Quaker Meeting House (QMH) has long been fascinated by process.
 
With that in mind, he thought he'd share the process behind the last few weeks, especially what has been happening on the Penn Athletics website and social media outlets.
 
To say it has been an extraordinary time would be an understatement, not just for Penn but for all of college athletics. We have finally reached the summer months, which is typically the time that the college sporting world takes the time to catch its collective breath after an exhausting nine-month marathon. In fact, last week QMH and his staff were constantly reminding each other that, in a non-pandemic world, they would not have been working because they would have been at their national convention. That would have been the case with many other administrators in the Division, as the various organizations all gather during the National Association of College Directors of Athletics (NACDA) convention.
 
It's a scene, all these conventions going on at one time. Only a limited number of hotels in the country can handle it. In recent years the entire thing has taken place in Orlando every other year, with one-year runs in places like Dallas and Anaheim. This year? The conventions were to take place at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. You bet QMH and the rest of the college athletics world were excited for that! But…nope. It was canceled way back in late March or early April.
 
But QMH digresses.
 
This year, the summer was simply feeling like a continuation of the spring. No games. Trying to fill the hours with rainy-day projects. Coming up with interesting ideas for social media and execute them. Vacation? Until the country is completely open, it just seemed too risky. Instead, it's been three months of working from Monday to Friday, then sitting around catching up on Netflix on the weekends. QMH won't lie, it's been nice to have a regular schedule. It's been even better wearing shorts or sweatpants every day for work. Turns out coaches have it figured out.
 
QMH spent the spring warning his staff not to go too crazy, to leave themselves things to do during the summer months. In talking with his colleagues around the city, the league and the country, similar concerns were being raised in their offices. In a business where there is famously always something else to do, people were worried that, at some point, they were going to run out of things to do.

Then George Floyd's death happened.
 
That was on Monday, May 25. Memorial Day. QMH had spent most of the day—heck, most of that weekend—thinking about how much he was missing the NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship which had been scheduled for Memorial Day Weekend at Lincoln Financial Field.
 
The rest of that shortened work week continued as they normally do at Penn and across college athletics. In fact, it wasn't until that Saturday—May 30, 2020—that everything changed.
 
Not just for QMH. Not just for Penn.
 
For all of college athletics.
 
Saturday, May 30 was the first day that nationwide protests were planned in reaction to Floyd's death. There had been scattered events prior to that, of course, primarily in Minneapolis where his death had occurred. But they were few and far between. In fact, as of that Friday you could argue that the biggest news had been a CNN reporter getting arrested while trying to do his job covering the protesters.
 
Boy, did that change on Saturday, May 30. Think about the last 20 days in this country. Twenty days. It's almost impossible to wrap your head around all that has happened, right?
 
QMH is not here to proselytize on the issues. Like he said, QMH is a process guy.
 
QMH is here to help inform you more about the decision by Penn Athletics and its programs—heck, by all of college athletics—to take a stand on a particular social issue.
 
Understand that college athletic teams and departments just don't do this. Never have. Pro athletes speaking out? Great. Have at it. On social media, college teams and college departments have always, to use a tired phrase, "stuck to sports."
 
That sentiment is not unique to social issues. At a previous stop in his career, QMH's athletic department was approached by a charitable organization wanting to set up a partnership. No thanks, said the AD. His rationale: If we partner with this charity, then where do we stop? Who are we to determine which charities are worth our time and which one aren't? He felt it was best just to stay out of it entirely.
 
That was always been the prevailing attitude toward social issues, too. Stay out of it. Are there coaches out there who speak out on social media? Sure. But usually it's about something related to college athletics, like NCAA legislation or something.
 
So you can imagine QMH's surprise when, as he came home from the peaceful protest near the Art Museum late that Saturday afternoon, he got a text from one of his assistants: One of Penn's varsity programs wanted to put out a statement about what was happening in our country. They wanted to speak out against the systemic racism in our society.
 
