A Public Volleyball Shaming

I picked at a salad and occasionally glanced at the NBA playoff game unfolding silently on television. Two men in their 30s sat a table away to my right, drinking beers. A Bible rested between them. I made it out to be a pastor counseling a parishioner. The parishioner looked distraught, stressed.

Naturally I eavesdropped, being a former preacher’s kid and all that.

What unfolded was not what I expected, because I do have expectations for these kind of Christian conversations and have now learned not to have them anymore. I’m never too old to learn. Let me die quietly when I am.

The man’s story went something like this: The man was a volunteer junior high volleyball coach for an elite club team in a nearby rich suburban city. His daughter was on the team and one of the star players. The team was highly successful and traveled all around Oregon for tournaments. A father of one of the other players who was not a star confronted the coach about his daughter’s lack of court time. It became heated, verbally. The coach had set up a text message system for the players and parents to notify about practices and travel logistics. A message was sent to the entire group from the aggrieved father’s phone number that said something to the effect that,“every girl on the team knows the coach gets a hard on during practice and it’s sick and creepy.” The text got forwarded around the community and then picked up by other social media platforms. The coach’s life blew up but his wife and daughter were rock solid in their support because they knew it was untrue and they knew the back story. What really hurt the man, he told his pastor, was that none of the parents (or players) replied to the text group to rebut the charges. A few adults had come up to him privately and offered him support and that was it. He had since quit coaching, something he truly loved, and was in crisis about his belief in humanity. He wasn’t angry with the parent who made the false (and legally slanderous) claim and never confronted him. That wasn’t his way. He forgave him but was struggling with his faith and people’s perceptions of him in the community. Some of his friends had dropped him without a word. His daughter was semi ostracized at school. He and his wife thought about moving, but would that really change anything in the age of the Internet? The pastor listened and didn’t offer the usual bromides you might hear on Christian television. He did tell him he had been presented with a unique opportunity to bear witness and it was his choice how to react—with love or hate or somewhere in between.

The man’s calm bearing impressed me. He clearly wanted to understand what had happened to him and why so many people he knew well, including players he coached with tremendous heart, had abandoned him. Is this what people are really all about today? I’m not like that as a person. What about the Golden Rule?

As the man told his story, I wrote on a piece of notebook paper the name of a book I thought might help him navigate his crisis: So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson. I’d read it after my public shaming (stoning) and found it incredibly helpful in understanding why deeply disturbed people throw digital stones or cheer on the throwing. It’s really nothing new in American culture, but it’s been transformed into the speed of light and is basically eternal because of the algorithms of search engines and all that stuff. I know all about it.

This public shaming wasn’t the whole of his crisis, but it had obviously ripped him and his family up, but not apart. He was grateful for that.

My salad wilted as I listened and nervousness gripped me. Should I give the man the paper? I didn’t know about intervening in their conversation. I would have to admit to eavesdropping and perhaps that wouldn’t sit well. It felt like this moment called for an act of kindness from me, in public, with a perfect stranger in distress. Perhaps the act would be rebuffed or met with indifference. One never knows. You simply must act and see where it goes. Sometimes it goes nowhere.

I would act. That’s who I am these days and it’s not about the story anymore.

It was time to leave. I stood up, gathered my things into my backpack, and walked over to the man. I was shaking a bit.

This is what I recall saying to him: I don’t mean to interrupt but I couldn’t help overhearing your story. I went through something similar, although ten times worse, and a book I read helped me understand what motivates people to jump on the online bandwagon and destroy people. The book’s on this piece of paper and perhaps you’ll check it out. I realize it’s not faith based and you’ve been talking about that and maybe a secular investigation isn’t for you, but I wanted to offer.

It wasn’t quite the monologue as presented above because the man said it was perfectly fine that I interrupted and he would check out the book. His pastor thanked me. The man thanked me and stood up and shook my hand. I touched his shoulder. Then I left, walked out into the street, and felt I might start crying. I think I did.