Tag Archives: Norwood Teague

Gopher Athletics PR: Both Lucky and Good

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minnesota_gopher_mascot_sadIn the wake of University of Minnesota Athletic Director Norwood Teague’s resignation due to sexual harassment of University employees, the University’s PR team is getting glowing marks for the work they did on crisis communications management.

Public relations firefighters tend to get too much credit when things go well, and too much blame when things go poorly. The truth is, with any crisis there are many uncontrollable factors in play that aid or cripple even the most talented PR pros.

First They Got Lucky

The University’s PR people did plenty of things well, but they also got extremely lucky.  For instance, the harassed employees didn’t go directly to the media before the University had a chance to discover exactly what had happened, disclose, apologize and force a resignation. If the victims had told their stories a little bit at a time to the media and blindsided the University, there would have been a steady stream of  stories in which the University would have looked clueless, hapless, defensive and unresponsive to the victims.

The University was also fortunate that they had clear evidence of wrong-doing available – very graphic text messages.  This immediately gave the University the ability to swiftly secure a resignation before facing media scrutiny. Without that evidence, the University could have faced a prolonged “he said, she said” battle on the front pages, with no firm evidence available to help University leaders  bring swift closure to the University, and justice to the victims (see Clarence Thomas).

Then They Did Good Work

Having said all that, the University public relations team did seem to do many things very skillfully.

Disclosure to Closure In One Day. Unless there are more disclosures coming, the PR team seems to have dumped all of the evidence in one day. Mr. Teague has confessed, disclosed, apologized and resigned in one fell swoop. They may be pretty close to having full disclosure and closure on the same day, which is a rarity in the world of crisis communications.

This should help the University limit the number of days this horrendous story has legs. The only thing worse than a reputation-damaging story is multiple days of reputation-damaging stories, and this PR team did what they could to ensure this didn’t become a long-running soap opera.

Friday News Dump. This PR team also got the story out on a Friday. This is an tried and true crisis communications move, and it makes sense. Disclosing it on Friday, puts much of the bad news into Friday night and Saturday, when news consumption is lowest and the public is distracted for a couple of days, especially during Minnesota’s scarce summer days.

No Victim-Blaming. Importantly, the University didn’t directly or indirectly blame the victims.  In the coverage I saw, there was no partially defending Teague by mentioning that the abused employees did something to somehow encourage Teague. While this may seem like an obvious thing to avoid, many make this mistake.

No Hiding. Finally, they didn’t stay in the bunker. A lot of  proud, stubborn, and arrogant leaders refuse to talk to the media when under siege. That didn’t happen in this case. Mr. Teague spoke.  University President Eric Kaler spoke. There were no hands in cameras and no stories reporting that University officials “refused to comment,” which so often makes institutions and people appear to be defensive, secretive, bumbling and guilty.

The one part of the Friday news coverage that didn’t pass the smell test was Mr. Teague seemingly blaming all of his behavior on alcohol abuse. Teague may very well need help with alcoholism, but he also needs help learning how to respect women who clearly and repeatedly send signals that they aren’t interested. But I assume that the University public relations team can’t be blamed for that bit of weasel-speak, because I imagine Mr. Teague wrote his own statement, or at least heavily edited it.

While the University public relations team got very lucky on some big things, their handling of this crisis turned what could have been weeks of really horrible stories into fewer days of horrible stories. In crisis communications, that’s often as good as it gets.

Accomodating Coach Kill

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Jerry_Kill_on_sidelines_photo_credit_bleacherreport.com-2University of Minnesota Golden Gophers Head Football Coach Jerry Kill has epilepsy, and apparently is particularly prone to having seizures in hot and stressful situations.  It’s obviously not his fault.  But epilepsy does make it difficult to do some jobs, such as those involving live performances on hot stressful stages.  For instance, it would be difficult for someone prone to regular stress-induced seizures to be a stage actor at the Guthrie Theater.

Division I FBS college football is a big time performance with tens of thousands of screaming fans in the stadium, and millions more on TV.  Fans and commercial sponsors want an uninterrupted stream of football action.  So unfortunately, Jerry Kill has one of those careers that doesn’t fit all that well with this disease.  When Coach Kill has a seizure, it disrupts the performance that is the source of his large paycheck.  If you have a lot of seizures disrupting a lot of performances, that starts to become a legitimate issue.  The seizures also raise concerns for the elite athletes the University desperately needs to attract in order to rebuild the Gophers’ program.

Still, I hope the University doesn’t replace Jerry Kill because of this issue.  Time will tell, but Kill looks to be an effective coach for a program that desperately needs both an effective coach and coaching continuity.  But to make it work for Kill, the University may have to make an accommodation, and Kill may have to accept an adjusted role that isn’t precisely what he prefers.

Head Coach, But Not Head Sidlines Coach

Coach Kill and Gophers Athletic Director Norwood Teague should agree to a new coaching model that looks something like this:

First, give Kill the title Head Coach, and give one of his top assistants the title of Head Sidelines Coach.  Then have Head Coach Kill work in a climate controlled stadium suite during games, managing the big picture of the game, while the Head Sidelines Coach manages, with some consultation with the Head Coach, hectic stress-inducing tasks like communications with the referee, calling timeouts, challenging penalties, clock management, and real time feedback to players.

The University has every right to ask Coach Kill to do everything he can to manage his disease, and accepting a revised role like this would be one important thing he can do to manage his disease.

There would be several advantages to this kind of approach:

  • STABILIZES GAME MANAGEMENT.  First, the power-sharing arrangement would give players, potential recruits, and fans confidence that the Gophers’ game management is secure and stable.  I wish Coach Kill weren’t in this position, but game management is a legitimate concern when you have a lead game manager who has regular heat- and stress-induced seizures.  With this kind of revised role for Kill, fewer games would be disrupted.  For recruits who think to themselves “Coach Kill seems like a great guy and coach, but all of those mid-game seizures are destabilizing for this program,” this power-sharing model shows them that they can get both Jerry Kill and stable game management at the University of Minnesota.  It addresses both the real and perceived problem the Gophers program currently faces.
  • KEEPS KILL WITH THE GOPHERS.  Importantly, this plan would keep Coach Kill adding tremendous value at the University. Kill is a talented and likeable football coach who seems to be making slow, steady progress rebuilding this troubled football program.  Arguably, 90% of his contributions to the University of Minnesota football program happen  outside of the glare of the game day spotlight – in practices, game planning meetings, personnel management, recruiting visits, film study, and public appearances.  So, it makes sense to scale back the most stressful 10% of his duties in order to keep him available to deliver 90% of the value he currently brings.  If Coach Kill is regularly having seizures during games, there probably will come a time when the Gophers will reluctantly have to go with a different head coach.  That would hurt both the University and Kill, so both sides should make a proactive move to  prevent it.
  • BETTER MANAGES KILL’S HEALTH.  Most importantly, this kind of role would be better for Kill’s health.  Being in a climate controlled setting with fewer stressful game time duties would reduce the number of seizure triggers, and therefore, one would hope, the number of seizures Kill suffers.  That’s good for both the Gophers program and Kill.

It’s too simplistic for Kill supporters to say “epilepsy is a disease, therefore it’s discriminatory to judge him based on the implications of his disease.”  It’s equally simplistic to say “there’s no role for epileptics in big time college football.”  There’s a role for a talented epileptic coach like Jerry Kill, but it may not be the exact role played by other Head Coaches.  There’s a happy medium here, and I hope Teague and Kill can find it.

– Loveland