Seventeen known allegations have been made again University of Victoria’s (UVic) rowing coach. Four formal complaints, including one from the assistant coach have made. Barney Williams, UVic’s women’s rowing coach has been under investigation as alumni call for action and a past athlete sues. Yet he is still coaching.
He allegedly pressured athletes to train through injury, created toxic competition between teammates, and mentally and verbally abused athletes.
As the first investigation UVic conducted does not follow a policy for abuse within sport or coach and athlete relations, many alumni are asking for a second investigation to occur.
Positive deviance can be bad in sport as many athletes and coaches will overconform to the sport ethic. As sport ethic can encourage the idea of “no pain, no gain” and pushes athletes to put their wellbeing on the line to win, overconformity to the sport ethic especially by coaches will only harm athletes.
The coach was allegedly forcing athletes to train when injured and publicly berated and pressured athletes to practice when ill. As UVic athletes speak out about the abuse from their coach, UVic both metaphorically and physically add insult to injury by standing by and not properly conducting a review.
Both the coach and UVic’s Associate Director of Sport, furthered the toxic culture that sport ethic can create as they silenced the athletes who came forward when they were experiencing the dark side of sport culture. As they cover up the conduct review without thoroughly looking into the allegations, this promotes the normalization that bodies are machines and that performance is above health.
M.S.
Sport, Not Games ⚽ 