When The Values Get Taxed
“Sounds like Arch needs some TeamsOfMen curriculum.”
I got that text last night round 9p.m. from a longtime friend of mine who has been in HS teaching and admin for almost three decades. He was of course referring to the situation that occurred after the University of Texas football team win over Ohio State Saturday night, when Texas HC Steve Sarkisian ended his postgame interview with sideline reporter Holly Rowe in a strange, abrupt way. In the media sessions following the game, Texas QB Arch Manning was asked about the social media edits he had seen from the weekend. Manning brought up the video above, laughed, and called it “a good one” and “hilarious.” The video was an AI creation depicting Sarkisian slapping Rowe across the face.
Multiple things are true in this case.
First, what Sarkisian did to Rowe in reality was not physically violent, but was at best weird and more accurately RUDE and DISMISSIVE.
Second, Manning’s laughter doesn’t in and of itself convey his agreement with violence against women, but it at least signals his willingness (like so many other boys and men) use laughter to move through a moment without confronting what is actually being laughed at.
And third, Manning has since apologized. He acknowledged that there was “nothing funny” about the video, apologized specifically to Rowe, and Rowe accepted that apology after the two had a private conversation. That matters, too.
There are two paths I want to take in examining this entire situation, which of course is generating national discussion (and includes the usual deflection points in online responses like “libtards are soft” and “it was just a joke”).
First, in 2026, a currency in manhood as important as (if not more so) than literal cash is HUMOR.
Boys will do anything to be seen as funny.
Boys will laugh at anything to maintain their status in a group (even when the thing they are laughing at is not in alignment with their values).
Boys will look for escape from accountability for causing any type of harm by claiming “it was just a joke” or “it’s not that deep.”
What’s worse? The adults in their lives (as evidenced by some of the comments below on the blowback Arch was getting) will GRANT them those hall passes (and I suspect that is due to the adults themselves wanting that future grace from their own bullshit moments). Examine the boys in your life and imagine them being confronted with awkward silence…they may be prone to making weird noise or strange sound or dumb joke to break that quiet (rather than sit with their own thoughts).
Think of the men in your life who rather than share real truths and thoughts on their lives and the world with each other devolve to sex and fart jokes in each other’s presence (the hyena cackling is probably echoing in your ears right now).
Lastly, even if we are to imagine the moments in life when men hear something they know their values don’t align with, rather than confront it with an interruption, you can visualize them right now smirking or quietly laughing while trying to escape the scene.
Humor can absolutely build connection between boys and men. But it can also become camouflage.
This jokester economy is not one of courage. It is one of deflection. And THAT is something worth teaching our guys to recognize: Am I laughing because I think this is funny? Or am I laughing because laughter gets me out of having to decide what I actually think about it?
Second, in taking a 150-foot view of this entire situation, I want to present the image below (allegedly an online image from the Texas team room). Among the listed “CORE VALUES” is “TREAT WOMEN WITH RESPECT.” Reporting about the image has likewise identified it as a Texas locker-room values display.
In 2026, I’m not sure being called (or even proven) to be a hypocrite moves anyone anymore (I mean, you can just look to our Commander in Chief for examples of this claim). Knowing this, I’m willing to bet Coach Sark and the ol ‘Horns won’t be adjusting their behaviors based on the fact their sign clearly states they believe in acting the complete opposite of how he did on Saturday night.
And we know, as we’ve pointed out in this blog and in our TeamsOfMen in-person sessions with coaches, that signs to don’t guarantee outcomes or behavior. This literally isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on if the leader of the program is going to move the way he did on national television. We could waste our time and point out that the sign also claims “Choices. Decisions, Consequences” for players in the Longhorn burnt orange…but we can reasonably deduce that (based on the “oh, well Sark and Arch issued statements") that consequences should be read as “apologies and amnesia required”.
If these stated “core values” or “standards” don’t hold up in the brightest moments under the biggest lights with the most at stake, then we cannot claim them.
And trust me, I know after almost 25 years of coaching, that things GET TAXED and FAIL. But, in the version of coaching I choose to deploy, that failure requires as much scrutiny and practice planning for improvement on the same scale as a failed 4th down conversion.
I wonder, with the millions of dollars UT football has its disposal, about the who/what/how of the internal examination of this moment for their coach and QB.
Coach Prompts
When one of your program’s stated values FAILS in a real moment, what happens next besides an apology or consequence?
Which of your team’s values have you actually practiced under pressure rather than simply talked about or displayed?
When your players use humor to escape an uncomfortable moment, can you help them distinguish “I think this is funny” from “laughing gets me out of dealing with this”?
Player Prompts
Have you ever laughed at something you didn’t actually think was funny because everyone else was laughing?
When you say “it was just a joke,” does that explain your intention or erase the impact?
Pick one value your team claims. What would it actually look like to live that value when doing so is uncomfortable?
NOTE: This same blog appears as a longer form article on my Medium Page
