[Back In The Saddle]

Originally Posted by Corndog89

BITS

Great post! I mean that and agree with everything you say...but consider this, you're talking about dealing with behavior, which we have to deal with, while I'm talking about dealing with persons. It's on old axiom of leadership that when behavior is unacceptable, you address/deal with/fix the behavior, you don't judge the person engaged in the behavior. By treating all persons the same, you can focus on addressing behavior.

Is that being PC? I don't think so. I'm not afraid of offending people and therefore walk on eggshells, and I certainly don't try to to make people embrace my values at the expense of theirs...I just consciously try to avoid saying potentially explosive/threatening/offensive things to people that I don't know--i.e., players/coaches/parents/administrators/etc--but that I may have authority over. Do I occasionally offend people despite my precautions? Of course I do, but I deal with it and don't punish myself with angst.

Is this a silly thread as some people have said? Of course a discussion on the merits of the word "ladies" can be beat to death and become silly. But this isn't about just that word. Words mean things, which sounds obvious, but they can and do mean different things to different people. And people often react to different stimuli--in this case words--emotionally and irrationally. Put even sane, rational people in an emotional athletic arena, and you never know how they may react.

A couple years ago I was deployed to Al Udeid Air Base in the Qatar desert. The 'Deid has a very good gym and a good intramural program for the troops deployed there. As such, I officiated the intramural b-ball games while I was there. The 'Deid is not a particularly happy place, though it's not that bad either, but as you can imagine tempers can run short in such an environment. During one of the games I called, one of the players, a medical doctor assigned to the hospital there, was losing control so I told the captain of his team, another doctor, that we needed to work together to keep him from doing anything "stupid". The captain went and talked to the guy...and remember, he's a medical professional...and he went ballistic because I called him "stupid". I never did, but that's not what he heard. His perception of the situation was more real than the actual reality of the situation.

Moral of the story: I should have been more careful in my word choices to avoid such a confrontation. If I deal rationally, logically, carefully with behavior, I can more likely avoid an ugly human response. If I treat every person the same, I can keep the playing field much more level and the focus on the game where it belongs, not on differing values.

Thanks for listening to my long-winded response.

Thanks for taking the time to respond. After reading this, I think we're pretty well on the same page. However, I will give some more thought to the distinction between behavior and people you talk about. That's probably a distiction that I could be clearer about in my own mind. For my part, I make gut-level decisions about how I'm going to deal with behavior, and try to anticipate what types of behavior I may have to deal with based on my perception of what type of person I am dealing with. Of course, I'm judging "type" of person based on behavior, but I have found the another old axiom to be pretty accurate: By their fruits ye shall know them.

I agree, of course, that each person should be treated equally as far as being treated fairly but firmly, respectfully, cordially, etc. But how to deal with behavior, especially in a situation like a game, is much more of a case-by-case basis. And a significant factor in deciding how to address the behavior is the person. And this is starting to sound rather like the first paragraph all over again

I feel your pain with the "stupid" incident. I think that word has probably bitten most of us at some time In similar situations I try to use the word "unfortunate" or "regrettable" now. Not only does it avoid using the word "stupid" but subtly reinforces there being a negative consequence associated with the behavior.