What Happened to the Oak Brook Outlaws

What has happened to the Oak Brook Outlaws?  In 2011, Larry Gould took over the reins of the Oak Brook Outlaws 13U travel team.  He brought with him his very talented son, Lucas Gould, who had no experience playing with children in the same age group as he.  In the past, Lucas played with the older kids and despite his size, he more often proved to be one of the better talents on the field.  Joining an organization that had been the ridicule of the West Suburban Baseball League (WSBL), Larry set out to create an elite travel team that would contend for national titles.  His first step was to dismiss all of the former players with the exception of four; adding Lucas he had a suitable core. 

Larry’s next step was to partner with coaches, Brad Rosely and Stan Damaskis, who had experience in the WSBL.  Brad brought his son Jake, a left handed pitcher who was just slightly younger than the others but despite the worries of his maturity, his arm had promise.  Next came Eddy – a rough, hard core, “My best against your best – smash mouth” typed guy who had a lot of connections with the inner city kids on Chicago’s North side.  Eddy was an umpire and coached the little league 12 year old team at Horner Park – one of the two largest baseball programs on the North side. Larry, taking it upon himself, to grant scholarships to four players won Eddy’s connection privileges and signed three of who were arguably the best five 12 year olds from Horner Park.  These were Isaih Paul-Emile – the son of a deceased Haitian father and an old school Puerto Rican mother of three talented sons; Scott Capis – a kid with an IQ that is through the roof and a dad who missed his calling as a professional baseball talent scout; and Jabari Morris – a kid who had been victimized with divorce and nasty custody battles and had to travel four hours both ways on public transportation from Maywood, Illinois to get to and from Horner Park each day. 

Next came the tryouts which yielded Andrew Rosol – a tall lanky kid with a dynamite arm; Matthew Pizur – a kid with fast hands at third base and a strong arm across the diamond; and Armando Lara – the son of a Michigan middle linebacker who looked every bit like the next Brian Urlacher.  With the team assembled, Larry Gould transitioned a 6 – 30 team from 2010 to a 56 – 17 wonder that won four tournaments and placed second in the Omaha College World Series Travel team Tournament .  They added an additional player who was also from Horner Park.  Justin Vivar found himself in limbo when the Frozen Ropes Spartans broke up in mid-season.  Justin is a big left handed pitcher with a dominating fast ball.  It appeared that he was just what the Outlaws needed to get over the hump and become a truly elite team.

At the season’s end, Jake Damaskis, Reed, and Andrew parted ways as they moved into High School.  Jabari, although not available until the high school baseball season ends remained with the team.  Armando searched for greener pastures leaving Larry with the task of replacing four talented players.  The first to join was Nathaniel Segura who left Top Tier to unite with some old Horner Park friends.  Now, Larry’s team was nearly half filled with inner city talent.  Nathaniel – a catcher with a remarkable pop time, strong arm and great hitting power also provided the Outlaws with an upgrade in their number two pitcher.  With Nathaniel, the future looked promising, but the bottom seemed to fall from under Larry’s feet when he was unable to sign three of his top four prospects and settled for two one star players.

With Jabari in high school, Larry is missing his lead-off batter, number one threat on the bases, and gold glove centerfielder.  To make matters worse, Nathaniel was injured with a dislocated thumb that puts him out for six weeks and Lucas leaves for a ten day trip to Israel with his eight-grade class.  He knows that there are better days ahead, but the pain of waiting out the storm has a team that was made to win troubled about the improved competition in the WSBL, the cold bats, the inability to move runners, and the defensive holes. 

