ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews, through the lens of a systemic model, how the role of coaches in culture creation can generate unintended consequences of violence from a seemingly peaceful and idyllic public veneer. In New Zealand, a sports psychologist blamed rugby and cricket coaches for allowing violent reprisals in games to become a part of tradition by encouraging the practice. The chapter uses Edgar Schein's three-level model as a theoretical framework with which to analyze and explain a culture that received a lot of news coverage in late 2011 and early 2012—Pennsylvania State University (PSU). These three-level models include artifacts, espoused beliefs and values, and basic underlying assumptions. The chapter includes the fact that the author never was physically on the PSU campus nor talked directly with anyone associated with the dysfunctional case. The public face of the football program and the university was that of integrity and honor but the reality of the disaster suggests something much less than that.
