Beloved Coach Charged With DUI: How to Explain It When Mentors Do Wrong
On Friday night, when the Haverford High School football team take the field for a playoff game, their coach, Joseph Gallagher, 59, a hall of fame coach for the team for 23 years, won’t be standing on the sidelines, clipboard in hand.
Gallagher’s story unfolded a week ago when he was involved in a hit-and-run accident. Gallagher, who was recently inducted into the Delaware County Chapter of the Pennsylvania Hall of Fame, was pulled over by officers in a nearby Pennsylvania town and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, reckless driving, and fleeing the scene. He’s been scheduled for a preliminary hearing on December 15th.
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It’s one thing when celebrities behave badly — but what happens when a person teens know (and revere) do wrong?
“This is a particularly difficult situation,” Joshua C. Klapow, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist and associate professor of public health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham tells Yahoo Parenting. “Teens often see their coaches as better than their parents so when a coach falls from grace the impact can be that much more devastating.”
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This may also be the first time the players or the team as a whole will see their coach as a flawed person. “For a lot of these kids, this is a fall from grace,” Klabow adds. “This is a loss of innocence, not because kids aren’t exposed to drunk driving but because of who this person is. For some on the team, the coach is put up on a higher pedestal than even their parents.”
As a parent, your best bet is to gauge your teenager’s reaction and support his feelings.
“There will be a host of reactions to this incident, from anger to confusion,” Klabow says. “Your goal is to follow your teen’s lead. Don’t try to steer him to see things differently or urge him to see the other side.”
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In addition, keep the conversation focused on the facts, says Carl Grody, LISW, a family counselor in Worthington, Ohio. “It’s okay to say that the coach was arrested for DUI, but resist the impulse to force this learning opportunity down your child’s throat.”
Don’t speculate about motives or what might’ve happened, either.
“This only confuses the situation and leads your teen to think it’s okay to speculate with others,” Grody says.
And, whatever you do, avoid “all or nothing” thinking when you discuss the coach and what he did. “Obviously, drinking and driving is a bad choice, and the coach could’ve really hurt someone, but making a mistake doesn’t negate the good that he’s done for your child and others,” Grody says. “Emphasizing that one bad choice doesn’t make the coach a bad person, helps with forgiveness, and helps your child manage his confusion. After all, he probably sees the coach as a good person and someone he respects, which means that he has to reconcile his opinion with the reality of a DUI. That, in itself, might take a while.”
When an admired coach does something questionable, you’ll want to take the time to help your teen process the event and how it has altered your child’s admiration for this “hero.” Here, Janet Lehman, MSW, a long-time family therapist in Westbrook, Maine, offers her four tips:
1. Discuss what makes a hero. Touch on that person’s accomplishments, courage and grace under pressure.
2. Identify the things a hero wouldn’t do. Talk directly about that person’s deceitful, abusive, violent or unethical behavior.
3: Listen to your teen. Let your teen describe and define the behavior and how it makes him or her feel.
4. Humanize the behavior. Nobody is 100 percent perfect or evil. Explain that people have many shades of grey and can rise or fall again based on decisions and accountability.
