OT: PJ Fleck now under fire for toxic culture
Former Players, Staff Reveal Troubling Allegations of Toxic Culture Under P.J. Fleck
It's a long piece, worth reading. The snippet below isn't really the most important part, just the one I found most ridiculous.
Over the last month, Front Office Sports interviewed several former players and staff members about Fleck’s six seasons as the Gophers’ head coach. They described an environment fraught with intimidation and toxicity and referenced the “Fleck Bank” — a system that allowed players with enough “coins” to get away with positive drug tests, and other violations of team rules.
[...]
Dan Nichol, Minnesota’s head football strength and conditioning coach who followed Fleck over from Western Michigan and interned at Iowa under disgraced strength coach Chris Doyle, gathered the team together after Fleck was hired, one of the former players said. The instruction was simple: Clap whenever Fleck entered the locker room.
“We had to [practice giving Fleck ovations] multiple times — the first time, because some other people in the back were not moving as quick as he wanted,” a third player told FOS.
Two other former players said that Fleck would reenter a room if he didn’t like the ovation he received.
There are only so many boats to row before HR is gonna step in.
He might find himself up shit creek without a paddle soon......
Making shit-flecks?
now i've got ween's "up shit's creek with a turd for a paddle" line in my head
What the fuck is Front Office Sports. May be true but wait for some legit reporting
But tune in for media day Thursday. Good timing!
I heard from Back Door Sports this is true.
This is one guy i would love to see roast. He is so full of himself.
The ovation story is believable based on how PJ carries himself.
Kim Jong Fleck
Pim Jong Fleck*
Former brother-in-law hated Fleck. He must be laughing now.
Because he got away from your sister?
I always thought PJ Fleck came off as an insufferable try hard, whether it’s the shirt & tie on the sidelines every game, running from one side of the field to the other at the end of quarters, or overusing his “Row the boat!” moniker. I imagine playing for him would be like working in one of those failing startups where the founder has a cult of personality where you’re required to drink the koolaid of the annoying company culture, use gimmicky mottos/monikers, “our company is like a FAMILY”, and have ping pong tables/bean bag chairs & useless benefits to distract you from the fact they’re severely underpaying you.
This is so my former company.
In other words, Brian Kelly lite?
Only because he didn't get anyone killed. That we're aware of.
Bean bag chairs on the sidelines! Great idea.
Who would've thought that Fleck had narcissistic tendencies?
I know right? I'm just as shocked as you are!
Absolutely nothing shocking about this ovation story. PJ Fleck is all about PJ Fleck.
I'm wondering if this will be an ongoing theme all season (and possibly beyond) with accusations of toxic football cultures across the country. The complete shitshow at Northwestern may have opened some floodgates.
I mean, I like watching football, but I always assumed that a degree of cultural toxicity was part of the appeal for those who participated. A head coach demanding applause and being an egotistical asshole is neither terribly surprising, nor really harmful to anyone's physical or psychological wellbeing.
You're correct--football doesn't attract America's best humans. The demanding applause stuff, however, is completely over the top. There's a difference between a program led by an egotistical coach and one led by the leader of a cult. This sounds a lot like the latter--the cult of PJ Fleck.
This one sounds like whining. I have no doubt you could find dissatisfied players and coaches in any program, including Michigan’s. Is Fleck promoting community service a negative? The fact is that he’s brought Minnesota much more success than they had before he arrived. Fleck is 35-23. His predecessors: Jerry Kill, 29-29; Tim Brewster, 15-30; Glen Mason, 64-57.
The best response yet 👍
Fleck is a good coach and there seems to be far more players happy to play for him than not.
But did he buy burgers for anyone?
NCAA's ears just perked up. Asking the real questions!
This is one thing asshat Tucker will never be caught doing. He would take 5 recruits out, order 5 hamburgers, then the recruits would sit and watch him eat all 5.
This guy NCAA investigates.
Row row row your boat, gently down the stream... merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, football is but a dream.
I'm probably going to get downvoted to oblivion for this dissenting opinion since people can't seem to see past their dislike for PJ Fleck's "style," but other than (perhaps) the part about circumventing punishment for minor street drugs if you've accumulated enough points, I found nothing in this article particularly troubling or rising to the level of "a cult" or "abusive".
Every program in the country has weird mantras and does call-and-response things like the "I'm Elite" thing. Yes, maybe PJ Fleck, in taking a page from a "visionary CEO playbook" does more of these but that's also . . . fine? Similarly every team has one former player who felt the culture was toxic or they were rushed back from injury. Michigan has MANY.
This whole thing seems like a giant nothing-burger even if PJ Fleck is quite douchey. Where's the beef?
This is exactly what I got out of this column as well.
And as if right on CUE as soon as jclay mentioned "beef", LOL!
I found the ovation part weird at best. I'd say it's cultish. The slope from there to toxic positivity is pretty slippery.
It's definitely not a thing I would implement as a leader but I worked for a company where we stood up when the CEO walked in for our weekly executive meeting. (He also had weird demands like we needed to know our company values and be able to recite them on command.)
Again, not my personal style, but it hardly rises to the level of being a fireable offense. At the risk of being a terrible bore, I think calling something like this "a cult" or "toxic" is an insult to people who are actually in cults or abusive situations. This is a weird attempt at team/respect/enthusiasm building; it's not worthy of handwringing. People acquainting this to what happened at Northwestern are way out of line.
Reading it, I’m not entirely sure that it wasn’t just to just generate enthusiasm. My son’s football team gathers before every practice and claps until they reach the noise level acceptable to the coaches.
Everybody needs their outrage all the time. It doesn’t sound like PJ Fleck has cultivated a “toxic culture” or that Blake Corum put on a “shitshow” at a camp. Neither of these things seem true.
I’ve always hated that in sports, if you need to cheer to get hype for practice or games you are doing something wrong. I guess some people don’t have the inner fire to compete. It’s just weird to me like hype=playing well….never understood it.
There is absolutely something to it from a team perspective. I look at Michigan during the Amazon All or Nothing season. Individual players were hype/focused/ready, but as a team that locker room was dead as shit and it showed on the field.
Minnesota went from a tire fire to undefeated and Top 10 team in 2 years. Now it doesn’t look like it is really going to have staying power but he certainly woke some people up.
That’s due to culture, not cheerleading….
Company values via the Boy Scouts: trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, clean...
You’re beating up a straw man here. I see no one here equating this with Northwestern’s hazing or calling it a fireable offense. Just people calling him an egomaniac asshole. A former WMU player I talked to pretty much said this awhile ago.
Yea, I despise Fleck, but this article is a hit-piece nothing burger. He acts like a douche and gives leeway to players who do community service. Who cares? It's slightly embarrassing for him, that's it.
Spot on. Every program has a few disgruntled players and employees.
People forget how the NCAA learned about Harbaugh's burgers.
Serious question, how did they learn about it?
Funny other than northwestern and Minnesota, not hearing it from any other B1G team
Not going to downvote, but there is talk of ignoring injuries, or encouraging the injured to get back in play before medical approval. And Toradol injections.
His prickish clap-his-boat clown show…whatever. But abusing players with injuries…well that isn’t like some hamburger-class felony, but it is bad.
I don't like the guy but it's pretty unfair to take shots at someone off the record. Barring criminal activity with harmful repercussions, say it and stand behind it or don't say it at all.
Fleck is a very good coach and would be a good hire when Harbaugh leaves after this season.