I want to tell you a story…. Imagine, if you will, a seventh
grade classroom, filled with twelve and thirteen year old students. In this school, there are three such
classrooms. Similarly, there are also three
classrooms of sixth graders and three of eighth graders in this school. Oh, and all nine classrooms are in a heated year-long competition. The “Service Hours” Honor is at
stake – a prestigious award for any classroom to win, proving their group spent
this most time giving back to the community, and, (maybe more importantly to
some) rewarded with an end-of year classroom pizza party. Competition is fierce – for every hour a
student participates in a community-related service role, the class is credited
one service point. At the end of the
year, the class with the most points wins the adoration of the school – and the
aforementioned pizza party.
Students take this competition very seriously. Yes, it is about giving back to the community
– but it is also a competition. Winning
is winning.
Back to our seventh grade classroom… the competition is
tight this year. This particular seventh
grade classroom is in second place, trailing by a mere 10 points. The teacher gives an inspiring pep talk. One month to go. Everyone needs to pitch in. Give back a
little more. Give of themselves. Give of their time.
After class, the teacher pulls aside one of the classroom
leaders, we’ll call him Tommy. The
teacher needs some help – there is a student, let’s call him John, who has not
added many points to the classroom total this year and his additional points
could really put their room over the top.
The teacher suggests Tommy “help” John understand how important his
participation would be.
Tommy approaches John later that day and suggests that he
join a group who would be painting a local childcare center that weekend. John
politely declines. Tommy explains, in
stronger terms, that John’s help is not really voluntary anymore….he is expected to be a part of this
“team”. John, again, declines. Not his
thing.
Next, things get ugly.
In an attempt to motivate John, Tommy turns up the heat. He tells John that for every day he resists “doing
his part”, there will be a consequence. Day one – John is grabbed afterschool
by Tommy and some friends and duct-taped to a flagpole. Day two – John receives threatening
voicemails using profane language and racial slurs. Day Three – Tommy explains to John that if he doesn’t plan to
help, that he “owes” his team….he needs to pay up - $100 to cover everyone’s
lunch and refreshments while they work at the child care center. And it goes on…
To make matters worse, Tommy has spread the word about John’s
turncoat ways to their classmates.
Everyone now knows that John isn’t a team player. They are going to lose this contest because
of one guy – John. So, John is shunned.
He sits down at lunch and everyone else gets up and leaves the table. The frustrations hits the brink – John throws
his food trays across the cafeteria and storms out of school.
John takes his feud public. He makes a video documenting his
ordeal. When it goes viral, John’s
classmates are furious at him. How could he throw them under the bus like
that?!?! People won’t understand that
Tommy and the rest of the class were just trying to get John to be a part of
the team, to contribute, to do his fair share – to help them win!
Now, take another moment – imagine again all these things
happened in the same way – the contest, the competitive nature of the group,
the leader looking for someone to guide a team member, the nature of how this
teammate was being coerced, the terrible result – imagine all of that --- but now
they're adults and in your office.
Bullying is bullying is bullying. There are no excuses or exceptions. And we need to open our eyes to how often we
try to justify it.
So, I listen to way too much sports radio. I know this seems like a digression – but
bear with me. While music has always
been so integrated into my life, oddly, I’ve never been one to put on a music
station in my car when I’m driving alone.
I like listening to conversations – and since political conversation on
the radio these days is cartoonish at best, most of my driving time is spent
listening to guys talk about sports. I
fully admit that I listen too much, too often, and there are more productive
way to be spending my time… and yet I do it anyway.
I mention this because this week, one topic has dominated
the sports radio airwaves, and it really isn’t solely a “sports story” – in
fact, I think it is a parenting story.
Richie Incognito, an offensive lineman for the Miami Dolphins has been
accused by a teammate, Jonathan Martin, of bullying. Maybe I’m downplaying the terminology here.
What has actually happened is Jonathan Martin has been the apparent victim of
workplace harassment, extortion and bigotry at the hand of Richie Incognito. I won’t dwell too much on the details, as
you can find them in countless articles published this week like this one:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/04/richie-incognito-jonathan-martin-racial-slur-threats_n_4213340.html. In the end, fed up after yet another
incident, Martin slammed down a tray of food during a lunch break at the Miami
training facility and walked out.
Here is the amazing part to me – there are people out there,
many in the NFL or former NFL players -- who feel like they can justify
Incognito’s actions, and some actually blame Martin, the victim, for the
problems he’s having! I’ve read and
heard comments like “he should have kept the issues internal to the team” and
“he should have manned up and just hit Incognito”. I’ve heard justifications like “every NFL
rookie has to go through this” (Martin is actually a second year player, but
this has been going on since last year) and “hazing builds a stronger team –
brotherhood!” Parts of this story actually made me sick to
my stomach:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2013/11/05/bullying-jonathan-martin-richie-incognito/3449621/
Where to start? I
think I should be very clear here – I’m not angry at Incoginto. Some of you might find that unsettling, as there
is plenty of evidence that would logically lead to having real anger at his
actions. And I’m not here to tell you
that you shouldn’t be angry. However, I
choose not to be. As a third party
observer, what I feel is maybe not what you’d expect – I feel sympathy for
Incognito. This man is clearly broken. There
is something missing from his life. When
people act in a way that makes others feel small, they are generally doing so
to make themselves feel better. The
bully in grade school isn’t just a bully because he enjoys torturing his peers
– he tortures his peers to give himself power and that makes him feel
better. And people who need to make
themselves feel better at the expense of others clearly have issues. Bullies
become bullies because something missing from their lives.
