Controversy
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| Wake Forest was the team whose plays were leaked during the 2016 season |
Wake
Forest University is a private co-educational liberal arts university located
in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The university was founded in 1834 and has an
undergraduate enrollment of 4,955 with a graduate enrollment of 3,013. The Wake
Forest Demon Decans compete in 18 sports in the ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference)
at the NCAA Division 1 level (Quick Facts). The school’s football team started
play in 1908, have an all-time winning percentage of .403, have won two
conference championships, and are 7 for 11 in bowl games (Wake Forest).
Tommy
Elrod started in the university’s football program as a player in 1994 and he
went on to become a graduate assistant for the program from 1999 to 2001,
served on the Wofford College coaching staff in 2002, before returning to Wake
Forest as a full on assistant coach in 2003. In 2014, when Dave Clawson was
hired as the Demon Decans’ new head coach he removed Elrod from the coaching
staff ending his 11-year run. Following his termination, Elrod began to
commentate on Wake Forest games over the radio for the IMG Radio Network and
remained an important member of the program, retaining access to practices, the
film room, and contact with players (Auerbach). On November 12, 2016 Wake
Forest lost their game to the Louisville Cardinals 44-12. After the loss, it
was discovered that Louisville had left behind information pertaining to plays
that the Demon Decans has not run before. In response to the discovery, Wake
Forest head coach Dave Clawson said the following “There was somehow a breach,
I've shared it with our athletics director and we're trying to find out what
happened. (Wolken)”. The Cardinals head coach Bobby Petrino denied any
knowledge of plays being shared and the school’s athletic director Tom Jurich
claimed that these plays were not used in any games. Following an
investigation, it was revealed that Elrod was the man behind the breach which
was dubbed “Wakeyleaks” after university officials checked e-mail, text
message, and phone records (Lowe). After it was discovered that Tommy Elrod had
been the source of the problem the university’s director of athletics Ron
Wellerman said “It’s incomprehensible that a former Wake Forest
student-athlete, graduate-assistant, full-time football coach, and current
radio analyst for the school, would betray his alma mater. (Myerberg)”
Following the accusations, Elrod couldn’t be reached for questions by the media
and his twitter account was deleted within hours of the news breaking (Lowe).
In
December of 2016 it was confirmed by Louisville that Elrod spoke with their
program’s offensive coordinator Lonnie Galloway, also a former coach from Wake
Forest, and he shared a few plays with the defensive staff. Again, these plays
were not used in any games by Wake Forest and therefore Louisville didn’t have
that sort of advantage in their game against the Demon Decans. It was also
discovered that this was not the first time that Elrod had shared plays with
the team’s opponents. He had been sharing plays, or at least attempting to
share plays, with the team’s opponents for just over two years, starting when
Clawson was hired as the program’s new head coach in 2014. Wake Forest’s
athletic department contacted both the University of Louisiana at Monroe and
the United States Military Academy’s athletic departments as they have both
been opponents of the team since Elrod was fired as a coach. No other schools
in their conference (the ACC) were contacted about receiving any plays from Elrod
(Adelson). Following the incident Tommy Elrod was terminated with Wake Forest
IMG and has been banned from all facilities. The coach that had fired Elrod
just over two seasons prior commented that “I am glad we have taken steps to
ensure it will not happen in the future. At this point, this is a matter for
Ron Wellman and others to act on. My staff and I are focused on Temple and
preparing the team for the Military Bowl. (Lowe)” Even Elrod’s former coach and
boss at Wake Forest offered the following comments in defense of Elrod. “It's
beyond incomprehensible to me, if Tommy made any mistakes, I know he didn't do
it maliciously. I was just shocked when I heard this. He certainly wouldn't
want to hurt Wake Forest. (Adelson)"
 |
| Tommy Elrod as a coach with Wake Forest |
Stakeholders
Stakeholders
are all the parties that are affected by the unethical actions that take place.
In this case, the stakeholders include the Wake Forest athletic officials such
as the athletic director, the players, and the coaches. Athletic officials,
players and coaches are affected by the case because Elrod possibly caused them
to lose games which took away from their potential to win a conference or
national title. It also shows that they are clearly not very good at keeping
confidential information secret and they and they give it to people who are no
longer working directly with the program. Other stakeholders are on the
Louisville side, this includes similar players such as school officials,
athletic officials, coaches, and of course players. These stakeholders are
affected because the case shows that Louisville has possibly cheated in winning
a game this season. The players are specifically affected because this case and
the public relations that they received for being a part of it will ride with
them for their entire careers and will impact them in their future. This
includes star quarterback and 2016 Heisman Trophy winner Lamar Jackson who is
expected to be selected in next year’s NFL draft.
