"So how can a board member do something so much worse and get away with who cares what he did/does in his personal life, there are no rules against it so who cares about ethics."
i don't think i disagree with anything you've written. i believe what i wrote is as follows (and i quote myself): "1. it's hard to enforce a code of conduct for athletes if we can't enforce it at the leadership level."
which sure seems to me to parallel exactly what you just wrote. i also wrote that i stand behind what USAT's board decides to do, because they're the ones tasked with the hard work.
as a matter of policy, it's just not a case of saying jack's off the board, end of story. we have to decide, as a federation, what our policy is, for board members, for staff members, for pro athletes and age group athletes. if you are convicted of spousal abuse, is that a lifetime ban from anything to do with USAT? if not lifetime, how long? what other behaviors would trigger this kind of ban? do the constituents in a region have a legitimate right to weigh in on who they want representing them?
back in 2004 lew kidder and i sat down and wrote out a lot of these kinds of things. not this specifically, just, election laws, voting regions, we rewrote about a third of USAT's bylaws. so, while people are going ballistic and tweeting all over the internet tonight that i'm in favor of wife beating, somebody, somewhere has to soberly, as an adult, actually deal with this issue and others like it.
what jack did was something i could never conceive of doing. but it happened. what is my proper response? not yours, but mine. not to this as a matter of USAT or triathlon policy, but, just as a person. as i wrote above, my first concern is jack's wife. my second concern - and if this causes you to cancel your subscription to slowtwitch i'll refund your dues - is that jack heals just as esther heals, and that jack becomes or remains the husband esther deserves.
i don't consider this a binary choice, that if i abhor domestic violence i must abhor the person guilty of it. this is separate from my view of whether jack should remain on the board. i just don't consider the board issue the most important issue at the moment, for me, just, personally. i also don't consider the board issue a decision i have to make; rather, we elect a board, it's an able board, and - again, as i stated a couple of times - i'm not going to criticize them for what they've done in the past nor for what they'll decide in the future regarding jack weiss. they have a tough job and i salute them for doing it.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
i don't think i disagree with anything you've written. i believe what i wrote is as follows (and i quote myself): "1. it's hard to enforce a code of conduct for athletes if we can't enforce it at the leadership level."
which sure seems to me to parallel exactly what you just wrote. i also wrote that i stand behind what USAT's board decides to do, because they're the ones tasked with the hard work.
as a matter of policy, it's just not a case of saying jack's off the board, end of story. we have to decide, as a federation, what our policy is, for board members, for staff members, for pro athletes and age group athletes. if you are convicted of spousal abuse, is that a lifetime ban from anything to do with USAT? if not lifetime, how long? what other behaviors would trigger this kind of ban? do the constituents in a region have a legitimate right to weigh in on who they want representing them?
back in 2004 lew kidder and i sat down and wrote out a lot of these kinds of things. not this specifically, just, election laws, voting regions, we rewrote about a third of USAT's bylaws. so, while people are going ballistic and tweeting all over the internet tonight that i'm in favor of wife beating, somebody, somewhere has to soberly, as an adult, actually deal with this issue and others like it.
what jack did was something i could never conceive of doing. but it happened. what is my proper response? not yours, but mine. not to this as a matter of USAT or triathlon policy, but, just as a person. as i wrote above, my first concern is jack's wife. my second concern - and if this causes you to cancel your subscription to slowtwitch i'll refund your dues - is that jack heals just as esther heals, and that jack becomes or remains the husband esther deserves.
i don't consider this a binary choice, that if i abhor domestic violence i must abhor the person guilty of it. this is separate from my view of whether jack should remain on the board. i just don't consider the board issue the most important issue at the moment, for me, just, personally. i also don't consider the board issue a decision i have to make; rather, we elect a board, it's an able board, and - again, as i stated a couple of times - i'm not going to criticize them for what they've done in the past nor for what they'll decide in the future regarding jack weiss. they have a tough job and i salute them for doing it.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