This is not to suggest that Incognito is blameless. Far from it.
He’s culpable for everything he did and should reap the
repercussions. But being angry with him is
separate from wanting there to be consequences.
To do the things he’s done (and he has a long, ugly history of being a
“bad boy”), I believe he must have a gaping hole in his soul. It is my most sincerely hope, for his sake
and those around him, he finds what he needs to repair it. My guess is that won’t happen without a lot
of professional help to guide the healing process. Let’s hope the ulcer isn’t
so far gone that Incognito won’t accept some assistance in healing it.
What I see in this whole awful situation is a lack of
leadership. Let’s start with the coaches
– there have been a couple of accounts of both players and coaches suggesting Martin
should have “kept this in house” rather than allowing it to become public, as
it is now. Well, friends, if the
management (i.e. “coaches”) wanted this to be an internal matter, they had
their chance. They could have created a
culture of teamwork through support rather than torture (and make no mistake
–“hazing” is torture. Stop sugar coating
it. Duct taping a person -- a human being – to a goal post…or forcibly
gang-holding a person down and covering his entire body in Icy/Hot solution… or
making someone run through a line where he is hit with bags filled with
coins…that is torture no matter what more friendly term you’d like to attach to
it). The coaching staff could have
created an environment with an ‘open door / no repercussion’ policy. They could have guided the players to select
high character guys as team leaders (ironically, Incoginto was, in fact, on the
Leadership Council for the Dolphins). They
could have done any of these things, but they didn’t.
In fact, there are
some reports that the coaches actually nudged Incognito to help”toughen up”
Martin. Want to know why? Want to know Martin’s indiscretion? Want to know what would so anger the coaching
staff that they would encourage torture?
It was a doozie – you see, Jonathan Martin chose to not attend a
non-mandatory, off-season training session.
So, instead of communicating with Martin, instead of discussing the
importance of his attendance at such sessions, instead of investigating if
there might be some reason he didn’t choose to attend….these so-called-leaders
decided Martin needed to learn a lesson and “toughen up”. Morons.
Shameful. And if this information
holds to be true, if they indeed encouraged Incognito’s behavior, they should
all be fired.
There is another group who is culpable, too -- the players.
Am I expected to believe they didn’t see the bullying? Of course they did. However, I have yet to see any information –
neither evidence nor even an anecdote of how Martin’s teammates came to his
support. These big, brawny guys who
pride themselves on being “brothers” and who claimed to have bonded through the
“war on the field” shamefully sit by while one of their own is humiliated,
extorted, threatened, and shunned by their peer? The excuse of “clubhouse culture” is not
acceptable – not for something like this.
Would you sit idly by if you knew a co-worker was abusing someone in
your department? Seriously think about
that – if you saw someone being extorted, being physically roughed up, being
called racial slurs, being shunned…
would you wash your hands of it?
If no one else was willing to call out this behavior, would you be okay
with the mob-mentality acceptance?
Here’s what I know – if this was happening around my kids,
if they observed this type of behavior, I would not only want them to speak up
about it, I would fully expect them to.
I want them to lead, not follow.
And to allow such behavior to exist, even if it isn’t being done to you
– to allow it to exist and not to act is shameful.
It so happens that Jack came upon a bullying situation
earlier this year – for privacy reasons, I’m going to leave out the detail, but
needless to say, there was a group of people who were overpowering an
individual, and this individual was not the most popular person in school. Many thought the group “cool” for being able
to torment the individual as they did…. And Jack made a difficult
decision. He chose to be right rather
than be popular. He reported the
problem, and the administration of the school handled things from there.
If my thirteen year olds son gets it – if he is willing to
do what is right instead of what is popular -- surely grown men should be
expected to as well.
To Richie Incognito, please find help. Admit your mistakes,
take ownership, accept the consequences, learn from it and allow professionals
to guide you to a better, healthier place. To his coaches and teammates, take a
look in the mirror. No longer can you accept mob-mentality and allow this
abuse. You want kids to look up and
idolize to you, earn it. I know there
are players and coaches who would never have allowed this to happen – Tony
Dungy, Herm Edwards, J.J. Watts to name a few.
Be leaders, not followers. And to Jonathan Martin, thank you for having
the courage to walk out and find a non-violent solution. I’m sorry for what you’ve endured. I’m glad that you’ve given us more focus and
another opportunity to have this important national conversation.
