NCAA: Penn State Needs “Culture” Overhaul

The NCAA has handed down their ruling after considering the findings of the Freeh Report, which outlines some of the harshest penalties in NCAA history against the football program. The penalties include vacating all victories from 1998-2011, a $60 million financial penalty that will be used to establish a fund to protect children, and a four-year bowl ban. That includes four years of heavily reduced scholarships. The financial penalty will be made at a rate of $12 million per year over the course of 5 years.

Update: The Big Ten has added a $13 million fine, meaning Penn State will not receive its share of bowl revenues for the next four years.

These punishments are in response to the alleged coverup of the sexual abuse by former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, who was recently sentenced to more-than-a-lifetime in prison for his transgressions against children.

The primary message is that sports are not the primary focus of this meet. Sports are secondary to the issue at hand. Simultaneously, however, the conversation lies in sports. There are hundreds of innocent people who are going to be devastated by this decision, and there are similarly hundreds of culpable people around the country who now understand the new rules in play, that “football no longer will take precedent over academics and the protection of young people,” to paraphrase from NCAA President Mark Emmert from his prepared opening statement.

Culture

Here’s the key word from the NCAA press conference: “culture.” It was said more than once. It was said more than a dozen times. It is the hot word in corporate America. It is the common thread between all of the world’s most successful organizations.

Google does not operate the same way as Chevron. They do not have similar personalities or business models. But they both hang their hats on the term “culture”. They have decided what the core of their companies are, and they have put the word “culture” in front of them and been wildly successful. This culture is what lacked within the Penn State football program.

Emmert reasserted that the reason that Penn State has been given huge penalties over an extended period, rather than simply having the program suspended for a year, as has been speculated they might do, was to allow the University the opportunity to establish a “culture” that ensures protection of children. If the program will not have to focus on being the country’s best football program (and frankly, that cannot happen with these punishments for quite some time), they will have to learn to operate in an environment where “hero worship” does not rule the day.

For those who have never been in an organization where “culture” is so heavily emphasised, an explanation is due. In these organizations, everyone understands what the culture is. The ideas are explained and attacked from many angles and many initiatives, but they usually boil down to a simply-recited “code” or “terms of emphasis.” When these programs are implemented, they are often frustrating for employees. They interrupt the status quo and absorb a lot of time in the work year.

That, however, is what they are designed to do. They are meant to force every member of the organization to take a step out of their day-to-day, and remember what matters at the end of the day. Things like a work-life balance; safety; and in the case of Penn State, the protection of the student athletes and all other children who are associated with the program.

These aren’t just policies, or a few well-time press releases that nobody really believes in. Culture is an ongoing conversation. Culture doesn’t go away on weekends – it travels home with employees, it travels to social gatherings, it travels with them to other organizations, and it doesn’t give in to peer pressure. It has humility and stubbornness that survives all.

Existing employees are given about two days to buy in. Anybody who doesn’t is gone, immediately. That is because the studies, both anecdotal and scientific, show that the value to an organization of a positive culture far outweighs the contributions of even the most talented employees. New employees don’t have a choice: they will be hit with peer pressure and will never be accepted as a true, contributing member of an organization unless they are willing to buy in.

Organizations can survive for some time, and even achieve certain levels of success, without a pervasive positive culture. But when things come down, the more successful organizations, which until two years ago would have included Penn State, come down the hardest (see: Enron). This should serve as a warning to sporting organizations around the world to take a serious look internally at their own culture, and make sure that they understand the definition of a “culture”.

This Penn State case has all of the hallmarks of a lack of positive culture. When a few corrupted individuals are allowed to subvert an entire organization of good, hard-working people, that is a lack of culture. And this is what has happened in Penn State’s case: most of the organization has done nothing wrong. But when the proper culture exists, and stems from the highest levels of leadership, these outliers are forced further to the periphery and eventually removed from the organization, rather than promoted to higher levels.

This is what had lacked at Penn State, at least within the football program. Jerry Sandusky didn’t buy in. Evidence shows that he was not out, immediately. There wasn’t a culture.

How does this affect swimming?

The financial implications of this penalty will surely soar past $100 million, and these affects will not just punish the football program. There is a huge infrastructure of people who depend on the football program to make a living, local businesses who make huge portions of their revenues on Saturdays in the fall, and most importantly student-athletes who are going to suffer. As Rece Davis from ESPN pointed out before the NCAA’s press-conference: “This is different than past situations, because the athletes who will be affected had nothing to do with the violation.”

The silver-lining for the rest of the program is that prior to this situation, Penn State was making huge profits prior to the penalty. They made $53 million last year. They can absorb the penalty of $12 million a year for the next 5 years. even though those profit figures will probably drop considerably in future seasons.

This could, however, put on hold the designs on a new swimming facility. Penn State had plans laid out for a brilliant new facility to replace their 50-plus years old natatorium that was far-from-adequate for the good work that the swim program has done.

Football student-athletes have been given the right to transfer immediately and without question, but the swimming student-athletes have not been extended the same privilege (though  swimmers are often given that right regardless). With such a late announcement, athletes from across non-revenue sports are going to have to scramble to put themselves in a winnable position.

NCAA President Emmert insisted twice that they have not restricted where in the University this money can come from, except that it may not come at the expense of other of the university’s athletics programs, or at the expense of scholarships to other student athletes. That means at least that swimming will continue to exist, in its current state, for the next four years. That’s a positive.

Outside of that, it is hard to predict what will happen to the program in the long-term. This was a program that was succeeding, both academically and in the pool. But never before has an Athletic Department with such a pristine image and that had been so successful fallen so hard. This is brand new territory.

We will continue to monitor the situation, and reach out to the university to establish just what protections are in place to protect these non-revenue programs.