Baseball has changed

Baseball was a sport that kids played for fun.  They use to meet in the middle of the street.  The sewer cover was home, a brick was first base, a potato chip bag with a couple rocks was second and the fire hydrant was third. When the neighbor’s window was broken, everyone ran and nobody told who did it.  The first organized team I played for was my mother’s sixteen inch softball team with all the neighborhood kids – girls and boys – playing against the kids in another neighborhood.  At 10 years old I played on my first little league team – the coach had bats, our pants were pulled up and we wore sox under our baseball sox.   We had to bat with the Louisville Slugger label facing the umpire – yeah, we all swung the wood and no one had batting gloves.  The kids who did not play much rolled in the dirt because they did not want to go home with a clean uniform and the team from the other dugout sang “Go back… Go back… Go back to the woods.  Your team ain’t got no talent and your coach ain’t no good.” “Rally rally the pitcher’s name is Sally.”

We did not cry when the team taunted us, we merely taunted back.  We would sit on the bench and cry when we lost.  We did not have batting coaches, but somehow we knew that if we cocked the bat back and put “our bodies” into the swing, the ball would go further.  We learned the rules of the game from watching Monday Night Baseball. We lived in Chicago and we all knew that Steve Garvey was at first base for the Dodgers; Rick Monday was at second, Davey Lopes at short stop, and Ron Cey was at third base.  We knew that Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, and Dave Conception for the Reds would give the Dodgers a hell of a run.  The cubs Ivan DeJesus and Manny Trio were great at double plays.

Today, the kids do not sing and if they do, they cannot refer to their opponents by name, number, or position.  The coaches do not supply bats.  Every player has his own personal bat that costs between $150 and $300.  Some players like my own son has a bat for fast pitchers and a heavier bat for slower ones. I remember my mom yelling about the $40 registration fee, but now I pay $1,500.  The fields are better and if there is no homerun fence, the kids feel like they are on a crappy field.  Umpires are certified, coaches are certified, leagues are certified.  We have a kid who is bigger than the others and his dad is forced to carry birth certificates in the event that someone raises issue.  The game that we use to play is now a job – a prerequisite for high school baseball.  York high school has an A and a B team made of all travel team players.  As a result there are the Elmhurst Electric, Elmhurst Extreme, Elmhurst Elite and more that I forget to mention by name. 

There is discussion about the dearth of African American players in the MLB but seldom do I hear about the play of baseball in the African American communities.  African Americans are slow to pay the fees and sometimes cannot afford them.  No matter how much some families try, it is very difficult and sometimes impossible to keep up with the Joneses.  Batting lessons are $45 per half hour.  Cage rentals are $30 per hour.  Police stop the kids and confiscate their baseball bats when they go – own their own to the park.  The price for a baseball bag is more than a basketball so I can understand why by the basketball.

The unfortunate thing is that over 1,000 players are drafted each year by MLB teams and African American players are disproportionately included.  The irony is that 40 years ago this would have been a comment on the racism in America – now it’s about the failure in the black community.

USC and Marianne Stanley

Executive Abstract

There is conflict between the head coach of the girls’ basketball team and the university’s decision to offer her a contracted salary that is not equal in revenue to the male coach of the boys’ basketball team.  This presents an ethical dilemma as to the subject of equality, freedom to offer market value, the equality of responsibility and demands, as well as the importance of an individual to an athletic program.  A close analysis at the total structure of an athletic program should shed light on the real problem that may not have equality as an issue for ethical discussion. 

Apparent Problem

The apparent problem is Marianne Stanley is unhappy with the pay discrepancy between the female coaching job and the male coaching job for the University of Southern California’s basketball teams.  The University does not support paying the female coach the same as the male coach due to discrepancy in the economic contributions between both teams. 

Analysis

What worked well for the University of Southern California is that it had an athletic program that worked as a well-oiled machine.  The girls’ basketball team won three consecutive national championships.  As it is common knowledge, an athletic program of a university is composed of an athletic director, compliance staff, scouts, head coaches and assistant coaches.  In order for it to run successfully, there must be a talented group of athletes, a supportive administration composed of the university president and staff as well as student support and the support of spectators.  When all of these elements are cohesive, the machine, known here as the athletic program, works successfully.  What failed to work well with USC is that the cohesiveness has been damaged from the dissatisfaction of Stanley over the offer of $88,000 that would cap out at $100,000. 

