As an AD, I believe athletics shouldn’t be the first thing we take away as punishment.
For some students, athletics are where they find confidence, purpose, belonging, and build resilience.
Too often, we think removing sports will help students improve in other areas. Instead, we should find other ways to hold them accountable while keeping them connected to one of the most positive influences in their lives.
The impact a coach can have on a student-athlete can be life changing. In many cases, athletics aren’t the problem… they’re part of the solution.
You know the best way to tell who’s in this game for the kids? Take an AAU coach who tweets/likes/comments everything one of their players tweets, and then that player leaves to a different program a year later, but that coach still continues to promote that player and stay positive about them.
Then you have coaches who completely disappear and ghost like they never knew each other. In the words of Geno, for some people it’s transactional.