Ethics Bob

Hollywood pioneer Samuel Goldwyn famously said of a colleague he admired, “His verbal contract is worth more than the paper it’s written on.” 

This ‘Goldwynism’ applies to new Washington Redskins defensive backs coach, Raheem Morris, who verbally accepted a Washington offer on January 11. The very next day Morris was offered the job of defensive coordinator by the Minnesota Vikings.

Morris turned down the bigger, and likely much more lucrative, Minnesota offer, explaining,

“I believe that in this game, all you have is your word and your tape, and I gave these guys my word, and I wanted to come here and help them this year, and I was going to do it.

Keeping your commitment, even when—or especially when—it costs you a lot of money—is a central tenet of ethics. The Redskins have a winner in Morris.

Tags: ethics, Goldwynisms, keeping your commitment, Raheem Morris, Redskins, Samuel Goldwyn, verbal contracts

This entry was posted on January 30, 2012 at 1:00 am and is filed under Ethics-general, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.