            In order for to determine if the choice to offer Stanley less than her counterpart, George Raveling, was an ethical decision, attention should be drawn to the coaches’ roles as it relates to the support that the program gives in order to produce the desired result and the coaches’ successful reciprocation.  According to a study by McGill University, successful coaches have common components to their leadership.  These are Individual growth, organizational skills, coach’s attributes, and vision (Vallee & Bloom, 2005 ). Individual growth occurs from a combination of life skills and empowerment both are awarded to the coach from the school and the opportunity these skills are developed through trial and error, coaching clinics, interviews and advice from other coaches and athletic department staff.  In other words, the compliance department shares knowledge with the coach on NCAA rules so that the coach can strategically recruit without violation of rules.  This knowledge and experience causes personal growth that makes the coach a better coach. The coach possesses organizational skills that are enhanced with contributions of other coaches as space and time must be negotiated between teams.  Assistant coaches have various levels of expertise to plan and organize. The attributes are analyzed by the athletic director during the interview process and the coach is accepted as a member of the system if his or her attributes and vision are cohesive with the whole.  It is then safe to conclude that the coach does not make the athletic program, but is only a part of it. 

The coach reciprocates to the athletic program by accomplishing tasks that supports the vision of the program. According to Dasheil Bennet and ESPN insider, college women basketball does not make money.   In 2011 the Auburn University’s entire women sports program earned $64,000 total for the year while producing a 3 million dollar lost.  It is assumable that this knowledge is well known and understood by university administrators who potentially offer more to one female coach than what the entire female athletic body earns for the school.  In college, the big revenue sports are men basketball and football.  These two sports create enough revenue to support the female sports. This being the case, the question of obligation and responsibility exists.  Does the male coach of these two sports have a similar task to the female coach when it comes to recruiting the best athletes, managing those athletes in the face of possible NCAA violations due to the off court temptations, and the threat of losing athletes to the NBA. We can conclude that the job requirements for the boys basketball team and the girls’ basketball team are not completely the same and do not reciprocate to the overall athletic department in the same way.  Therefore; the job demands are different and the pay is justifiably different.

The Real Problem

The real problem is there is a lack of understanding and written descriptions underlining the difference in the two jobs.  Being that the job demands are not the same, the jobs are different.  As we are in fact comparing apples to apples, we are more like Granny Smith Apples to Washington Apples which coincidentally are not the same price in the grocery store.  In 2009, Epiphammy Prince was the first female college athlete to forego her senior year to turn pro in Europe (Bishop, 2009).  This was news in 2009 because the amount of women who did not stay in college to complete their eligibility is very few.  In fact, the draft rules for the WNBA are very stringent requiring players to be at least 22 years old, complete their college eligibility, graduated from a four-year college or to be four years removed from high school (Bishop, 2009). This compares to the NBA in that men are eligible after one year of their high school class graduation (Bishop, 20009).  With this as the case, it is noted that players like Brandon Jennings and Jeremy Tyler are guilty of leaving high school to play professionally in Europe with hopes of making their game NBA ready.  This suggests that the coach of a boys’ basketball program has to recruit more players over a course of four years than a females coach.  This also suggests that the male coach has more possible NCAA violations at his doorstep.  The responsibility and the consequences of violating these NCAA rules are much higher for the boys coach as any NCAA sanction would cause significant financial lost for the university as a whole.  With the competition for funds, the boys basketball program must be competitive against other universities when it comes to recruiting five star high school athletes.  The prestige of the program and the coach as the face of the program is important.  The likelihood that Raveling could be enticed by another program is higher than the likelihood that Stanley would be drawn away.  In fact, after Stanley’s contract expired, she had no other job offers.  Her market value was not as high as Ravelings because the demand for a female team coach is less than that of a male team coach.  This suggests that Raveling is responsible for maintain a particular public image as he is the face of the team.  All of these demands have a reciprocal effect on the athletic program. Being that these are not equally reciprocated, it is plausible that another coach with the same type of administrative support would have the same results as Stanley.  These things being considered, the real problem is that Stanley sees the female coaching job as a comparative equal to the male coaching job and the differences should be noted.

