Monday, August 4, 2014
Column 467
If I were president of the American Darts Organization…
I’d go rogue.
I’d take BOLD ACTION today.
I’d let the chips fall, even if they fell on me.
Many, perhaps most, would submit that the ADO is irrelevant, a near dead organization walking, limping, crawling to its grave – an inevitable end caused by its own hand. Many, perhaps most, would maintain that the organization cannot possibly recover unless: 1) the old guard moves on, 2) election rules are changed to allow qualified people aboard the ship, and 3) those people responsible for the organization’s destruction are identified and forced to answer a LOT of questions.
I am not yet – not quite – one of these doomsayers. But I am close. Damn close.
If I was the ADO’s head honcho, a nearly untenable position today, I would:
- Unilaterally and very publically call for the entire board’s resignation.
- Appoint a shadow board of good people (like Peter Citera, David Irete, and Anthony Eugenia) to assist me in returning order and respectability to the organization.
- Close the office and remove any paid employees.
- Launch an independent audit and, once complete, widely communicate the findings – and prosecute anyone identified as having committed wrongdoing.
- Rewrite the bylaws to ensure that incompetence is no longer self-perpetuating and elections attract honest candidates qualified to govern.
- Hold elections once all of the above is complete.
I would launch all of this immediately. Today.
Of course, with the current board in place and according to the bylaws much of this is impossible – the president has no such authority. I’d do it anyway.
I’d let the people argue about what authority I did or did not have. If it were the survival of the organization at stake (and it is) and I wanted to fix it AND secure my reputation as someone who was courageous enough, when others were not, to do whatever had to be done I wouldn’t give a damn. I would just plow forward and do what was so obviously needed.
That’s what each of the current president’s predecessors should have done.
Undoubtedly the old guard would fight me, block me. Fair enough. I would call them out for what they have done and what they are doing.
Then I would resign and wash my hands of the whole filthy mess.
That would speak loudly too.
If the end were to then come – and no doubt it will if bold action isn’t taken NOW – at least my conscience would be clear knowing that I had done what was necessary and right and my name could never be associated with the filth.
I would then work with others, starting with my shadow board should they be willing, to create the sort of governing organization that steel-tip darts players need and deserve in this country.
I dare say there would be a groundswell of support.
David Hascup is the only person in America with the “power” to make this happen.
Will he?
From the Field,
Dartoid