QMH immediately jumped on social media. No one else was doing this, right? Then he saw something from Northwestern basketball…a post of support for the CNN reporter who had been arrested; turns out he had played hoops for the Wildcats. A few minutes later, he saw a post from Harvard men's basketball coach Tommy Amaker…in support of Seth Towns, the former Ivy League Player of the Year who had been arrested during a protest in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio the day before.
 
QMH texted his assistant back. He didn't think this was a good idea. The Penn program didn't really have a dog in this fight, there was nothing to relate us to what was happening out there. Maybe they could just do something in support of the Philly protesters?
 
The assistant came back a few minutes later: this program really wants to put something out about racism and how they want to fight to end it.
 
So the QMH staff gathered on a group chat and laid out parameters for this program and any others who might want to post something. Among them…
 
*The quote had to be attributed to the coach. A program's reach is so vast, there are bound to be people who agree and lots who disagree with the stand that was being taken. So rather than making it sound like the entire program was taking this stand, the QMH staff thought it was important that the coach be willing to say, "this is what our program stands for as long as I'm the head coach."
 
*The quote had to come from the coach. The QMH staff would help to clean it up grammatically and put it on a graphic to make it look nice, but if a coach asked for us to write something for him/her to approve…nope. It had to be authentic, their words.
 
*In keeping with the authenticity, the QMH staff needed to feel the coach was doing this for the right reasons. If they were compelled to speak out because they were disgusted by what was happening, the QMH staff would drop everything to help them. If they felt the need to do it because "(Ivy rival) did something and we'll look bad to recruits if we don't"…that felt disingenuous.
 
*The QMH staff was not going to suggest to anyone, from the administration to the coaches, that they should post anything. If a coach or a team felt compelled to speak out, we trusted they would reach out to us for guidance and help with execution. But we felt it was important for the programs to speak out only because they were spurred on by what was happening, not because they felt like we thought it was a good idea.
 
Armed with that info, Saturday night and Sunday suddenly became a blur. One program became two, then three, then more. Within a few days, it felt like every program had gotten in on the act.
 
By Sunday night, the QMH staff was pivoting toward conversations about the upcoming week. There were several things planned for social media and the website, none of them related to what was happening in the world. Do you run them, at the risk of looking tone deaf? Or do you just clear the calendar, push things back, and ride the uncharted waters as long as it takes?
 
Ultimately, QMH and Social QMH made the decision to clear the calendar. It was an easy decision, made easier as the work week progressed and our programs continued to make statements and take stands. As the week wore on, programs got increasingly creative. Athletes were empowered by their coaches to create statements or videos that were sent out by the QMH staff.
 
Honestly, the hardest part of the last 20 days has been navigating the national climate. At some point, the time for talk was over and the time to "walk the walk" arrived. QMH will tell you that he had some hard conversations with coaches who wanted to put out a statement when he felt the only feedback they would get was, "this is nice…but what are you going to actually do?"
 
Fortunately, a lot of Penn's teams are having serious conversations and figuring out exactly what they are going to do. The Division is having conversations, too, including dialogue with our Black student-athletes. It hasn't been comfortable, but it has been productive; a Plan of Action is in place that will be the first steps toward making us a better Division.
 
QMH has been contemplating this post for every one of the last 20 days, and he saw today as a chance to write. Today, after all, is Juneteenth. On Tuesday, it became a holiday when the University sent out an email that said, in part, "we ask members of the Penn community to take the day off of their regular work as an opportunity to contemplate the historical significance of Juneteenth and how we can learn from our past to chart a more equitable path forward."
 
In addition to this post, you will see a lot of stuff on social media today about Juneteenth. Some of it will come from Penn Athletics. Some will come from Penn's varsity programs. A lot of discussion and work has gone into what you'll see.
 
Everything about it will be authentic. As QMH has learned over the last 20 days, that's the most important part of the process when you're speaking out about a social issue.

***
 
QMH's Required Reading: You might have missed it, but on Wednesday old friend Fran Dunphy was named the interim Director of Athletics at Temple University. He will keep warm the seat that is being left by Pat Kraft, who was recently named the AD at Boston College. Marc Narducci had a nice piece about Dunph in Thursday's Philadelphia Inquirer, and isn't afraid to ask whether or not this interim gig could become permanent at some point.