The Winslet Dragons: Going Viral What Happens When Student Athletes Break the Rules Jessica Griffiths, B.Comm. Community Engagement Coordinator Office of the Dean Gail Cook Johnson, Ph.D. Executive in Residence Ted Rogers Leadership Centre Ethical Leadership Case Study Collection Case Number 015-004 October 2015 Ted Rogers Leadership Centre
Table of Contents Objectives for the Case... 1 Winslet College and its Winslet Dragons... 2 The Team Get Together and Its Aftermath... 2 The Protagonists: Their Background and Their Positions... 3 Questions... 5 The Winslet Dragons: Going Viral Jessica Griffiths, B.Comm. Community Engagement Coordinator, Office of the Dean And Gail Cook Johnson, Ph.D. Executive in Residence, Ted Rogers Leadership Centre Ethical Leadership Case Study Collection Case Number 015-004 October 2015 Ted Rogers Leadership Centre Ted Rogers School of Management, Ryerson University Keywords: sport; ethical leadership
Objectives for the Case Perhaps more than any other arena, sports brings together all the challenges of ethical decision making that leaders can face, driven as it is by the desire to win and be a winner, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the need for athletes, and the organizations that house them, to be exemplary role models. As exemplified by incidents such as Grannygate, Bloodgate, Operation Slapshot, Deflategate, as well as various sexual abuse and bribery cases, every sport, at every level, has had to face scandal. 1 While the most public scandals in sport often lead to discussions about how the governing bodies (and, consequently, their leaders) have or have not made good decisions or followed fair processes, the current case, which is set in a college town in the American Midwest and deals with a crisis with the Women s NCAA Division I Championship-winning hockey team, asks you to define an action plan that will resolve events with fairness and integrity from a variety of perspectives. To do so, you will be asked to analyze both the context and recommended action plan from the point of view of each of the leaders in the case, that is the team captain, the Head Coach, and the College President. By analyzing the case through these multiple lenses, it is hoped that you and the class will develop a shared understanding about how the context and actions of each key protagonist should and can affect decision making and due process. 1 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/list_of_sporting_scandals 1
Winslet College and its Winslet Dragons Winslet College, located in the heartland of Michigan, is a small, liberal arts college, celebrated for the quality of its education as well as its athletics. Several Winslet graduates have gone on to succeed at Ivy League universities as post-graduates, or as professional athletes, and its alumni include many prominent jurists, diplomats, policy makers, and sports journalists. Winslet s athletic program, which includes several championship teams in a wide variety of sports, has become a significant source of funding and school pride. At Winslet, athletic staff work in concert to develop their athletes performance both on and off the field. Athletes are expected to maintain a 3.0 or better GPA, and to be community leaders and role models. The Winslet Dragons, the female hockey team, is one of the most successful teams at Winslet, being the NCAA Division I Champions in both 2013 and 2014. Since joining Winslet in 2000, Coach Kerry Jones, who played Right Wing on Canada s female Olympic hockey team, has worked hard to build up the team. With the help of the Winslet s scholarship program and the support of the College President, Redford Thompson, and the Athletic Director, George Mammoth, Coach Jones has been able to attract a number of star players to Winslet. The team has become very popular with the many sports fans at Winslet not only because of the quality of their play, but also because they are led by a trio of individual players who have been able to capture the hearts of the fans and the community. This trio consists of Captain Alison Anderson, and Alternate Captains Joyce Crooks and Nancy Legros. The Team Get Together and Its Aftermath Heading into the 2015 season, Captain Alison and Alternate Captains, Joyce and Nancy, felt both trepidation and excitement: trepidation because they were the defending champions with a reputation to uphold; and excitement, because they looked forward to becoming the first team to be Division I Champions over three consecutive years. They were particularly concerned in that they had, through graduation, lost one crucial defender and gained a cadre of new players, who were mostly untested at the college level. Given the situation, the women decided to kick the season off by inviting all players to a team-building session at the sorority house where Alison, Joyce and Nancy all lived. Team members, but no coaches, were invited. Team members arrived at the sorority house for 4 p.m., starting off with a spirited game of touch football, refreshments at 6, and dinner at 7 p.m. At the refreshment hour, the players were served a variety of juices and sodas, and everyone participated in a number of games designed to get people sharing and talking with each other. During dinner, team members were offered non-alcoholic beverages, and had an option to drink wine if they were 21 or over. The official team building exercise finished around 9:30 p.m., although team 2
