The Problem with Kings and Queens

I've been reading more about this scandal of abusing football* players at NU. Stewart Mandel in The Athletic writes about how Pat Fitzgerald was "king" of Northwestern football, turning down offers to coach at Michigan and in the NFL. 

Therein lies the problem: Fitzgerald was the king, and the problem with kings and queens is that their power is unchecked. They can say and do whatever they want. They aren't accountable. As Mandel says,

No one questions them. No one scrutinizes them. It’s not hard to see how such a toxic culture could have gone on undetected for years. And yet, the investigators said that “there had been significant opportunities (for the coaches) to discover and report the hazing conduct.”

One of the best lines from the article came from the comments from Dan K.:

I always love the concept that a football or basketball coach has intimate knowledge about every detail of every aspect of their program, but never knows about the bad stuff.

We can hope that our kings and queens will be benevolent, but we are at a loss when they are not. 

Fortunately, Fitzgerald wasn't a real king, and he could be disposed, but not after the hazing situation got grossly out of hand. His royal status allow this problem to grow without anyone checking it. He could have stopped this behavior. He was in charge. He could have pulled scholarships on kids who abused other kids. He could have had an open door and open ear policy with his players and coaches, where he listened to their concerns. 

Hazing is a sticky issue, because I'm guessing it doesn't start out as hazing, but rather evolved from teasing and testing other players into abuse. The abused kids might have put with with low teasing that then evolved into harassment. At what point do kids who have been bullied stand up? 

The very nature of kinds and queens is that we don't stand up to them. Literally, we bow. It takes courage to stand up and speak truth to power. 

As awful as this situation is, the behavior has been called out, and now the abuse can stop. The interim will be painful, but in the end we can hopefully have a safer system.

* The baseball coach was abusing players, too.