight, the distinction between the terms becomes clear.

There is, as one can readily appreciate, a constant tension between punishment and rehabilitation, between the need to establish order in society and the need to promote forgiveness. The fundamental attitude attached to a "do-over" in this weighty social context is something to the effect of, "Your mistake was not severe, intentional or malicious, so now that you see what you've done, you get to do it over, but FROM NOW ON, you need to straighten up and fly right, okay?" By not taking an offending party through a punitive process or subjecting the offending party to the loss of valuable goods, society - in the form of an organization and its leadership - sends a message of understanding and forgiveness. Giving a do-over to someone who makes a misstep is an act rooted in the important idea that gentle teaching - allowing a person to see the wisdom of one path and the errancy of another - offers the best road to human improvement. If a person can be made to see that his/her actions - while not harmful enough to warrant punishment - detracted from the life of the surrounding community and represented a deficient way of being, that person can be reformed without the costs associated with a punitive process.

It's important to add that when one speaks of the attempt to reform another person without a punitive process, the "costs" of a punitive process are not just dollars or other material items, but the good name of an institution and the very need to disrupt life in order to impose a penalty on an individual. There is something important at work within the concept of a "do-over" on this weighty human level: It seeks reconciliation and self-improvement without need for drastic measures. This is the ideal scenario for human beings and the communities in which they are organized. However, precisely because this is the human ideal, it must be arrived at only after sufficient investigation, analysis, and reflection. If a person can't be given a do-over, the punitive process must enter the equation. This is where the notion of a "second chance" comes into play.

Any good teacher - not just a teacher of technique, but a teacher of deeper subjects such as spirituality and relationality - will insist on allowing students to make mistakes. Failure is not just a necessary part of learning, but an inherent one. The natural tension point which arises in the midst of this discussion is as follows: "How does one distinguish a necessary failure - the kind which merits a do-over from society - from an unacceptable failure which can only merit punishment before any rehabilitative process begins?" Relating to the reflection questions raised at the beginning of this essay, when does a mistake cease to be merely innocent and begin to be something irreparably damaging, at least to the extent that it must be punished? These questions illustrate why the second chance - which is very easy to view as identical to the do-over - is actually something different.

The very notion of a second chance includes the reality that a first chance existed at some point and, of course, was not used wisely by a person or institution. “Blowing a first chance,” in this larger context, is attached to severe (enough) consequences that point to a decrease in one’s well being: the loss of status, power, wealth, freedom, reputation, or any combination thereof. If a person is given a second chance, it can only come about after walking over the hot coals of pain and torment. If a person or institution hasn’t lost anything of appreciable value, there is no second chance, because the first chance has never really ceased to exist. The pain of paying a steep price separates the first chance from the second chance; if there’s no pain or price in the transaction between a mistake-making individual and the larger society, the failure committed by the individual is treated as something worthy of a do-over, something free of consequence and the punitive action which flows from it. It is only when an act of failure leads to a downward tumble, to the loss of something precious, that society can then give that individual a second chance. The one who fails profoundly – enough that his/her actions could not be allowed to pass without consequence – enters a second chance having been wounded, set back, stripped bare, brought low. Life at the start of a second chance is not – and cannot ever be – the same as it was when the first chance began. Only do-overs allow for people (and institutions) to go back to the same place where an initial – and innocent – failure began to take shape. The malicious and severe failures, those which must bring about punishment, do not lead people back to the same place where they began once upon a time.

Do you see the moral and social geography being outlined here? This is how the do-over and the second chance so markedly differ. This is how the reflection questions at the beginning of this essay can be wrestled with in a clearer, more meaningful manner.

With this foundation having been established, we can now apply everything in the above paragraphs to some of the central dramas in college sports from 2011, especially those from the past three months.

Should the Penn State football program (not just the team, but the program as a money-making entity comprised of state employees within the PSU athletic department) enjoy the reward of a bowl game? The Nittany Lions needed to contest the Big Ten championship not because of considerations relating to their own prestige, but because every competitor in the Big Ten deserved to be able to finish its season alongside the Blue and White. Penn State needed to play that home game against Nebraska not for the sake of Penn State, but for the sake of the Big Ten season, a genie which could not have been (realistically) shoved back into the bottle. A bowl game, though, does not offer the constraints or binding communal obligations of a full conference season. One would think that the Penn State athletic department – and the football program within it – would need to be punished such that a bowl game, a reward, should not be granted in 2011. Tom Bradley should not be allowed to audition for other jobs. The increasingly murky legal situation enveloping so many of the principals in the Penn State story should make the voluntary surrender of a bowl bid a no-brainer. The possible alleged abuse of minors on campus grounds should be fully investigated and/or arrived at – with the roles of Joe Paterno and Mike McQueary clearly identified – before Penn State plays another football game. Playing a bowl game now, amidst a flood of legal activity, conveys a simple message to the larger society: “We’re still taking our pleasure trip. We’re still accepting the bowl game payout. It’s business as usual.” That’s hardly the right message to send to America and the college sports world. It’s as though the Penn State football program is being told that its failures were innocent ones, and that a do-over – not a second chance – is being extended in State College.

