By Staff
Coaching Management, 13.3, March 2005, http://www.momentummedia.com/articles/cm/cm1303/bbconductcode.htm
It’s widely accepted that codes of conduct are a good idea for high school athletic programs—and most schools have one. But how much autonomy should coaches have in setting their own team policies? The Cedarburg (Wis.) School District recently grappled with this question after a clash between the athletic department’s policy and a head coach’s team rules landed the district in court.
Former Cedarburg Head Boys’ Basketball Coach Ben Siebert had set a strict rule for his players: Anyone caught drinking alcohol was off the team. But when several players were dismissed for violating that rule last year, parents complained that it was inconsistent with the athletic department’s code of conduct, which stated that the penalty for a student’s first drinking offense was only a one-game suspension. They felt that Siebert’s zero-tolerance approach held basketball players to a different, and therefore unfair, standard for out-of-school behavior.
All basketball players and their parents had signed agreements before the season acknowledging that they understood team policies, and the students who were dismissed admitted that they had broken the coach’s no drinking rule. Nonetheless, parents of two of the athletes filed a notice of claim (the precursor to a lawsuit) against the school, claiming that Siebert’s enforcement of the team policy had led to "emotional distress" for their sons. That litigation has since been dropped, but concerns over Siebert’s zero-tolerance policy were central in the school board’s decision to not renew his coaching contract.
The controversy raises a broader issue for high school coaches: Should individual team rules be allowed to trump athletic department policy? The Cedarburg school board clearly didn’t think so, and in July it adopted a uniform disciplinary code for all the school’s athletic teams to follow. No separate team rules are allowed on matters addressed by the new code, which covers student-athlete misbehavior away from their sport. Coaches may still lay down their own disciplinary policies on internal matters like punctuality and practice attendance.
In retrospect, Siebert agrees that creating higher expectations for players, despite good intentions, can be problematic. "I set high standards for the student-athletes on my team," he said in a written statement after learning that he was not being retained as head coach. "The events surrounding this season have convinced me that a single athletic code for all student-athletes would be the best course of action."
Daryl Herrick, Superintendent of the Cedarburg school district, says the situation illustrates the importance of frequently reviewing any policies that apply to student behavior. "It was very obvious to the school board that the codes were inconsistent, and that simply wasn’t fair," he says.