Broadly, morals help us determine what’s right and wrong. Morals often help support or generate the structure of codes of conduct in sports, guiding athletes, professionals, and staffers with information on how to produce and maintain healthy environments. However, when one code, rule, or widely accepted principle is violated, it sets the tone and precedent that “following the rules” is optional. And when the mutual trust, respect, and understanding of “following the rules” is broken, chaos often ensues. Our society is built on systems of trust and subsequent consequences – employers trust us to work; otherwise, you don’t get paid, and if you break the law, you assume the legal implications. This communal trust is crucial in sports to engender a safe environment for all, a culture where athletes don’t have to worry about misbehavior impacting their physical and mental well-being and can focus on the joys and goals of their athletic pursuits/endeavors.
However, in athletics, we see moral exceptionalism happening far too often. Moral exceptionalism is when someone is exempt from following moral standards. We see this happen with elite athletes who seem to possess a certain unique prowess that may be deemed superior or valuable. The “rules” then don’t apply to them – authoritative figures look the other way and excuse bad behavior because their talent, appeal, and results overshadow their wrongdoing. This is a problematic pattern and phenomenon because it sets the tone for injustice, erases trust, and undermines accountability. When applied to an institution, for example, in sports, if a governing body for an organization deems that a certain action is inexcusable, it is their responsibility to enforce that principle so that all members of this body are held accountable on a consistent, moral basis. Suppose they were to let a few athletes who violated rules still participate and who are potentially ongoing perpetrators. Practicing moral exceptionalism sends the message that the organization tolerates (and therefore encourages) bad behavior and injustice. Without consequences for bad actors, there is a steep diminishing of the organization’s trust to uphold standards. Furthermore, the organization in this example would be hypocritical because it fails to lead by corruptly weakening the overall accountability of its members. In essence, publicly stated morals must be followed, or none at all; otherwise, there is no point in having them in the first place.
We can see moral exceptionalism in practice with the case of hockey player Trevor Connelly. Last month Connelly was drafted 19th overall in the 2024 NHL Entry Draft by the Las Vegas Golden Knights (VGK). However, Connelly’s skills on the ice should have lent him a much better draft selection, but his history as a perpetrator of abuse worsened his standing, and yet he was still selected (in the first round). In 2022, Connelly posted to Snapchat a swastika with one of his teammates in the background of the vulgarity. Since that incident, he was removed from his team. But, this is not the first instance of Connelly being removed from a team. During his junior hockey stay, Connelly jumped from team to team four times, each time he was questioned about abuse.
Parents have accused Connelly on numerous occasions of punching teammates, slew-footing (tripping) them, and slashing them during practice with the blade of his stick. In addition, he was known for bullying less-skilled or smaller-in-stature teammates in the locker room. While physical violence is not unusual in the sport, repeated bullying and antisemitic remarks are extremely uncharacteristic of youth hockey on the whole. As of last month, Connelly has denied any wrongdoing except for the swastika incident because all other allegations were made on a verbal basis, and therefore have no “tangible proof.” However, repeated allegations of physical abuse (less than 5% of abuse allegations are false) and bullying across multiple teams reveal a pattern of misbehavior that extends beyond immaturity. It also highlights systemic failure in the form of passive permission and complacency via athletic organizations. Overall, allowing a player to be drafted in the NHL first round who has a history of alleged physical abuse and antisemitism is extremely problematic because it implies that other perpetrators of abuse are welcome and encouraged to play professional ice hockey without consequences.
This issue of moral exceptionalism in athletics is not exclusive to ice hockey. Recently, a Dutch convicted child rapist, Steven van de Velde, was named to compete in this year’s Summer Olympics in Paris for beach volleyball. While this athlete did his time in prison for four years and apologized for “the biggest mistake of [his] life,” there is still a question about recidivism. Sexual offenders, in particular, are 10-15% more likely to be repeat offenders after five years have passed, with the rate increasing as time passes. Despite Dutch beach volleyball officials acknowledging his past, they still have allowed him to participate in the highest echelon of the sport even though he is more likely than the average non-sexual offending person to engage in sexual crimes. Dutch beach volleyball and the Olympic trial selection have fallen short in this regard because giving van de Velde the ‘privilege’ to play sets a precedent that questions the moral authority of the Olympic trial selection and invalidates the trust players have ascertained in world championship sports.
Athletes are not the only ones subject to moral exceptionalism. Such is the case of the women’s former head coach of basketball at Texas Southern University, Cynthia Cooper-Dyke. Cooper-Dyke was the head coach of women’s basketball for over ten years at various institutions and is a current Hall of Famer. Being a former 2x MVP of the WNBA, her skills on the court have extended to strong collegiate performances as a coach. However, her coaching style was alleged to include inappropriate sexual language with players, belittlement, and weight-shaming, to name a few. Despite these decade-long allegations, she continued to coach at many institutions until resigning before a Title IX hearing at TSU. Players from multiple universities allege this conduct of “mental and emotional terror,” yet she maintained employment because of her history of being terrific on the court. While she has since resigned from coaching, her abuse being tolerated for a decade is problematic because she’s an authority figure. This means that athletes under her supervision could understand that this misbehavior is a symbol of mastery and may be perpetuated into the future, which should never be acceptable.
To protect our athletes and our sports, teams must hold their players accountable and administrate a general code of conduct with a zero-tolerance policy. This code of conduct should be easy to follow and enforce. Letting a few players perpetuate misconduct opens the door for more to follow and sets a precedent that ignores the basic moral compass all teams must uphold. No one wants an unhealthy environment in sports, life, or any context. We need to change our laxity in practicing moral exceptionalism, placing a higher value on performance over morals into the strict and universal following of codes of conduct to solve this cultural problem.
David Cope
DU Student
