“(T)he tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body.”—The Book of James, 3:5-6
John Schnatter
For 34 years, John Schnatter nurtured, expanded and globalized Papa John’s Pizza. Born of a broom closet in the back of his father’s failing bar, the chain is now a 5,100-unit powerhouse, the world’s fourth-largest pizza company operating in 46 countries.
For Schnatter himself, it all came crashing down on July 11, when he tendered his resignation as chairman of the board at the chain—just hours after resigning from the University of Louisville’s Board of Trustees. A few days later he was told to vacate his office at the company's Louisville headquarters.
The pizza mogul’s precipitous slide began with a Forbes.com report claiming he used the “n-word” during a role-playing press conference in May. It remains to be seen why Laundry Service, the private company brought in to lead the exercise and burnish Schnatter’s public image, shared the information with the magazine. Schnatter later accused the firm of setting him up to use inappropriate language and attempting to extort $6 million from him to keep those remarks under wraps.
In the days following his resignation from Papa John’s board, he called stepping down a mistake and criticized board members for not doing a thorough investigation of the whole affair. You can imagine that lawyers representing all parties are busier than ants on a discarded popsicle.
The rapidity of Schnatter’s fall has surprised many, but the off-color language that triggered it shocked no one who knows him well. The rigorous discipline required of Schnatter to build a pizza empire did not include holding his tongue. John Schnatter has always spoken his mind, regardless of who’s within earshot, and he’s usually gotten away with it.
Reporters covering him are used to letting most of such talk slide, but perhaps not for reasons you’d expect. We depend on sources like Schnatter—company leaders, trail blazers, entrepreneurs, usually people with outsized egos—for interviews when writing stories. So, it behooves us to overlook foul mouths, jabs at nemeses, criticism of competitors done in private because we don’t want to “lose the source.” In truth, most of the remarks are simply shrugged off and regarded as shop talk.
This time it appears he went too far. Of any word that’s verboten in 2018, it’s the “n-word,” yet somehow Schnatter thought it fine for use in a story about how Colonel Harland Sanders used it in his day. I’d never heard Schnatter use racist remarks, but I’d heard plenty other forehead slappers.
The pattern in Schnatter’s behavior was obvious: he just wouldn’t tame his tongue.
Early into my nine-year-stretch covering the pizza industry, I met Schnatter at a media event where, in conversation, he said a few things that gave me pause. Nothing scandalous, but definitely rude when pointed at a former close associate who’d left the company. But what surprised me equally was he made no effort to say it quietly near a gaggle of reporters at our table eating his pizza.
In later interviews—nearly always with a PR handler present on a phone or in the same room—he made other discordant remarks that made me wonder, “What’s the point of that?” But none of it was reported because it wasn’t germane to the story and, as I mentioned, I wanted him as a source in the future. I guess I just accepted the sudden surliness, when it occasionally set in, as “just business.” Over time I met many other reporters telling similar stories; later, other stories followed from people who’d left Papa John’s. The pattern in Schnatter’s behavior was obvious: he just wouldn’t tame his tongue.
Now it’s caught up to him, and the resulting damage to Schnatter personally and professionally is enormous. Predictably, outrage on social media is red hot and, in many cases, vulgar to the point of hypocrisy. Business schools at U of L and the University of Kentucky are removing Schnatter’s name from buildings that bore it—yet no word on whether either will return the millions he donated to their programs. Professional and college sports teams can’t scramble fast enough to erase any trace of the Papa John’s Pizza brand from their stadiums and arenas—especially at U of L’s football stadium.
It is exceptionally unfortunate that these sea changes will have negative consequences for Papa John’s employees and shareholders, though the blame rests squarely on the founder and his dreadful word choices. On this point I agree with the company: Papa John’s is a brand, not one man, punish him, not it.
Will other wealthy and successful leaders who learn the details behind Schnatter’s downfall examine the words they use? Some may, others won’t. Even a superficial examination of history turns up examples of people who just couldn’t put a sock in it. President Donald Trump is a perfect example of an unbridled tongue, as is inventor Elon Musk: men of great achievement who, in many rights, set the world aflame in positive ways. But like Schnatter, they and others may well be foolish enough to burn down the good they did by saying way too much.