I am sure that by now, everyone has heard about Joe Paterno and the on-going allegations of his involvement in the Jerry Sandusky child molestation scandal.  Still on-going, at least as a topic of discussion, is the year long suspension of New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton for his involvement in a bounty program that in short, paid players for knocking other players out of the game.  Not too far removed from these two headlines was the resignation of Jim Tressel as the head football coach at Ohio State University stemming from inappropriate NCAA activity by him and his players.

I will be the first to admit that as a fan of both college and professional footbal, I have been a fan of all three of these men.  In fact, I have the three books shown in this post on my bookshelf.  I do not write this post to make judgement on any one of these men.  First of all, that is not my job to do.  Second, the media has already done a pretty good job of that on their own.

I have heard more than once that:

“Your priorities may change but your values never will” 

I have always believed this to be relatively true.  The circumstances around these three men have caused me to question that belief.  After following these coaches for years and reading their stories, I have no doubt that their original core values were solid and I believe that they represented and lived those values for the majority of their careers and positively influenced, and in the case of Tressel and Payton still do, thousands of college kids, adult men and countless fans around the country.

So what happened along the way?  Again I am not passing judgment against any of these men, but something changed that allowed them to somehow compromise what they believed in.  Based on the evidence provided, some believe that there were intentional actions that go well beyond what would be accepted by someone on their positions.  In other cases, it may be the case of not doing enough or turning a blind eye to what was going on.  Either way, to me anyway, there was a change in the value system that they had built their careers and reputations on.

In my opinion, they allowed the value that they were putting on the field get in the way of the values they held off the field.

After much consideration on this idea of changing values, I have come to the conclusion that our values do not change.  However, we can allow the demands of producing results get in the way of what we believe and how we behave.  Our value system must be protected, possibly more than anything else that represents our character.

Our value system is the foundation that we are built on.  If we let that foundation become compromised, the building will begin to fail.  I look at the circumstances around these three men and can come to no other conclusion that somewhere along the way, their value systems were compromised.

That being said, I believe that we all fall victim to this type of behavior.  The only difference between them and myself is that they are in the media spotlight and thus live under a microscope for everyone to see.

My challenge to you in writing this is that you take a moment to review your value system and consider whether or not you are living in a way that represents the values you believe in.  We all fall short in trying to be everything we would like to be, but an occasional “check up from the neck up” may allow us to stay more in tune with how we would like to represent ourselves to others.

Consider that your personal value system represents your brand.  Would you be willing to buy what you are selling?

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Barry Smith   www.buildingwhatmatters.com   7/20/12