The Locker Room

6Canceling the Cancel Culture

THREE QUESTIONS WE MUST ASK:

1. WHERE ARE WE?

“Do you remember going on recruiting trips back in the days of D3 coaching?” asked Coach Washington. “We didn't have GPS or smart phones. All we had were stacks and stacks of printouts from MapQuest. Directions from the office to the first high school, and then from that first high school to the next, and …”

“And heaven forbid if we took a wrong turn or got the papers out of order!” Coach Smitty exclaimed. One particularly vivid memory caught him, and he chuckled. “Remember that time we missed that exit off HWY 31, and we didn't know it? Forty miles later we looked at the directions and thought we had the right exit! Ended up at that nursing home in Springfield and not a clue how to get to where we were supposed to be!” Coach Smitty finished the story without realizing he had made Coach Washington's point.

“That's exactly what I'm getting at, Smitty. We had perfect directions, but we had no idea where we were, and so those directions were useless. It's the same way for us and our broken locker room. There are a lot of kids who are hurting right now. Some feel betrayed. Some feel embarrassed or humiliated. There are athletes who are angry at what happened, that are upset about how it was handled. I'm willing to bet there are also some kids in there who feel like Davey is the real victim here. My point is this: if we want to heal the hurts in our locker room, we—as leaders—have to stop and take the ...