Coaches say punishments different if HC violations are known

I've seen some talk on social media this morning about how the coaching staff is angry about social media leaks because when people know about HC violations they have to be punished differently than if no one knows about it.



I have 2 major problems with this idea.



1. If the honor code office, or coaches, or administration or anyone feels that they need to punish athletes more severely than a regular student for a publicly known HC violation, then that is wrong. Punishments should be the same.



2. If the coaching staff, administration, or HC office feel like they can cover up or not punish athletes as long as no one outside of them finds out about it, then that is wrong. Punishments should be the same regardless of who knows about it.

Does it have anything to do with them being athletes though? This is a big jump but there's hundreds of Kate Kelly's out there. It's the one that is public and embarrassed the church that got ex'd. The others are still church going card carrying Mormons.



One did something and is hurting themselves and a few others. The other is hurting themselves and the churches public image.



Just a thought. There's no right way to handle HC issues in the eyes of the world.



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Interesting thought, but the public Kate Kelly is actively leading others astray by being public. The woman sitting in relief society quietly thinking to herself that she deserves the Priesthood is not. So their transgressions are different.

To my knowledge there isn't a set violation->punishment for all honor code violations. Everything is evaluated on a case-by-case basis. The resolution will vary depending on the nature of the violation, remorse/desire for resolution, the type of church discipline/legal discipline involved (if applicable), the offender's history, the extent of the impact of the infraction, etc. If it is a public spectacle vs. a private indiscretion it is probably more difficult for those in charge to deal with and may remove some options on a path forward.



I think a better example is the Rancharito's brawl. Was there much option on how to deal with that issue since the video was picked up by local news media and well publicized?

hawkwing wrote:
Interesting thought, but the public Kate Kelly is actively leading others astray by being public. The woman sitting in relief society quietly thinking to herself that she deserves the Priesthood is not. So their transgressions are different.

That's right, Hawk. Kate was in our Ward in VA where I'm now in the bishopric. She was a friend. Her disciplinary action wasn't the result of having a privately held belief, but actively persuading large groups of people to adopt a doctrine that was not held by the church.



And fwiw, I don't think that the woman sitting in RS thinking that she should have the priesthood is transgressing. But that's beyond this thread.



More on topic, where an infraction is public (including by a public person), it becomes more difficult to handle the response privately. Doing so brings up allegations of having a double standard. It's a tough line to tow. I can totally see why the coaching staff would be upset by public disclosure of private infractions because it affects how they have to tactfully deal with a personal, delicate situation. I don't begrudge their grumbling.

CrimsonCoug wrote:

Interesting thought, but the public Kate Kelly is actively leading others astray by being public. The woman sitting in relief society quietly thinking to herself that she deserves the Priesthood is not. So their transgressions are different.

That's right, Hawk. Kate was in our Ward in VA where I'm now in the bishopric. She was a friend. Her disciplinary action wasn't the result of having a privately held belief, but actively persuading large groups of people to adopt a doctrine that was not held by the church.



And fwiw, I don't think that the woman sitting in RS thinking that she should have the priesthood is transgressing. But that's beyond this thread.



More on topic, where an infraction is public (including by a public person), it becomes more difficult to handle the response privately. Doing so brings up allegations of having a double standard. It's a tough line to tow. I can totally see why the coaching staff would be upset by public disclosure of private infractions because it affects how they have to tactfully deal with a personal, delicate situation. I don't begrudge their grumbling.

I agree with you in regards to the woman in relief society may not be transgressing. I considered changing that in my original post.



In regards to punishments, I don't think they should change whether it's public knowledge or not. I do believe that punishments can be mitigated by circumstances so if I guy drinks and drives and gets a different punishment from another guy who does, I'm okay with that, but if he was going to get one punishment or no punishment and then it becomes public knowledge so the punishment changes, that's where I have a problem.

My wife and I have had this sort of discussion before. It makes perfect sense to me that publicly known indiscretions should be handled differently from private ones, but my wife feels the opposite.



Let's get all Book of Mormony. In Alma 39 when Alma the younger is talking to Corianton about the Harlot Isabel, in verse 11 after he talked about how bad the sexual sin is he adds "how great iniquity ye brough upon the Zoramites; for when they saw your conduct they would not believe in my words."



