Where Do Your Loyalties Lie?
Last night, during the NCAA Men's National Championship game, Roy Williams the previous coach of the Kansas Jayhawks and now coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels who just got thumped by Kansas a few days prior, showed up to support his old team wearing a shirt with the Kansas logo on it. How would this make you feel if you were a Tar Heels fan? Does he have a responsibility to his new school not to pull a stunt like this?
The question of loyalty comes up in sports all the time. Should professional players show loyalty to the team that drafted them by taking less money when it is contract time? Should the team show loyalty to the player by giving him more money at contract time? Should the fans show loyalty to a player who might be willing to leave at any second? Should a player show loyalty to fans who might boo at any second? There are many levels to this conundrum of a question.
One level is in the context of employment. If you recently took a new job at a competitor bank and showed up a few months later at a corporate event wearing your previous employer's logoed work shirt, would that be grounds for dismissal? Probably not, but like in this case, it is likely not going to make your new boss happy or your promotion come any sooner.
Another level of loyalty is purely emotional. We want our players and coaches to be as passionate about our home team as we are as fans. Investing as much as we do on a weekly or daily basis, we want to know that they are investing themselves too. Not just in the weight room or when drawing up the x's and o's in the locker room. We want them to bleed our school colors, swear that they are going to rid the rival team of any dignity they might have, and live and die singing our school's fight song.
Even though we all know on some level that, especially in the coach's eyes, the position is simply employment, a way to pay the bills, we also realize that sport is special. It is different. And this could be said to be especially true on the collegiate level. When emotion, like you see in collegiate sports, is involved, people tend to take things much more personally.
For that reason, I think a better analogy can be made than one of corporate employment. What would you think if you began dating a person who recently broke up with another after a long relationship; and a couple months into your relationship with this person they showed up at a momentous event in support of the former honey while wearing a pin featuring the former honey's picture. I don't know about your significant other, but I can tell you that that would definitely be grounds for a week on the couch if not worse in my house.
So Roy, I think the result is this. While this act certainly isn't grounds for dismissal, I wouldn't expect to be cozying up to the North Carolina alums any time soon. At least not until you bring another Championship back home, hopefully, while wearing North Carolina blue.
The question of loyalty comes up in sports all the time. Should professional players show loyalty to the team that drafted them by taking less money when it is contract time? Should the team show loyalty to the player by giving him more money at contract time? Should the fans show loyalty to a player who might be willing to leave at any second? Should a player show loyalty to fans who might boo at any second? There are many levels to this conundrum of a question.
One level is in the context of employment. If you recently took a new job at a competitor bank and showed up a few months later at a corporate event wearing your previous employer's logoed work shirt, would that be grounds for dismissal? Probably not, but like in this case, it is likely not going to make your new boss happy or your promotion come any sooner.
Another level of loyalty is purely emotional. We want our players and coaches to be as passionate about our home team as we are as fans. Investing as much as we do on a weekly or daily basis, we want to know that they are investing themselves too. Not just in the weight room or when drawing up the x's and o's in the locker room. We want them to bleed our school colors, swear that they are going to rid the rival team of any dignity they might have, and live and die singing our school's fight song.
Even though we all know on some level that, especially in the coach's eyes, the position is simply employment, a way to pay the bills, we also realize that sport is special. It is different. And this could be said to be especially true on the collegiate level. When emotion, like you see in collegiate sports, is involved, people tend to take things much more personally.
For that reason, I think a better analogy can be made than one of corporate employment. What would you think if you began dating a person who recently broke up with another after a long relationship; and a couple months into your relationship with this person they showed up at a momentous event in support of the former honey while wearing a pin featuring the former honey's picture. I don't know about your significant other, but I can tell you that that would definitely be grounds for a week on the couch if not worse in my house.
So Roy, I think the result is this. While this act certainly isn't grounds for dismissal, I wouldn't expect to be cozying up to the North Carolina alums any time soon. At least not until you bring another Championship back home, hopefully, while wearing North Carolina blue.
posted by Abromson On Sports Law.com at
9:40 AM
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