I have an interesting juxtaposition to present today. I do not have enough information about either of the two situations I will present to draw definitive conclusions here, so let me simply say that the two situations are “interesting” and leave it at that. The two sports involved are women’s professional soccer and NBA basketball. To say that the nature and ambience of those two sports are “different” would be a monumental understatement.
The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) terminated the contracts of two coaches in the league after conducting an investigation into “misconduct” during the coaches’ time at the Orlando Pride. Please note that the league “fired” the two coaches and not the team owner. I had not been following this matter, but that oddity made me try to find out what was going on in the NWSL.
Amanda Cromwell was the head coach for the Pride and Sam Greene was an assistant coach; both had been together as coaches at UCLA prior to coming to the Pride. Evidently there were allegations that opened a joint investigation by the league and its players’ union that led to the terminations reported earlier this week. The allegations included:
- Verbal abuse
- Improper favoritism towards players
- Retaliatory behavior towards players
Cromwell and Greene had only been on the job in Orlando since last December; this investigation did not need to go back in history to gather information leading to the conclusion. Evidently, Cromwell had been suspended since June 2022 because the team has been playing under an interim coach since then. The interesting thing for me are the questions left unanswered by the announcement that the league “terminated the contracts” of the two coaches.
Coaches say things to players – in games and in practices – that those same coaches would never say to any person in normal social conversations. Part of coaching requires the coach to be confrontational with the player. That does not justify verbal abuse, but it does demand that someone draw a line as to what constitutes “coaching” and what constitutes “abusing”. I am not sure I would want to be the arbiter there.
A similar situation exists with “improper favoritism towards players”. When a football coach or a basketball coach leaves one school to go to another school and two or three of his starting players follow him/her to the new school, there will clearly be “favoritism” involved. Without any sort of description here, I have no idea how whatever happened in Orlando might or might not be “improper”.
Cromwell coached the Pride for 13 games; the team record in those games was 2 wins, 4 draws and 7 losses; that record may reflect some sort of dystopian atmosphere associated with the team or it may just be that the team is not all that good. In any case, that record does not provide Coach Cromwell with a lot of slack in terms of behaviors. This story may or may not be over. According to one report I read, the final paragraph said that Coach Cromwell was “reviewing her legal options”.
There was another finding in this investigation. The Pride’s goalkeeper coach, Aline Reis, was found to have been uncooperative with the investigation. The report says Coach Reis “pressured players” to share information with the investigators that was favorable towards the coaches. Interestingly – – to me at least – – is that behavior was not considered to be sufficient to terminate Coach Reis’ contract. Instead, Coach Reis will be required to take training in “retaliation, discrimination, harassment and bullying”. While those are issues that probably need to be addressed, they do not seem to be closely related to the finding that Coach Reis was uncooperative with the investigation and perhaps sought to undermine it. Lots of “loose ends” here…
Next up … By now, you must have read about/heard about/seen the “dust-up” between Draymond Green and Jordan Poole. The Warriors have decided to fine Green for the incident but not to suspend him. Two things come to mind upon learning of that decision:
- There is no possible fine that the Warriors might levy against Draymond Green that would cause him the slightest bit if financial hardship. He is halfway through a 4-year contract extension that has already paid him $46.2M and will pay him another $53.3M over the next two seasons. Prior to signing that extension, Green had earned another $84.6M in his NBA career with the Warriors.
- Is it possible that Draymond Green’s accomplishments and demonstrated importance to the Warriors’ team over the course of the last decade or so got him some “improper favoritism” in the outcome here? Even if one were to acknowledge that, I doubt that any investigation might lead to the NBA – – not the Warriors but the league itself – – to “terminate the contract” of Steve Kerr.
[Aside: Having nothing at all to do with the juxtaposition of issues here but equally interesting to me is how the video of the “Green/Poole dust-up” would up in the hands of TMZ and then all over the Internet.]
Finally, since much of today’s rant focused on “favoritism” let me close with this. Author, Fran Lebowitz, was once asked what her favorite animal is. Her replay was:
“Steak.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………