Individualism
An
individualist is someone who cares more about the increase of revenues and
profits than anything else, even the well-being of the stakeholders, as long as
it’s done within the restraints of the law (Salazar 17). Although there was no
revenue directly lost due to the actions that Elrod took, eventually due how
the impression that the scenario gives the program, there will be a loss in
revenues. Therefore, individualists would have a negative opinion on Elrod’s
actions and consider them to be unethical. After the leaking of confidential
team information by Tommy Elrod, the public’s perception of the Wake Forest football
program has taken a negative blow. It’s now public knowledge that the program’s
officials have allowed former employees, who were fired from their jobs as
coaches, to be a part of typically private team activities such as practices,
video sessions, and meetings. It appears to the public as if the university’s
athletic program is not very good at keeping confidential information private
and they are not paying attention to their important game materials. This can
lead many fans and other consumers alike to believe the school doesn’t truly
care about winning games, causing them to stop purchasing tickets to games as
the contests get less and less interesting. It can only be expected that
profits will drop across the board because the image this controversy gives the
school, and how the public perceives the program. An individualist would think
that it’s good that the university’s football program has acted to make sure
that a breach of security like this will never happen again in order to prevent
further loss of profits.
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianistic
beliefs state that by looking at the consequences of an event, you can
determine the ethical significance that the event carries (DesJardins 29).
Someone with utilitarian views would consider the actions of Elrod to be
unethical, this is because it negatively effects all the stakeholders involved
in the scenario starting with the staff, coaches, and players for Wake Forest.
Also effected are the staff, coaches, and players from Louisville, and even
Tommy Elrod himself. The most effected stakeholder in this scenario is the
school’s athletic director and football staff such as the head coach because it
makes it look like they have poor security and cannot keep confidential
information private. Many of the revenues that college football programs bring
in come from outside donors and the leak of their football plays starts to
raise questions about how the program is using the money that is brought in
from donations. The leak also effects Wake Forest’s players in many ways, most
notably the players feeling as if they were kept from achieving a fair and true
win in the game because Louisville knew how they were practicing and preparing
for the game. It will also hurt any player looking to enter the NFL draft as their
draft stock could decrease because of losing all these games that the team
could have won if their plays were not leaked. On Louisville’s end their
players are affected by having this mindset on their back that the public
thinks they could have unethically won this game, Louisville’s quarterback and
2016 Heisman Trophy winner Lamar Jackson is projected to be a top pick in next
year’s NFL draft and this scandal could have an effect his draft stock. The
athletic staff at Louisville is also affected because it makes the entire
program look even worse with this piled on top of the prostitution scandal that
the school recently suffered from. It gives the athletic department an image
that they had unethically cheated to win their game against Wake Forest. Furthermore,
the actions that Elrod took then made the university look bad as the action is
now associated with the school. The last stakeholder who is negatively affected
by this is Tommy Elrod himself, who because of this scandal is now unemployed.
He also must go on with his life being known as the man who gave confidential
team information to the team’s opponents which causes him to look
untrustworthy. At the end of the day, it is unlikely that any other school or
broadcast station will hire him now because he clearly cannot be trusted.
Kantianism
 |
|
Louisville's home stadium (Papa John's Cardinal Stadium),
the location where the plays
were discovered
. |
Kant
would react to this case by saying that Tommy Elrod’s actions were unethical.
This is because he broke one of the core values of Kantianism and took away the
stakeholders’ autonomy (Salazar 17). Autonomy is one’s control over their own
actions and the freedom to choose which actions to take. Unfortunately, due to
the actions Elrod took the players, coaches, and staff at Wake Forest had
little autonomy and were cheated out of wins and overall, out of a successful
season. By judging Tommy Elrod’s behavior, we can determine what motivated him
to take these actions. When he was let go from the coaching staff by new head
coach Dave Clawson in 2014, he must have been angry that such a high tenured
coach like himself would be let go. This gave him the motivation to take
revengeful actions against the program, making the players and coaches his
victims. Elrod also violated both the formula of humanity and the formula of
universal law in relation to this case, these two formulas are part of the
framework that his work is built around. The formula of humanity says that you
should act in the way you treat humanity and not use them to get what you want
(Salazar 22). In layman terms it means to treat others with respect and to not
use others to accomplish your personal goals. Elrod violated the formula of
humanity in both ways by giving Wake Forest’s plays to their opponents. He
disrespected the players and coaches by abusing the privileges that they gave
him because of his tenure with the program. He also risked the team’s success
and reputation to get what he wanted, revenge for being fired. Elrod also
violated the formula of universal law which states that you should only act in
a way that can become a universal law (Salazar Kantian 6). A universal law is a
rule that is universally accepted as a general law for all of humanity. A
universal law that he violated was to treat all members of society fairly and
to not keep them from achieving their full potential in society. He violated
this law because he did not treat the members of the Wake Forest football
program fairly and by giving plays to their opponents kept them from achieving
their full potential on the field.
