
Colin Cowherd, host of his own show on ESPN radio, spent a good portion of his program yesterday talking about Ben Roethlisberger, role modeling, and how the league (and Steelers) should handle his situation. While it was interesting to listen to Cowherd’s opinion to what should happen to Ben (Cowherd is in favor of rehabilitation), I was even more intrigued by his description of why athletes seem to be getting in so much trouble today and having so much difficulty with role modeling positive behaviors.According to Cowherd:* Most pro athletes today come from lower socioeconomic environments, compounded by often only having one parent at home to raise them* Most pro athletes were poor students in school, often devaluing academics while focusing on sports. Consequently, they simply do not have the skill set needed to make sound, responsible decisions.* Most pro athletes come into “big money” with their first pro contract — and instant fame — leaving them at-risk for risky behaviorsAs you can see from Cowherd’s theory, there certainly appears to be a “perfect storm” for many professional athletes that includes a tough upbringing, poor academics and life preparation, and a sports career that practically allows them to get away with whatever they want — all this, in theory, leads to an increase in irresponsible, illegal, and troubling behaviors. Furthermore, if you buy into Cowherd’s theory (or at least parts of it), then you are probably even more concerned about the future, as this paradigm does not appear to be changing anytime soon.So the big question for me today is why are professional sports team still lagging behind terribly when it comes to having professional counseling and support services readily available to their players?Think about this for a moment: professional athletes are the #1 investment for a professional sports franchise, and increasingly more players are getting into trouble all the time. Steroids, guns, domestic violence, violence, infidelity, and even domestic-related death are stories that have been in the news in just the last few months. As a team’s greatest asset, players off-field decisions and behaviors are directly correlated to on-field success (both winning games and driving up revenue and profits).Professional teams today need a full-time, dedicated support staff to operate proactively and design transition programs and other contemporary topical workshops for athletes to attend while working as an employee of the company. No longer can teams simply “react” when players make mistakes and succumb to athletic pressure (the elephant in the room needs to be identified!) — today’s professional sport franchises must instead face the reality that as far as pro athletes and off-field behaviors go, things are getting worse, not better. Consequently, it is imperative that teams step up and work to prevent more problems from occurring in the future – this approach better protects athletes, give fans the confidence their players will stay out of trouble, and allow franchises to increase their revenues as players as more players will remain eligible, allowing them to win more games on the field.Unfortunately, the vast majority of professional sport franchises still do not have any support services in place (as hard as that is to believe in 2010). Even for those teams who do offer programming and counseling, it is usually done by a part-time person who is not regularly visible to the players, and only really seen only during crisis situations (a “band-aid” type of approach). The result of this type of arrangement is that players do not know or relate to the person, have little trust in the system and process, and usually do not end up using any of the services.In the future, assuming professional teams want to increase revenue by winning more games, they will need to think long and hard about the costs versus benefits when it comes to having comprehensive training and counseling services in place for their athletes. Some ideas I recommend for a positive culture change to occur include:* Hire a full-time person and small supporting staff, and normalize their presence from the day a player signs a contract and becomes a member of the team. Emphasis should be placed on both the counseling and education services available to the player, especially as the player nears sports retirement.* Develop a strong introduction program for new athletes (beyond what is required by the league). This program should include a number of different components to help with both life skills and as an inoculation for when the athlete is inevitably exposed to potentially dangerous situations (i.e. social responsibility, decision making, interpersonal communication, money management, etc.)* Services should be ongoing, with new seminars on contemporary topics available to players year-round. It should be stressed by management that these services are not only for players with “problems,” but instead designed to help all players. this will help the “character” component GM’s talk about all the time, but seem to do little to develop once a player arrives.* Make private individual counseling services available to players to use without fear of being “found out”* Have a “safety net” 24/7 crisis response person ready to immediately respond to players when they do get into troubleOf course, all of this costs money, and requires some time to develop as well. These are also the types of services GM’s would like to not have to think about – much less spend money on as compared to other things. Still, I wonder what the cost is today of not doing anything??? How many more players have today have to get arrested and/or suspended before more GM’s begin to take seriously the idea of bringing in a full-time staff to become a part of their organizational culture? Rather than the window dressing of having “a person we call on when there are problems,” when will more GM’s begin to see the utility of having “an ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure?”If you are a GM reading this today, give me a call and I’ll walk you through these steps and have you up and running in no time!