"Fixing the mess": A grounded theory of a men's basketball coaching staff's suffering as a result of academic corruption

Individuals who are appointed the responsibility of managing a sport program following an instance of academic corruption endure various forms of harm that warrants investigation. Extending from our empirical study of the University of Minnesota's incidence of academic corruption (Kihl, Richardson, & Campisi, 2008), this article provides an associated grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) of suffering that conceptualizes how a newly hired coaching staff is impacted. Using a grounded theory methodology, it was theorized that academic corruption causes a coaching staff to suffer four main consequences: sanctions, stakeholder separation, reform policies, and managing multiple roles. These consequences lead to various harmful outcomes (e.g., distrust, dysfunctional relationships, anger, stress, and conflict). The results are compared with existing research that assisted in the generation of a theory of suffering. This theory adds to our knowledge about the challenges a coaching staff experiences when administrating an intercollegiate basketball program during postcorruption.