I Could Have Done More

I've wrestled with this burden and dilemma for not only the last week but for many years.

I could have done more to speak up and I feel bad about not doing so.

For five years from 2010 - 2015, I was an employee of Red Zebra Broadcasting, which was owned by Dan Snyder.

Yes, that Dan Snyder. The owner of the Washington NFL team was also the owner of a few radio stations that chose me in 2010 to be a beat reporter and host on what was then known as ESPN-980, 94.3 & 92.7 FM in the Washington D.C. area along with stations in Richmond and Virginia Beach.

My job was to cover the football team for the radio stations 24/7/365. On game day, I was of the official broadcast team hosting halftime and appearing on the pregame and postgame shows. For a couple of seasons, I did in-game NFL updates and sideline reporting during the preseason.

During the week, I operated mostly out of a converted studio in the front lobby of the team facility. For a member of the media, I had extremely unusual access in the building.

I could go get a cup of coffee and Mike Shanahan would pop in to the kitchen at the same time. I would often cross paths with Bruce Allen. Snyder could stop by the studio anytime he wanted to. He rarely would but he could.

I saw some things. I was told more.

One thing I did not physically witness was sexual harassment of any employee.

If I would have, I believe I would have had the strength to say something to someone about it.

These horrible incidents were happening, according to the Washington Post, when I wasn't around.

It's beyond disappointing that this type of boorish behavior was going on.

I don't know how much of it was occuring during the years that I was in the building but clearly some of it was, to at least Emily Applegate, the one former employee who spoke openly and was employed during 2014.

More than once, a female employee would confide in me about something unsavory. It included incidents with management and unwanted advances by at least one player who was well known.

In order to protect them, because they swore me to secrecy, I will continue doing so.

This is not about me blasting off. This is about an inside perspective.

The Building Was Cranky:

There was almost always tension in the .facility. Especially on a Monday after a loss, but for much of the week too. Normal stuff, I assumed.

Mike Shanahan's first two years yielded a grand total of 11 wins. 2012 saw the explosion and then crash and burn of Robert Griffin III.

2013 and '14 went horribly wrong. Seven wins combined over two seasons and a chaotic inferno that engulfed the organization.

I strongly believe my blunt honesty about the teams' performance and operations in 2013 and 2014 led to the station making changes before the 2015 season started. I was one of those changes.

That was fine and I understood but I also know that it was Mitch Gershman (at least), one of the five former officials accused of workplace misconduct and sexual harassment, that pushed me out the door.

A brief legal battle between the team, radio station and myself ensued over the next couple of weeks and ultimately I won the dispute with the help of my union SAG-AFTRA.

I was able to continue my career with 106.7 The FAN immediately and collect what was owed to me contractually.

How Bad Was It?

The worst incident that happened to me was Gershman berating me at MetLife Stadium in late 2014 in front of other reporters in the press box. He was mad (I assume others were as well) that I had referred to the organization on their postgame show the previous week as having "bad people" that were in charge.

As he verbally lashed out at me with another senior executive that I had a great relationship with standing right there, I took it and bit my tongue.

What he didn't know at the time was that he was one of the 'bad people' that I was referring to. There were others and I have been open and honest about that.

Gershman also verbally shredded my friend and colleague Grant Paulsen for being in the studios during a rain storm and using the phone. Paulsen had replaced me at 106.7 when I left for the job with Red Zebra. We worked for competing stations but we were friends first.

There were other incidents involving Gershman.

Needless to say, he made the job and building very uncomfortable but it was nothing compared to what 17 females have had to endure.

Alex Santos, the now fired Director of Pro Scouting, got mad at me one time for something I said on the radio, but I had good relationships with him outside of that and the other three former officials that were accused.

Where I Could Have Done More:

There wasn't a system set up to allow for any problems that I was aware of. As the Washington Post pointed out, the human relations staff at that time consisted of one woman, who also had to perform routine administrative duties along with handling the paperwork and questions that hundreds of employees had.

“There’s no HR,” a former veteran female employee who left in 2019, told the Post. “And there was never a reporting process, nor was one explained to new employees about how you should report something.”

That was my experience because I sure as hell would have reported Gershman for both of those incidents.

I should have found a way to at least go to my direct supervisor about these incidents and about the hostile work environment. Not to mention the harassment to females that I heard about.

Or I should have done some reporting, instead of just going on with the job.

It's easy for a lot of things to get swept under the rug when covering a professional sports team. You can't just blast off on everything you hear or even see. You can't make charges and serious accusations unless you have several corroborating sources that are willing to speak in some fashion, as the Post did.

Some of my colleagues feel a private matter should not be made public.

By no means am I trying to compare anything that I went through and experienced inside the walls to what 17 women did, as detailed in the story. There were and are more stories that did not come out in the article.

I am trying to provide context and a first-hand account of what it was like to be in that building about 275 days a year.

There were too many parties. Way too many cases of Coors Light that I saw rolled right past my office door.

In my opinion, there were too many people that were not committed to doing two things - winning football games and doing business/ treating people the right way.

That only seemed to get worse when Mike Shanahan was fired.

There were good people that stayed employed like Kyle Smith, Doug Williams, Eric Schaffer along with many coaches and players. A large amount of the support staff worked really hard and just did their jobs.

That's what I tried to do. Maybe it wasn't good enough?

Apparently after I left, things didn't really improve leading to more and more frustration and culminating in last week's report.

Ron Rivera is a culture changer but he's being asked to be a miracle worker.

Hopefully Rivera has a steel will, resolve and determination much greater than mine.

He'll need it every second of every day if he's truly going to clean up the building and organization as a whole.

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Chris Russell is the Publisher of this site, a part of SI.com. He can be heard on 106.7 The FAN in the Washington D.C. area and world-wide on Radio.com. Chris also hosts the "Locked on Redskins" Podcast and can be read via subscription to Warpath Magazine. You can e-mail Chris at russellmania09@Gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @Russellmania621