Alternatives

            Determining and evaluating the alternatives can best be done using the Seven-Stage Process of Ethical Decision Making.  This involves 1) recognizing the ethical dilemma or cause.  In this situation, the ethical dilemma is fairness and equality.  On the face of this dilemma, it appears that there is unfairness in that both coaches coach basketball at the same university and one was offered a contract at less pay.   2) Generating alternatives. Paying both coaches the same amount of money is a possible alternative.  Decreasing the male coach’s salary due to the fact that his team’s won / loss record is poor in comparison to the girls’ team seems to be another possible alternative.  Then there are the possibilities of hiring another coach, promoting an assistant who knows the system and who has a report with the current players, creating a contract for more pay with clear definitions of responsibilities that equal the stressful demands of the male team coach. 

            The third step involves an evaluation of the alternatives.  From a deontological point of view, there is no law mandating equal pay in this situation and as we recognize that the demands are different for the male coach, the totality of equal pay is in serious question.  From a teleological point of view, if equal pay was given, the male coach would more than likely become insulted and demand more money.  Furthermore, the female assistant coaches would justifiably demand an increase and the athletic program machine will become ineffective.  From an existential point of view, giving equal pay goes has the potential to limit choices as it sets a precedence that must be maintained in the conversation of equal pay from other female coaches i.e, baseball versus softball.  4) Selection of the ideal solution.  In this situation, the ideal solution is for Stanley to accept the $88,000 and make it grow to the cap of $100,000 as her coaching vision undoubtedly is to earn high salaries over helping children grow into successful adults.  5) Intention.  It is difficult to know Stanley’s intention; however we can use her body of work to make inferences.  She is a competitor and she wants to win at all cost.  As for the administrators, their intent is to follow their mission statement and their vision while at the same time, support the revenue sports without damaging their contributions to the university.  It appears that the University of Southern California intends to protect its freedom to offer market value to a coach for the contributions to the university without setting any precedence that would lead to future legal issues.

Recommendations

Using stage six and seven, it is advantageous to recommend that the University stick with its guns and protect its right to offer market value to the head coach of the girls’ basketball team.  This is ethical in that the two jobs are not completely the same as defined by their demands.  These demands come from outside forces as well as inside forces.  The demands may create higher stress levels for the Raveling than for Stanley.  In doing so, USC should offer the position of head coach to an assistant as such a choice benefits all involved.  An assistant coach has report with the players as well as the athletic program support structures.  It is plausible that another coach receiving identical support from the athletic program baring similarities to the former coach would be equally successful in won / lose percentages.  The coaching job should be well explained in writing and it should discuss various demands and define terms so that the real problem would not exist at the end of the new coach’s contract. 

Work Cited

Bennett, D. (April 5, 2011).  Business Insider. There Isn’t A Single Women’s College Basketball

Program That Makes Money.  http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-04-05/sports/30039309_1_program-revenue-national-championship-game

Bishop, G. (June 17, 2009).  New York Times. Rutgers Basketball Star to Turn Pro In

            Europe.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/sports/ncaabasketball/17ncaa.html?

            _r=1

Malloy,D., Ross, S., Zakus, D. (2003). Sport Ethics. Thompson Educational Publishing Inc.

 p.107 - 112

Vallee, C., Bloom, A. (September, 1, 2005) Journal of Applied Sports Psychology. Building a

Successful University Sports Program: key and common elements of expert coaches  http://sportpsych.mcgill.ca/pdf/publications/Building_a_Successful_Program_2005.pdf