I’m a millennial. I do not always agree with others who make up my generation, but I found Manhattan Head Coach (and former Kentucky Wildcat) Steve Masiello’s recent comments about this generation to be a simply lazy over-generalization of millennials.
Masiello blaming society and Instagram for his team’s struggles shows a clear lack of leadership and an unwillingness to take responsibility for his own poor performance.
“We’re a fraudulent society top to bottom. Our society is fraudulent. Everything about our society is edited. Everything about our society is pre-arranged, So this generation is a fraudulent generation.
“What I mean by that is they put their Instagram picture up the way they want. They put their tweet out the way they want. Nothing is interactive or real. So when things don’t go the way people want them to – people will struggle with when it’s not 70 degrees and sun and the stars aren’t exactly aligned and it’s not exactly 4 p.m., and they didn’t get exactly eight hours of beauty sleep.
“Young people today struggle with that. Our society struggles with that. For me, I can’t speak for other coaches. I see it more than ever when adversity comes in, people struggle.
“They’re not bad kids. This might be one of my favorite groups I’ve ever had. They struggle with adversity, and that’s a byproduct of our society today. I think we are a reflection of our culture today. Not to get too deep.”
One thing that we need to keep in mind here is who these words are coming from. Masiello seems to really like the term “fraudulent.” One definition of fraudulent is “unjustifiably claiming or being credited with particular accomplishments or qualities.”
Masiello was the same guy that lied about receiving a college degree from Kentucky. When he was in contention for the South Florida job, he lied on his resume and said he earned a degree, but when USF officials went to confirm it, they found out that it was untrue. Maybe it’s just me, but lying about having a college degree when applying for a head coaching job at a high-level university has fraudulent written all over it.
But this rant also doesn’t add up to me for other reasons. For example, if I am not mistaken, Siena is a college basketball team, right? College basketball teams are made up of student-athletes, usually between the ages of 18-23. Therefore, Siena’s basketball team is made up of people of the same generation that Masiello is blaming for his team’s struggles. Does anyone else see the problem with this? If both Sienna and Manhattan’s basketball teams are both made up of millennials, but one was shown to be visibly better than the other, maybe the fact that your team is made up of millennials isn’t the problem.
He then proceeds to explain how this generation struggles so much if things do not go our way. While that may be true for some, it is not true for all. Saying that statement is true for everyone of this generation is a lazy blanket statement that shows an inability to examine people on an individual level. Plenty of people in this generation perform in their job or career at a high level under less-than-ideal circumstances. To me, that statement is a complete joke, even though he meant it in a more figurative sense.
People want to rant about millennials and how we all got participation trophies growing up. I don’t know about some other people my age, but I recall many times in contests or events where there were clear cut winners and losers, and you just tried to do better the next time. Here is the thing about participation trophies though: just remember that we, the millennials, did not give those trophies to ourselves. The older generations gave them to us. Just some food for thought.
Masiello’s rant has been going viral on Facebook with many people stating that “he may be on to something.” To those that continue to believe that millennials are whiny, lazy, and want everything handed to them, just remember that there are plenty of millennials out there who work hard everyday and have found great success and that place where you can post those things (Facebook), it’s there because a millennial worked hard to make it happen.
From my point of view, Masiello’s argument/rant/tirade is.... well, dare I say it.... fraudulent.