Organizational Silencing of Subordinates and Its Implications: A Communicative Look at the NCAA

Undergraduate Honors Thesis

Citations

Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/cj82k843z

Abstract

NCAA athletes are placed at the bottom of a hierarchy that renders them incredibly vulnerable to abuse by superiors who misuse their power. In the NCAA environment, superiors are more likely to misuse their power because of the pressure that surrounds their position. Athletes need the system in which they participate in their sport to allow them to report misuse of power and have something done about it. As it stands, NCAA programs can easily brush off claims made by athletes and continue to silence them through their hierarchical structure. Many of the resources currently available to athletes either have a conflict of interest with the institution that the athlete is a part of or are unaware of the reality of the environment an athlete is a part of. Interviews were conducted with current and former NCAA athletes and coaches to gain an understanding of how resources available to athletes could help them learn how to evade harm and demand change. This study found that a third party non profit organization could be a good resource for NCAA athletes because they would not have a conflict of interest with the institution, they could be around the program enough to understand the reality of the environment, and they could help the athletes build a collective voice to advocate for change in the organization.

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