Betting on Football to Induce Change: An Examination of an Antenarrative Journey to Narrative Glory

We examine the journey of a strategically placed antenarrative bet that the formation of a college football program and an on-campus stadium will help lead the ongoing transformation of a commuter school to a traditional university. Through a qualitative study of the events before and during a stadium-naming scandal that lead to the resignation of the school president we explore the relationships of three components of organizational storytelling: Antenarratives, story, and narrative. We find that on the way to narrative glory, and contrary to the literature suggestion of narrative domination, there is a negotiating process between the desired future narrative and the multiple stories. We explain how the various stakeholders are not powerless to the ways of narrative force. Our analysis suggests that in some cases, all groups involved in the organization are implicitly part of the narrative construction, even if their particular story has to give way.