PJ Fleck Becomes The Latest B1G Coach Under Scrutiny As Former Players Alleged A Toxic Culture At Minnesota That Included A "Fleck Bank" Point System For Breaking Team Rules
SOURCE: Over the last month, Front Office Sports interviewed several former players and staff members about Fleck’s six seasons as the Gophers’ head coach. They described an environment fraught with intimidation and toxicity and referenced the “Fleck Bank” — a system that allowed players with enough “coins” to get away with positive drug tests, and other violations of team rules.
The Fleck Bank tracked community service — including visiting patients at the University of Minnesota Medical Center with Fleck — and was a way to keep tabs on players’ studying habits, multiple former players said. Two former players said those who provided information on other players were given Fleck Bank credits.
“We had to [practice giving Fleck ovations] multiple times — the first time, because some other people in the back were not moving as quick as he wanted,” a third player told FOS.
Two other former players said that Fleck would reenter a room if he didn’t like the ovation he received.
There was only one acceptable answer when Fleck and other staff members asked, “How are you doing?”
“I’m elite.”
“It was sickening because I wasn’t OK,” the first player said, “I wasn’t in a good mental spot. I was struggling. I was fighting every day just to get by or find hope. It’s not natural to say when someone asks how you’re doing to say, ‘I am elite.’ When I said, ‘I’m good,’ [Fleck] would respond, ‘Oh, you’re not elite?’ He would either get all frustrated and walk off, or I’d be told, ‘You’re supposed to say elite.’ Inside, I was not feeling anywhere near that.”
Another day, another B1G coach under fire for what is an alleged story of toxic culture amongst a football program. A few weeks ago it was Pat Fitzgerald, yesterday Jim Harbaugh's impending suspension, and today PJ Fleck says hold my beer. There's only one man who is qualified to speak on this at Barstool Sports and it is the only University of Minnesota alumnus at Barstool — yours truly.
This doesn't really come as that big of a surprise to me, but if the allegations are true, Fleck should be gone. Not necessarily because what he did is criminal or something, but mainly because it's just a wild way to run a program, especially if you aren't bringing in any results. Fleck reeks of program-turned-cult and anyone who watches college football can probably see that. He's the definition of "look-at-me" and while that has somewhat improved our program in his tenure, it's certainly not been all sunshine and rainbows. He took it over in a horrible spot and I would say has done an -okay- job at making us somewhat relevant again. We beat Wisconsin a couple times and took the Axe and that's really all that Minnesota fans can ask for these days.
Some of the alleged practices by Fleck are kinda crazy though. Snitching on your teammates to get some coins for the "Fleck Bank" reads like some bizarre fanfic. Zero surprise that he commanded an ovation worthy of a dictator before he'd bless them with his presence or whatever. Of course for every bad allegation there will be a player that says Fleck made him a better man, leader, yada yada. I'm imagining a hilarious scene in the facility of asking a player how he's doing and he accidentally responds with "doing great coach" instead of "elite" and all of a sudden he's benched for Saturday's game.
Who knows how this story ends up, but if all we learn is that Fleck is weird and narcissistic, then welcome to Earth buddy. If it costs him his job, then let's get someone in who isn't trying to run a church group and instead an actual competitive football team. And at the end of the day remember that it's always better dead than red.