It seems to me like he is saying it is bad to fool around, extra bad if people know about it.

Isola wrote:
My wife and I have had this sort of discussion before. It makes perfect sense to me that publicly known indiscretions should be handled differently from private ones, but my wife feels the opposite.



Let's get all Book of Mormony. In Alma 39 when Alma the younger is talking to Corianton about the Harlot Isabel, in verse 11 after he talked about how bad the sexual sin is he adds "how great iniquity ye brough upon the Zoramites; for when they saw your conduct they would not believe in my words."



It seems to me like he is saying it is bad to fool around, extra bad if people know about it.

Alma's problem with Corianton wasn't just that people knew about it, but that they also knew that he was Alma's son. The combination of transgression x public knowledge x representative of Alma and the Lord = hypocrisy that discredited Alma's message. There is additional accountability for that, I think. When you represent, you've got to represent.

If you represent the church, the punishment is almost always harsher for a given sin than if you were some unknown schmuck. And like it or not, BYU athletes represent the church.



Now that's a high bar for young men barely out of their teens away from home for the first time in their lives who just want to play sports. Which is why the coaches and the HC office would love to have no publicity so that they can handle things as mercifully and as discretely as possible with these young men (and women) at such a tender age. But once the transgression has become publicly known, they are almost forced to apply the stricter standard.



Like it or not, them's the rules.

Notoriety of the offense is not the only factor, but it is an aggravating factor when how to deal with these issues is considered. Like it or not, part of the process is protecting the image of the institution, as well as helping the person move beyond their past issues. I can see why the coaching staff would prefer it if the fans helped keep players indiscretions from becoming publicized while they worked through the issues with them. Not everyone is going to agree that enough was done to fix the issue, so not publicizing it avoids that kind of unnecessary Monday morning QBing of how the situation was handled. It also makes it more difficult to recruit kids when they know any slip up will be shouted from the roof tops.

Whats going to cause a problem though is if BYU reverts back to LaVell era days of punishments being a "try not to do that again" talking to, and then afterwards the information comes out, because like it or not we live in an age where every person in America has access to a national outlet and will tell anything they know for the chance to be an insider.



BYU will look much worse if they don't punish guys for drinking/sex/etc. and it later comes out than if they punished them the same whether it was publicly known or not.

I didn't mean to imply those thinking they should have the priesthood were transgressing. Just trying to show the difference between public and private.



On my mission in Montana everyone was pretty relaxed and low key in regards to religion. Rarely were we treated poorly except in one small town where a high profile city leader that also held a high ranking church position (for lack of a better word) messed up big time. It was like an entirely different experience in that tiny town as a missionary than anywhere else. The people treated us much worse than what I saw in every other place.



To his credit that individual had continued to attend church in hopes to be rebaptized someday but it's been years and he was still waiting for it when i knew him. It was a sad situation.



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There is no question that punishments for honor code violations are more severe for athletes than other students. It is a straight up fact that I have observed multiple times in the last few years.

Rant...



There is certainly a double standard. An athlete violates the HC and it becomes public knowledge and they're basically used as an example. Given the "celebrity" nature of the athlete, BYU can't have known violators getting off easy as the common student will use it as an excuse to also violate the HC - "Mr. Athlete had sex and didn't get kicked out. I can have sex too." While it may not be done deliberately (I tend to think it is), public HC violations by athletes are used to keep the student body in line. They have to "show" they are enforcing the HC.



Sadly, the attitude exists among the student body too that if someone breaks the HC they need to be punished. There must be consequences! I'm keeping the HC, not fair that they get to break it and get off easy. There are thousands of students that want to be at BYU and would keep the HC, and we're letting this HC violator attend? It's all rhetoric I heard plenty of times while at BYU. Even away from BYU, I've heard members say, "Oh good. Serves them right. Glad they got kicked out of school." :bug:



Sometimes I get the feeling BYU punishes athletes more severely to feed the mob's demand for justice. "Justice can not be robbed," is often used along with the whole Corianton thing. I like to point out the other Alma. When Alma the younger was going around actively preaching against his father and directly leading hundreds if not thousands of people away, his father didn't hang it over his head. His father prayed for him and rejoiced in his son's repentance. Alma the younger, truly repented, then went about fixing his mistakes. IMO, that's what we should be striving for - not worrying about what the neighbors think. BYU and Church are preoccupied with the appearance of perfection, worrying about what others think.



