Strength coach Erik Helland resigns amid Kobe King investigation

Erik Helland resigns

Last week was a bad week for Wisconsin basketball. This week hasn’t been any better.

Wednesday night, it was reported that the Wisconsin athletic department was investigating whether a member of the basketball team’s larger support staff had directed a racial epithet or racially-tinged word of abuse toward (now) ex-Badger Kobe King.

Thursday morning, it was reported that team strength and conditioning coach Erik Helland, who has worked with Wisconsin basketball for the past seven years, was the focus of the investigation and placed on administrative leave.

Later on Thursday, Helland resigned.

Here’s how the story goes: Helland used the inappropriate term on January 3 when the team was in Columbus for its game at Ohio State. Helland immediately apologized and had the sense the players accepted it and were fine with the larger situation around the team.

However, later in January, Helland said he heard murmurs that his use of inappropriate language toward players was going to be made public. At that point, Helland self-reported to Greg Gard and the Wisconsin program, so that higher-ups would know of the situation in advance of any possible leak or disclosure by other parties.

Here is what Helland said thereafter, according to Jeff Potrykus of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

What a brutal turn of events for all concerned.

Critics of the program from other parts of the country might be inclined to say that Kobe King was justified in leaving the program because a racist was in the middle of things. You know some national commentators are going to say that.

We can acknowledge that Helland crossed a line. We can also note, however, that he immediately recognized his mistake and made a good-faith effort to reach out to players. He also self-reported to make sure the program wasn’t (fully) embarrassed.

Helland erred, but unlike a lot of people who try to ignore or brush off a significant mistake, he made a sincere effort to repair the damage and reestablish trust. Moreover, he thought he had succeeded.

However, someone — or someones, plural — felt the lapse in judgment was too substantial for Helland to be allowed to continue in his job. Is that a reasonable position? Yes, it is. The problem, though, is that the people affected do not seem to have a wide and spacious allowance for a brief moment of insensitivity. That lack of forgiveness — whoever the person is (and I won’t speculate on it) — is something I can understand.

It is also something I wish we saw less of. I wish we could be more forgiving. If people were more forgiving, Erik Helland would probably still have his job.

This doesn’t make the person who held the threat over Helland’s head a bad person. That person was wronged, and it should be noted, not brushed aside. However, this also speaks to an unwillingness to allow people to grow and evolve. It’s very complicated.

That is probably the best way to conclude this story: Don’t think the lesson is simple, or that there’s an obvious good guy-bad guy dynamic here.

One man — Erik Helland — made a mistake, tried to repair it, but ultimately wasn’t given the chance to do so by the unnamed person who held the threat of disclosure against him.

It is true that some mistakes can’t be shrugged off with continued employment. Some mistakes are severe enough that they demand immediate termination of employment.

Did this rise to that level? I have seen plenty of scandals and controversies in my time. Is this a clear-cut example of an incident which required automatic termination? No… and that’s what is so hard to process in this story.

Sometimes, life doesn’t give us easy, clear-cut resolutions.