If I remember right, that player was known to talk about how he never wanted to have to go back to that neighborhood. If that's correct (and who knows if it is) then the implication is pretty obvious. Using the players own fears of having to go back home as a motivational tactic to work harder. Again tho, who knows if that part of the story was true.
Keith Murphy's interview with Chris Doyle
- Thread starter MikeyLikesIowa
- Start date
It seems like there was definitely some old white out of touch dude going in. The rumor is some white players had issues with that too. Pretty much every white kid with long hair.
I remember years ago I used to say I swear Kirk is racist. If there was ever a position competition between the talented black player and the hard working white player that couldn't keep up, it was always the white player that won the starting spot. Obviously that's not true, but it sure seemed that way. But truthfully tho, there are plenty of schools in the country where "black culture" is the perfect fit. There's also plenty of black kids around who fit in perfectly well with "white culture". So if one school wants to have the white culture way, it probably shouldn't be a big deal. Especially when the whole premise of white culture and black culture is kinda bs anyway.
Not disagreeing with anything, just adding some other info. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa had an external review fairly recently, and one of the glaring findings was that many minority students found the campus/community to be unwelcoming. Not insinuating that this in any way exonerates Doyle or anyone else on the FB staff, just pointing out that the rest of the campus has some work to do, as well.
I feel tension between 2 different ideas:
1) There is bias built into our various institutions that make it more difficult for some people to get ahead, and we all have our own personal biases that can make it difficult to understand others on a personal-level. Things like DEI programs were developed to address these issues.
2) Overemphasis on an "oppressor-oppressed" framework creates a victim-mentality that might not really be solving any problem.
Broad over-generalization coming: It seems like much of the DEI push is coming from white liberals who are well-meaning, but ultimately get hung up on semantics and academic theory, and don't necessarily do much to dismantle the systemic barriers which are the main problem. For example, I'm pretty sure it was white people that decided that Latino should instead be "Latinx" to avoid being sexist, while less than 5% of US residents of Hispanic-descent actually use the term Latinx. I think it is pushback to some of this forced, but ultimately not useful, DEI stuff that is driving some Hispanic and Black men toward the less politically correct political party (to be fair, both of those demographics still overwhelming support Democrats, but there has been movement since 2020).
I think everyone should work to become more culturally sensitive, and I think as a society we should work to identify and dismantle systemic barriers. But I also think we sometimes go too far in centering victimhood, and that we focus on relatively meaningless things like words, instead of more important things like policies.
No solutions to be offered here, just explaining some of the challenges I have when trying to think about topics like this.
edit: @Fryowa , this post got pretty far afield, doesn't have anything to do with the Doyle situation...feel free to delete it if you think it best
1) There is bias built into our various institutions that make it more difficult for some people to get ahead, and we all have our own personal biases that can make it difficult to understand others on a personal-level. Things like DEI programs were developed to address these issues.
2) Overemphasis on an "oppressor-oppressed" framework creates a victim-mentality that might not really be solving any problem.
Broad over-generalization coming: It seems like much of the DEI push is coming from white liberals who are well-meaning, but ultimately get hung up on semantics and academic theory, and don't necessarily do much to dismantle the systemic barriers which are the main problem. For example, I'm pretty sure it was white people that decided that Latino should instead be "Latinx" to avoid being sexist, while less than 5% of US residents of Hispanic-descent actually use the term Latinx. I think it is pushback to some of this forced, but ultimately not useful, DEI stuff that is driving some Hispanic and Black men toward the less politically correct political party (to be fair, both of those demographics still overwhelming support Democrats, but there has been movement since 2020).
I think everyone should work to become more culturally sensitive, and I think as a society we should work to identify and dismantle systemic barriers. But I also think we sometimes go too far in centering victimhood, and that we focus on relatively meaningless things like words, instead of more important things like policies.
No solutions to be offered here, just explaining some of the challenges I have when trying to think about topics like this.
edit: @Fryowa , this post got pretty far afield, doesn't have anything to do with the Doyle situation...feel free to delete it if you think it best
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Good post.
guffus
Well-Known Member
Interesting that almost nobody has brought up the old Rhabdo controversy that also involved coach Doyle. Maybe it's so old news that it's all considered water under the bridge now. But that was a case where somebody could have gotten fired and Kirk and the administration decided to support Doyle.
But you got to wonder if that old Rhabdo controversy was a factor in the back of Kirk's mind when the racial thing came uo. Doyle already had a history of pushing players too hard at times. Maybe deep down Kirk knew this, which is why he did not back him when the racial thing came up. Again I guess this supports the theory that Doyle got fired more for being an A-hole than bring a racist.
But you got to wonder if that old Rhabdo controversy was a factor in the back of Kirk's mind when the racial thing came uo. Doyle already had a history of pushing players too hard at times. Maybe deep down Kirk knew this, which is why he did not back him when the racial thing came up. Again I guess this supports the theory that Doyle got fired more for being an A-hole than bring a racist.
To be fair, you could do a random review of students who aren't minorities and many would find the campus unwelcoming too. That goes for any campus. Feeling unwelcomed is a natural feeling a lot of people live with. Especially young people who aren't comfortable in their own skin yet.
That rhabdo deal was weird. To push people that hard in workouts your whole career and not have a single documented case, and then one workout gets that many. Pretty sure they did that workout every 4 years so every student had to do it at least once. There's gotta be a missing variable there. I'm curious what it was.
SwirlinLingerie
Well-Known Member
That's fine, but that wasn't the finding in the Husch Blackwell report. The black student athletes reported generally positive experiences in the community and on campus. In contrast to the experiences in the football building.
RobHowe
Administrator
https://www.hawkeyenation.com/news/...cle_35488733-7ff4-55eb-a2b3-6dae2746783e.html
www.espn.com
Questioning The Iowa Way: Black players speak out on program's racial inequities
Last month, dozens of current and former Iowa football players spoke up about culture problems in the program, primarily centered on the treatment of Black athletes.
In the case-report over this issue, it was noted that previous times this workout had been used, it was either immediately post-season (2007), or during week 15 of a 21 week training block (2004). In 2011 with the rhabdo incident, it was immediately after a 3-week break (first workout of the spring block), meaning athletes were relatively deconditioned.
I have also heard that instead of prescribing as 50% of current max (1RM goes down during the season), load was prescribed as 50% of pre-season max (this is not reported in the case-report). Indeed, there was an association between load as % of body weight and likelihood of the athlete experiencing rhabdo (heavier load = more likely) in this case study.
In short, it seems like the workout was structured to punish more so than to achieve any particular useful adaptation. There was also an association between athletes who were clearly struggling (required more total sets to reach 100 reps, required more time, reported that they did not think they could complete the task) and risk of rhabdo. It is fair to expect that a reasonable and prudent coach would be able to recognize those signs of extreme fatigue and modify the workout for these individuals, unless of course the purpose was not physiological, but rather psychological.
I think there can be a place of "mental toughness" training in S&C, but this seems to have been taken to the extreme, as the results indicate.
Good info, thanks.
