Locker-rooms can be fun-filled, vicious places

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/02/2015 (3866 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At its best, a professional locker-room is an insulated haven of brotherhood and camaraderie, free from the scrutiny, judgment, and prying eyes of the outside world. At its worst — as many first came to learn from the unearthing of interactions between Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin of the Miami Dolphins — it can also be a vicious and vile place where careers can be broken and charges laid.

With so many moving parts, so many different backgrounds, beliefs and sensitivities, these groupings of mainly Type A personality alpha males are literally an amusement park of study for social psychologists. There are examples of “herd mentalities,” demonstrations of predatory behaviour, and “bystander effect” scenarios, to name but a few of the phenomena that run rampant behind closed doors.

In the case of the Winnipeg Jets, the dominos that fell will most likely result in a player never donning a jersey for them again. But what we know is both possibly everything and nothing. What was leaked may be an outline of the situation, but it is more likely fraught with errors and half-truths. It should be noted the last time a player was actually completely open and forthright with the media about internal conflict was right around the time Howie Meeker hockey sticks were best sellers. Even if a player does give a reasonable facsimile of the truth, it is still based only on one interpretation and opinion.

One fact that cannot be disputed, though, is conflict in locker-rooms, be it pro football, pro hockey, or collegiate women’s volleyball, is inevitable. Players not liking other players is a reality that will never change, but how they deal with it can. With 20 years of collegiate and professional locker-room experience, I can assure you the smoothest and easiest blueprint for team unity is winning more often than losing. Many organizations grasp at the silver lining of having, “a great locker-room,” in the midst of a terrible year, but it stands to reason if you have a bunch of happy and contented losers on your team, you also don’t have the right tools to accomplish anything other than that.

If you’ve been around any locker-room environment long enough you’ve probably been witness to, been party to, or a recipient of any number of pranks, hazing, or full-on physical hostilities. How you interpret it is how you label it.

It seems, though, as you mature and the testosterone and exuberance of youth gets watered down with perspective, you begin to see these actions for what they really are. When you are caught up in the moment as a young athlete, you sometimes don’t recognize the nature of the behaviour that is unfolding.

Many years ago, many of us might have dismissed taping someone to a goalpost as harmless amusement, oblivious to the fact it was actually a blatant form of bullying. Or we may have found the antics and pranks of the ever mischievous “phantom,” as a hilarious form of corrective therapy, until you realize passive aggression of this nature is defined as, “a form of attack that is intrinsically cowardly, conflict-avoidant, and is customarily utilized by weaker parties who feel they are unable to win in direct and overt confrontation.” (taken from the Alpha Game Blog). Many of these situations are more an indictment of the involved parties than the actual intended target. The “phantom” was the name given to any number of players in the NFL and CFL who secretly messed with non-compliant rookies, so there wouldn’t be a direct channel of retribution.

There is no manual or agreed-upon set of instructions for conflict resolution in the locker-room, where emotions and tempers run higher than most regular workplaces. The best or the worst of intentions can result in unimagined and unintended consequences for individuals, teams and seasons. All things considered, it seems the best approach for a “leader” to take if he or she feels someone is missing the big picture, is simply one of direct confrontation. If it escalates into hostilities, at least it usually closes the conflict almost as quickly as it began.

As old as the more famous proverb “What happens in Las Vegas…” is the code that what happens in the locker-room stays in the locker-room. This is often helpful to teams because it allows players and coaches to work through situations with one another without having to worry about being tried and convicted by the court of media and public opinion, and in the case of the Jets and Evander Kane, you can’t help but wonder how this might have dramatically altered the outcome.

Of course, locker-room actions of a felonious nature should most definitely not be, “handled internally,” but you have to wonder whether this scenario could have been more successfully mediated if the public and the media had not become privy to it.

 

Doug Brown, once a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears Tuesdays in the Free Press.

Twitter: @DougBrown97

Do you look back on your locker-room days and regret any behaviour? Join the conversation in the comments below.