Mike Bobinski, Ryan Walters, and the Streisand Effect

Would we be talking about this without the Paint Crew email?

You might have heard that Ryan Walters, Purdue’s head football coach, is embattled. He’s not produced results on the field and when you’re making $4 million a year, people rightfully expect you to do some big things. Well, what you might not have heard, at least I didn’t, was a group of students at a basketball game chanting Fire Walters. I was watching the game and I didn’t pick it up. Maybe I was mid-conversation with someone, maybe my nieces were screaming about Dress to Impress, who knows. Either way, I didn’t hear it. Then, everyone heard about it days later due to, what we assume, was Mike Bobinski or someone in his orbit pushing The Paint Crew to send an email.

You can see the email above with the confirmation from Nathan Baird of the Indy Star that this email was sent at the behest of someone in the athletic department. This was not an email The Paint Crew decided to send of their own volition. Now, here we are talking about it. There was a write up in the Indy Star about it. It was in the Journal & Courier. Ryan and I talked about it on the last episode of the Boiler Alert podcast. Now, thousands upon thousands of more people know about this chant that didn’t know earlier. All because someone couldn’t sit back and let students be students for a few seconds. Because that’s all it was, a few seconds. This wasn’t a chant that they did incessantly throughout the game. Nope, just a few seconds.

So instead of letting kids be kids and sometimes say silly things someone pushed for this email. This resulted in the classic Streisand Effect in which by fighting to stop something that you don’t want to get attention you actually bring more attention to it. Yes, it’s named after the one and only Barbra Streisand.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I understand why Bobinksi and crew would be embarrassed by this. This is their guy. They made the hire of Walters and are spending good money on him. They want him to succeed. Hell, everyone reading this wants Walters to succeed. But what we want more is for Purdue Football to succeed. We don’t care if Ryan Walters is the coach or not. I think that distinction is important. We all love Purdue football, we don’t necessarily love just the coach and we didn’t become fans just because of who the coach is or was. That’s I think a distinction that Bobisnki doesn’t have. Because to him, in order for Purdue football to succeed he needs Ryan Walters to succeed. For Bobinski to succeed Ryan Walters needs to succeed. Bobinski’s success and future is intertwined with Walters’ success. For the rest of us, we don’t care who the head coach is if Purdue is wining games.

One last thing on this, if you’re in charge of a sports team, say as an owner or an athletic director, it’s never a good look to fight your fans. Just ask James Dolan one of the most unpopular figures in all of the NBA. Just ask Donald Sterling, oh wait. Just ask Marge Schott, well nevermind there. Just ask anyone affiliated with the Cleveland Browns. Going to war against your own fans never makes you, the Billionaire owner (or multimillionaire AD), look good. You never come across as the bigger man but it instead makes you look small.

As we go forward I hope that Bobinski hears the sentiment behind the chant and not just the words. The Paint Crew, and most Purdue fans, have no personal stake in Ryan Walters’ future. Instead, we are invested in Purdue football and finding a way for it to succeed. They aren’t disparaging Ryan Walters, well I mean yes they are but not really, they are being hopeful for the future of Purdue football. Isn’t that what you want your fans to do? To push you to be successful? To show you that your on field results are not meeting their standards? I think so, even if sometimes the words might hurt, listening to your fans is nearly always the right choice.