Athletic directors typically oversee all aspects of the sports program, including hiring coaches, planning, budget and facilities management. In addition, the athletic director has to mediate any disputes between athletes and coaches or personally between coaches. The responsibility to resolve conflicts both outside and within the ward college athletic team is one of the primary responsibilities, yet it may also cause a wide range of problems.
A College of Saint Rose athletic director, Sean Baker, has been in this position for six years, and he has faced some problems. Since the athletic director is in charge of budget planning, he also allocates money for sports equipment and pays for the sports team’s participation in competitions (Mulcahy & Stewart, 2020). It is important to note that the members of the sports team can directly influence the sports director’s decisions (Gurney et al., 2017).
The budget planning challenge faced by this director was that he planned to spend the team’s monthly budget on buying new equipment, and the team members wanted to spend the money on participating in competitions. To solve this problem, the director gathered the team together and held a meeting. At this meeting, he explained to the athletes that it could lead to injuries if new equipment were not purchased. After hearing the convincing arguments, the team agreed to his decision. I would have done the same in this situation, considering the director’s decision to be rational. My moral values influence the perception of the situation, and this particular decision is consistent not only with my moral values, which is why I agree with him but also with the principles of building trusted communication.
References
Gurney, G., Lopiano, D., & Zimbalist, A. (2017). Unwinding Madness: What Went Wrong with College Sports—and How to Fix It. Brookings Institution Press.
Mulcahy, R., & Stewart, R. (2020). After Rutgers, and Leading Issues for NCAA Sports. In Mulcahy, R. E. (Ed.), An Athletic Director’s Story and the Future of College Sports in America (pp. 150-186). Rutgers University Press.