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You are the Athletic Director. Your department has an on-line system for communication with all student athletes. This system is designed for the administration to gather NCAA required information, send group texts to the student athletes by team or to all. It also has a customized feature that offers a private portal to submit any concerns that a student-athlete would like to be addressed anonymously. You have a Senior Associate Athletic Director in charge of monitoring this system. In October of the academic year this Senior Associate has a meeting with you and discloses that there have been several student athletes from your womens lacrosse team submitting concerns regarding treatment of them from their head coach. One of the student-athletes stated in her on-line comments that she came to their Sport Administrator (that is in charge of working with womens lacrosse) and told them of their concerns regarding the treatment by the coach to her and several of her teammates in a face to face meeting in the summer. She asked that her meeting be anonymous to begin with and the Sport Administrator agreed. She continued in her on-line comments to state that the coach referred to being loyal and increased individual meetings with team members when school started this fall. She was a starter and now is no longer receiving playing time. Practice has become harder and yelling at the team. Coach pulls certain team members aside to speak and leaves others out. The other team members in their on-line comments say related items and speak of derogatory statements by the head coach. They state that even the Assistant Coaches dont quite know what to do and are trying to make the team feel better at times with positive statements. One student athlete stated that the head coach brought her into his office to ask how she was feeling regarding her concussion and then stated that she looked just fine to him. Think about the different departments that may be involved. You have one student that came forward in person and others that reported anonymously on-line. You have a senior staff member that oversees that sport and knew of the comments in the summer. Why didnt the sport administrator let you know about this situation in the summer? Now, you have another Senior Staff member that was informed of what is going on by managing the on-line system and now knows the other senior staff members knowledge of this situation earlier. Why has the coach increased his team meetings and intensity at practice? Should he ask a student athlete about their injury? Talk about how you as the athletic director should precede and why.

this is what I Have

If I was the Athletic Director, I would take these concerns very seriously and start looking into the situation right away because the safety and well-being of the student athletes must come first at all times. Since there were multiple players that reported similar problems about the head coach, this does not seem like a misunderstanding or one person being upset. I would first save and document all of the online reports that were sent, then I would set up a meeting with Title IX office, human resources and university legal staff to make sure we follow the correct process. This is important because these types of complaints about unfair treatment, retaliation, and rude and harmful comments can become a much bigger issue and can become legal and compliance issues. I would also meet with the Sports Administrator to ask why the concerns shared with her during the summer were not brought to my attention in the summer when it happened. Leaders are responsible for reporting problems that come to them not keeping them quiet. During the investigation I would make sure my student athletes are safe and feel protected. By doing that I would have someone go sit in the practices or I would temporarily remove the coach from the team activities if needed. This is very important because if players are afraid of getting less playing time for speaking up that could be considered retaliation. I would also talk with the sports medicine staff about the concussion comment the coach made because only medical professionals should decide if an athlete is healthy enough to play, not the coach. Overall, I would move forward carefully and fairly because being an AD means creating a safe and respectful environment where athletes feel heard and valued. While I’m doing that, I have to also make sure my staff members are treated fairly during the review process while also being held accountable.

feel free to add things or take them out