members were told that they were welcome to participate in the activities of the sorority house if they so desired. The house, in this regard, offered a games room with a darts board and pool table. Moreover, members of a nearby male fraternity had come over for an impromptu visit, an activity that normally would have been well supervised if the House Mother hadn t been away in Chicago caring for a sick parent. At the end of dinner, Alison, the Team Captain, departed to her own room as she had a paper due the next day. Alternate Captains, Joyce and Nancy, went for a drink in town, at a bar frequented by college students, before returning to the sorority house around 11:30 p.m. When Joyce and Nancy arrived back at the house, they were informed by their fellow sisters of the sorority that one of the team s first year rookies, Mary Beck, had gotten into doing vodka shooters. Not used to alcohol, Mary had become violently ill and was now sleeping it off. Joyce and Nancy decided to get Mary up, walk her back to her dorm room, and see her safely in bed. When Joyce and Nancy arrived at the dorm, carrying Mary, who was half walking between them, the trio was met by campus police. As it turned out, Mary s parents, accustomed to receiving a phone call from their daughter every evening at 10, had called the College concerned when Mary did not answer her phone and her roommate was unable to tell them where she was. As the College had a strict no drinking rule for under-age students, and Mary was only 18 and clearly inebriated, the campus police felt obligated to report the incident to authorities. Since Mary was on athletic scholarship, Joyce and Nancy both knew that the complaint would soon be brought to the attention of Coach Jones, the Athletic Director, George Mammoth, and College President, Redford Thompson. Over the next two weeks, all coaches, team leaders, and team members, as well as residents and guests at the sorority house on the evening in question were interviewed by an investigator hired by the College. The seriousness of the incident was significantly escalated when Mary, the inebriated student, told investigators that it was all part of a hazing ritual for rookies that included the pre-dinner get to know you games and afterdinner drinking games. The College was worried that members of the team and the sorority house were in collusion to cover hazing rituals, which were clearly forbidden by the College, following a student death several years earlier. The hazing angle also attracted public notice and the report soon went viral, quickly gaining momentum as some clearly enjoyed spreading a story that attacked the excellent reputation of Winslet College and its Winslet Dragons. The Protagonists: Their Background and Their Positions Mary Beck, age 18, first year student, rookie on the Winslet Dragons on athletic scholarship, yet untried in terms of athletic ability at the college level. Raised as a Mormon, Mary s parents reluctantly agreed to allow their daughter to attend Winslet because Mary received a generous scholarship to play a game she loves, and, they felt, Winslet College could also offer Mary the gateway to the law career to which she aspires. While Mary is 3
somewhat concerned about the impact this incident will have on her scholarship and career aspirations, she is most concerned about the impact on her relationship with her parents and the likelihood that they will pull her out of Winslet. As a result of these concerns, she tells the hazing story. Alternate Captains Joyce Crooks and Nancy Legros, both 21 years of age, Juniors at Winslet College, key spokespeople and valued players for the Winslet Dragons. Joyce, who was raised in Chicago, is the daughter of Winslet alumni and not a scholarship student. Nancy, a Quebecker, is a scholarship student, hoping to do a Master s in public policy at Harvard. Both have grade point averages above 3.7. They are stunned by Mary s story, and feel she has betrayed them and the team. They feel that at every step they had only tried to do the right thing. Captain Alison Anderson, age 22, Senior, Captain, key spokesperson and valued player for the Winslet Dragons, 3.9 academic average. Alison, herself a Mormon, does not drink alcohol, and has never been known to drink alcohol. She too is perplexed by Mary s story and is concerned that the situation will provoke significant punishments for Joyce and Nancy, and potentially others, given the now public nature of the incident. Coach Kerry Jones, coach of the Winslet Dragons since 2000. Over the last 15 years, Coach Jones has given a second chance to many of the players on her team. Among others, there was Emily who was caught, drunk and disorderly, by the campus police in the Union Building; Rachel, who took amphetamines one night to help her stay up to cram for her exams; and, Antonia, herself a black woman, who had yelled racial slurs at a competitor in a very public display of poor sportsmanship. When asked why she would go the extra mile to support her players, Coach Jones would say, I think, in this college setting, we have an obligation to develop the whole individual, not just the athlete. When circumstances allow us any hope that this is a one-off, or this person wants to change, we have to help them realize their potential. Athletic Director George Mammoth, primarily responsible for the funding and resourcing of Winslet College s athletic programs in all sports, has a good working relationship with Coach Jones. While an advocate of Coach Jones and the Winslet Dragons, George is between a rock and a hard place as this incident has the potential to have an impact on the school s funding and reputation. He supports the investigation initiated by the College President. Redford Thompson, President of Winslet College. As President, Redford has ordered the investigation into the incident, concerned that the College s strict prohibitions against under-age drinking and hazing are being violated. He is wondering if he needs to make an example of some of the Winslet Dragons to send a message to the wider Winslet College community. 4
Questions 1. As team Captain, Alison Anderson, to what end and in what way should you provide leadership in this situation with respect to: a. Mary Beck, the rookie? b. Alternate Captains, Joyce Crooks and Nancy Legos? c. Other team members? d. Coach Jones and other coaching staff? e. The Athletic Director or College President? f. Social media? 2. As Coach Jones, what decisions and steps do you need to take to address the situation and honour your commitments both to your athletes and to the College? 3. As Coach, how could you help the team captain grow in her own leadership capacities, in this situation? 4. As the College President, what steps do you take to reconcile the conflicting stories and address the actions of Mary and team leaders (the team Captain and Alternate Captains)? How do you address the situation with the Athletics program, the Winslet College community, donors and the media? 5