In the Bowl Championship Series, Alabama is being given a do-over against LSU. Alabama’s loss to the Bayou Bengals has, ipso facto, been treated as an entirely inconsequential event, a result with no negative repercussions whatsoever to the Crimson Tide. To fully carry out the comparison between a do-over and a second chance in this particular discussion, Alabama would receive “a second chance” if it had to play Oklahoma State to then earn its way into a rematch. If Bama had to pay the price needed to beat Oklahoma State, one could then say – in a manner consistent with the concept of the second chance as articulated in this essay – that Alabama could play LSU… not starting over in the original spot it inhabited on the morning of November 5, 2011, but in a different place. Alabama – by having to play Oklahoma State – would have been forced to overcome an obstacle and thereby endure an extra hardship or challenge en route to a rematch with LSU. That notion – making Alabama have to play its way into a rematch – is fair and noble. Treating the Nov. 5 game as though it had absolutely no negative consequences whatsoever? That’s an example of a do-over. It’s certainly not a healthy precedent to establish in the BCS era.

At Ohio State, Athletic Director Gene Smith is still employed after a year of scandal and duplicitous behavior. At Central Florida, George O’Leary is still the head football coach after his program was found to be negligent in the death of former player Ereck Plancher. Jack Swarbrick of Notre Dame is still the AD in South Bend even after the Declan Sullivan tragedy, which falls on his plate as the overseer of an athletic program, a man who is supposed to make informed decisions related to the use of the hydraulic lifts he okayed in the first place. These and other well-compensated people in prominent public leadership positions have basically been told by their superiors, “you get a do-over; your failures are not the severe failures which merit or demand punishment.”

And that’s just college football. What of college basketball?

In the first hours after the Bernie Fine story broke, Jim Boeheim of Syracuse made statements which – whether he realized it or not – sent a chilling message to any victim of sexual abuse who watched Boeheim denounce the initial allegations against his longtime friend and colleague. Boeheim’s initial remarks basically told victims of sexual abuse that they were fundamentally dishonest and motivated by the desire to cash in. Beyond his words in and of themselves, Boeheim sent a larger message to any sexual abuse victims who watched, read or heard him in those first explosive hours following a bombshell development in Syracuse: “If you step forward to make accusations, you will be hit hard and countered by powerful forces.” The damage Boeheim did to his own reputation was considerable, but the damage Boeheim might potentially have done to other victims of sexual abuse is incalculable. This would seem to be the kind of damaging public statement which is so unacceptable – especially from a person in a place of leadership and immense responsibility – that the man who uttered it cannot be allowed to keep his job, much as Los Angeles Dodgers executive Al Campanis met a swift end to his long baseball career after his infamous NIGHTLINE interview with Ted Koppel in 1987. At the very least, Boeheim should be kept on unpaid leave to think about the consequences of his harmful actions. Yet, he is and has been an untouched figure as far as Syracuse University is concerned: no punishments, no dock in pay, no suspension, no nothing. Boeheim took two full weeks to finally realize how badly he screwed up; his sincerity was genuine, but the instructive part of the larger story is that Boeheim was never made to pay the price consistent with the “blowing of a first chance.” Boeheim is not the owner of a generously-granted second chance today; he is the owner of an undeserved do-over.

The same is true for basketball players Tu Holloway of Xavier and Yancy Gates of Cincinnati. Holloway’s trash talking started last Saturday’s brawl between Xavier and Cincinnati, and Holloway later made three separate postgame comments which unrepentantly glorified violence: “We went out there and zipped ‘em up… we put them (Cincinnati) in a f---ing body bag … we’ve got a whole bunch of gangsters in that locker room.” Holloway plays at – and for – a Catholic school as well. Surely, if any healthy sense of proportion existed in collegiate athletics, Xavier – a model program in so many ways – was going to set the right example. Instead, the Catholic institution (it’s been a terrible 21st century for Catholic institutions…) slapped Holloway on the wrist (one could say “kissed him on the wrist,” so light was the punishment…) with a one-game suspension.

As for Gates, his coach – Mick Cronin – gave a fabulous-sounding speech on Saturday in the postgame presser, leading most of the fourth estate to conclude that Gates was going to be suspended for a very long time, perhaps kicked off the team for the rest of the season. Instead, Cronin – who, like other coaches, should never be entrusted with this kind of decision in the first place (the conflict of interest is too overwhelming) – gave Gates just six games, one of which was already mandated due to his thrown (and landed) punch. Cronin essentially handed Gates a five-game suspension which will last through all of ONE Big East Conference game. The Bearcats will be without Gates for late-December cupcakes, not for any extended series of difficult conference contests. These kinds of punishments are so small that they do not represent life-changing events for Holloway and Gates. They’re not the significant kinds of sanctions which would make young men reconsider not just their actions in the heat of the moment, but the fundamental ways in which they approach situations and cultivate the attitudes they bring to various situations. With Holloway missing just one game en toto and Gates missing only one conference game, one could say that both players are receiving do-overs, not second chances. This is the theme of the year in college sports.

It is also a reality with which people of good faith and good will must wrestle… not for one offseason or one year, but for a lifetime. Our identity as ethical, moral and emotional beings capable of love and hatred, of intellectual prowess and devastating relational betrayals, demands as much.

The Weekly Affirmation will see you in late August of 2012. One wonders what moral and ethical progress the college sports world will have attained by then.