Virtue Theory
In
virtue theory, we think about who the party committing the actions is, and how
their character traits relate to the actions they committed. When new head
coach Dave Clawson came in, Elrod was relieved of his duties as an assistant
coach and then moved into the broadcast booth. Since he was fired as a coach,
Elrod’s happiness went down because he felt as if he did his job poorly. This
caused him to be disgruntled and to hold a grudge against the new coach which
caused him to give the team’s plays to their opponents. The virtues of Elrod
clearly are negative in this situation, causing him to act unethically under
virtue theory. There are four main virtues that are relevant to business
activities are courage, honesty, temperance, and justice. Elrod went against
each of these virtues by handing over confidential team information to their
opponents. He violated the courage virtue by standing and committing actions
that are morally wrong, theft. He disobeyed the honesty virtue by poorly
treating the other stakeholders such as players and coaches by preventing them
from being successful. He went against the virtue of temperance because he
didn’t have reasonable desires, he desired something that is morally wrong and
not accepted in our society. Finally, the justice virtue is violated because he
did not use fair practice in his actions, as in his actions are not right and
just (Salazar Ch5. 1).
References
Adelson,
A. (2016, December 15). Louisville denies leaked Wake Forest info had any
impact on game. Retrieved November 09, 2017, from http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/18279216/louisville-cardinals-admit-receiving-leaked-plays-prior-game-vs-wake-forest-demon-deacons
Auerbach,
N. (2016, December 14). Wake Forest leak scandal: Who is ex-radio announcer and
coach Tommy Elrod? Retrieved November 09, 2017, from
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/acc/2016/12/14/wake-forest-leak-scandal-who-ex-radio-announcer-and-coach-tommy-elrod/95426656/
DesJardins,
J. R. (2014). An introduction to business ethics. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Lowe,
K. (2016, December 13). Radio analyst and alum Tommy Elrod was the leakin'
Deacon, Wake Forest finds. Retrieved November 27, 2017, from
http://www.greensboro.com/sports/accxtra/radio-analyst-and-alum-tommy-elrod-was-the-leakin-deacon/article_d462ab77-3ec3-5254-bd04-02b1a7c04b81.html
Myerberg,
P. (2016, December 14). Wake Forest investigation reveals radio announcer
leaked game plans. Retrieved November 09, 2017, from
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/acc/2016/12/13/wake-forest-investigation-reveals-radio-announcer-tommy-elrod-leaked-game-plans/95396444/
“Quick
Facts | Undergraduate Admissions | Wake Forest University.” Undergraduate
Admissions, admissions.wfu.edu/facts/.
Salazar,
H. (n.d.). The Business Ethics Case Manual: The Authoritative Step-by-Step
Guide to Understanding and Improving the Ethics of Any Business.
Salazar,
H. (n.d.). Kantian Business Ethics.
Salazar,
H. (n.d.). 5. Business Ethics and Virtue [PDF].
Sanchez,
M. W. (2016, December 13). Wake Forest announcer was mole in game-plan scandal
twist. Retrieved November 09, 2017, from
http://nypost.com/2016/12/13/wake-forest-announcer-was-mole-in-game-plan-scandal-twist/
Tracy,
M. (2016, December 15). Despite Wake Forest Leak, Coaches' Code Is Stronger
Than Stolen X's and O's. Retrieved November 09, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/15/sports/ncaafootball/wake-forest-louisville-tommy-elrod-stolen-plays.html
Wake
Forest Demon Deacons Index. (n.d.). Retrieved November 27, 2017, from
https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/schools/wake-forest/
Wolken,
D. (2016, November 16). Wake Forest investigates whether plays leaked to or
stolen by Louisville. Retrieved November 09, 2017, from
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/acc/2016/11/16/wake-forest-dave-clawson-investigating-if-louisville-knew-game-plan/93962978/
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