There should be no difference. And, BYU can set a good example of what it means to be Christ-like, what it means to be merciful by not handing out harsher punishments just because someone is an athlete. The whole idea of an athlete representing the church more and therefore must have a greater punishment is awful and a good way to keep athletes away from attending BYU. People make mistakes.



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I was mad that Davies got booted. Cost BYU dearly. It was even an old-ish sin.

Regardless it is what it is.

But to the OP, Hawk are you criticizing your precious President Bronco?

Cougs_Rule wrote:
I was mad that Davies got booted. Cost BYU dearly. It was even an old-ish sin.

Regardless it is what it is.

But to the OP, Hawk are you criticizing your precious President Bronco?

I'm not sure statements like this help foster the open dialogue we're shooting for.



The only thing I'm criticizing is anyone who would cover up a violation of team rules.

I hate the Honor Code. I wish it would die. If there was a "Don't have sex or alcohol" rule I would love that. But the idea of turning everyone else into NARCs against their fellow classmates absolutely HAS to have spill over into church. (People sticking their nose into other people's business that doesn't belong there).



It's unhealthy behavior, honestly. And the fact that it is encouraged is a pretty stupid thing. The reporting people for sexual violations thing really gets to me (not the reporting underage drinking. I mean, that is against the law - as it stands now).

Gunk wrote:
When Alma the younger was going around actively preaching against his father and directly leading hundreds if not thousands of people away, his father didn't hang it over his head. His father prayed for him and rejoiced in his son's repentance. Alma the younger, truly repented, then went about fixing his mistakes.

I love the Alma story. My favorite in the Book of Mormon. If he had made any other decision he was about to be destroyed. As it was Alma was made a very public example of repentance.

Brayden Green wrote:
I hate the Honor Code. I wish it would die. If there was a "Don't have sex or alcohol" rule I would love that. But the idea of turning everyone else into NARCs against their fellow classmates absolutely HAS to have spill over into church.

Actually, that's not the problem here. If the people who are aware of a transgression only reported it to those in authority, we wouldn't be having this conversation. The situation would be handled quietly in private with the best interests of the person in the forefront. BYU and the church have no more interest in seeing a young person's reputation ruined than the person who made the mistake.



But unfortunately some people who see or hear a bit of juicy gossip about an athlete just can't help themselves. Instead of just quietly informing the powers-that-be about it, they feel compelled to blab it all over social media. Now the transgression is public knowledge, and now the interests of the institution has to be taken in consideration in what discipline is meted out. Unfortunately for the athlete, that generally means it now has to be harsher than the quiet, private discipline would have been.

Marking Time wrote:

I hate the Honor Code. I wish it would die. If there was a "Don't have sex or alcohol" rule I would love that. But the idea of turning everyone else into NARCs against their fellow classmates absolutely HAS to have spill over into church.

Actually, that's not the problem here. If the people who are aware of a transgression only reported it to those in authority, we wouldn't be having this conversation. The situation would be handled quietly in private with the best interests of the person in the forefront. BYU and the church have no more interest in seeing a young person's reputation ruined than the person who made the mistake.



But unfortunately some people who see or hear a bit of juicy gossip about an athlete just can't help themselves. Instead of just quietly informing the powers-that-be about it, they feel compelled to blab it all over social media. Now the transgression is public knowledge, and now the interests of the institution has to be taken in consideration in what discipline is meted out. Unfortunately for the athlete, that generally means it now has to be harsher than the quiet, private discipline would have been.

Sure, but at the very root of the honor code is a "tell on the people around you unless you want to get drug into it" atmosphere, and it is unhealthy. We shouldn't be surprised that the problem extends outside current BYU attendees, when that attitude is clearly expressed and enforced.



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