Episode 7: FIFA and racism, GSW going to the White House, and the NCAA is still terrible
In Episode 7 of Burn It All Down, Julie DiCaro, Lindsay Gibbs, Jessica Luther, Brenda Elsey, and Shireen Ahmed discuss FIFA’s attempt to combat racism and homophobia, whether the Golden State Warriors will visit the White House, and why the NCAA continues to be terrible. Plus, you’ll hear The Burn Pile, Badass Woman of the Week, and Listener Mail!
Introduction (1:05) FIFA announces a new procedure to combat racism by cancelling matches if they hear racist chants in the stands. (8:01) The Golden State Warriors and the White House visit: How the erroneous story about their decision to snub the White House visit spread, and a takedown of Sally Jenkins’ terrible article saying they should go to make a statement (17:00) The NCAA is horrible: A look at the Louisville sanctions, LSU’s transfer block, and how the NCAA’s amateurism rules are keeping players from having YouTube channels and music careers (26:55) BURN PILE — The discrepancy between the bonus pay for men and women’s U.S. National Team coaches at the World Cup (28:39) Michigan State athletic director getting involved in sexual assault investigations (30:34) Yanina Ramirez, a Paralympic athlete in Argentina, losing funding (31:47) Floyd Mayweather (34:20) Ifab considering shortening football games to 60 minutes (35:30) Lance Berkman speaking at Christian night for the St. Louis Cardinals (36:40) Bad Ass Woman of the Week: The owners of the Seattle Storm, who partnered with Planned Parenthood (38:54) BAWOTW Honorable Mentions: Bambi (39:20) Doris Burke, for her expert handling of the NBA championship trophy ceremony (40:00) Diana Moskovitz of Deadspin for her coverage of the Bill Cosby trial (40:50) Brienne Minor (41:30) Crystal Griner, Capitol Hill police officer (43:00) Listener mail
Links
FIFA will allow referees to suspend matches due to racism at Confederations Cup (Deadspin): http://deadspin.com/fifa-will-allow-referees-to-suspend-matches-due-to-raci-1796111149
FIFA won’t just fine Mexico for “Puto” chants, they may now stop games entirely (Remezcla): http://remezcla.com/sports/fifa-mexico-puto-chant/
Viral Golden State Warriors story shows media needs to play better defense (Columbia Journal Review): https://www.cjr.org/criticism/golden-state-warriors-white-house-trump-journalism.php
If the Warriors want to take a stand, go to the White House and shake President Trump’s hand (Sally Jenkins, Washington Post): https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/wizards/if-the-warriors-want-to-take-a-stand-go-to-the-white-house-and-shake-president-trumps-hand/2017/06/14/a1f2c0c6-5131-11e7-be25-3a519335381c_story.html
NCAA sanctions against Louisville (Nicole Auerbach, USA Today): https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/columnist/nicole-auerbach/2017/06/15/punishment-rick-pitino-harsher-louisville/400127001/
“Quit College Sports or Quit YouTube”: NCAA threatens UFC kicker’s YouTube channel (Deadspin): http://deadspin.com/quit-college-sports-or-quit-youtube-ncaa-threatens-ucf-1796033861
LSU football officially blocks Willie Allen from transferring to TCU (SEC Country): https://www.seccountry.com/lsu/lsu-football-blocks-willie-allen-transfer-tcu
Gonzalez twins leaving UNLV to pursue music careers (Las Vegas Review-Journal): https://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/unlv/unlv-basketball/gonzalez-twins-leaving-unlv-to-pursue-music-careers/
An Ole Miss-themed store is suing NCAA snitches because amateurism is dumb (Patrick Hruby, VICE Sports): https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/an-ole-miss-themed-store-is-suing-ncaa-snitches-because-amateurism-is-dumb
Lance Berkman’s ‘Christian Day’ plans with Cardinals blasted by LGBT community (USA Today): https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/cardinals/2017/06/14/lance-berkman-christian-day-plans-cardinals-blasted-lgbt-community/102840578/
U.S. coach’s bonus for winning women’s World Cup: $90K. For men’s second round: $500K. (Washington Post): https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/soccer-insider/wp/2017/06/14/u-s-coachs-bonus-for-winning-womens-world-cup-90k-for-mens-second-round-500k/?utm_term=.25335152f0a5
Football rule-makers to consider reducing games to 60 minutes (The Guardian): https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/jun/17/football-rule-makers-reducing-games-60-minutes?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Facebook
Floyd Mayweather And Conor McGregor Announce Fight For Aug. 26 (Deadspin): http://deadspin.com/floyd-mayweather-and-conor-mcgregor-announce-fight-for-1796111673
Paralympic Gold Medalist Sprinter Lost Her Disability Pension Because Of a Sponsorship (Remezcla): http://remezcla.com/sports/paralympic-sprinter-disability-sponsor/
Police: Curtis Blackwell ‘interfered’ with MSU football sex assault investigation (Lansing State Journal): http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2017/06/13/police-blackwell-interfered-msu-football-sex-assault-investigation/393990001/
WNBA team launches ‘first of its kind’ partnership with Planned Parenthood (ThinkProgress): https://thinkprogress.org/wnba-team-launches-first-of-its-kind-partnership-with-planned-parenthood-7ea0517bf75c
Bambi: http://www.jeffpearlman.com/bambi/
Diana Moskovitz’s coverage of the Bill Cosby sexual assault trial (Jezebel): http://jezebel.com/the-women-who-say-bill-cosby-drugged-and-sexually-assau-1796196402
She became the first black woman to win an NCAA Division I singles title, and she had no idea (Washington Post): https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/tennis/i-didnt-even-realize-it-brienne-minor-on-her-history-making-tennis-title/2017/06/13/835dde8c-4b93-11e7-a186-60c031eab644_story.html?utm_term=.7926f2387d60
Officer Crystal Griner also stood out on basketball court: https://theundefeated.com/features/officer-crystal-griner-steve-scalise/
Transcript
Julie: Welcome to this week of Burn It All Down. It may not be the feminist sports podcast you want, but it's the feminist sports podcast you need. We've got a full panel this week. Our panel includes Shireen Ahmed, freelance sports writer in Toronto, Canada; Lindsay Gibbs, sportswriter for ThinkProgress in Washington, DC; Jessica Luther, freelance sportswriter in Austin, Texas; Brenda Elsey, associate professor at Hofstra University; and I'm Julie DiCaro, sportswriter and radio host in Chicago. This week, we're going to talk about FIFA taking steps to combat racism, the Golden State Warriors and whether or not they'll visit the White House, and the NCAA continues to be terrible. Let's jump right into topic one. Shireen, would you want to tell us about FIFA?
Shireen: Hi, thanks, Julie. Just ahead of the Confederations Cup, which is a pre-tournament to the World Cup in 2018 – it's going to be held in Russia – FIFA has announced that they're starting a new procedure…Well, quote-unquote “procedure” that they're going to stop matches if there is any racist abuse discovered in the stands or from pro players. And the way this has been carried out is really interesting. So, Fare network, which is an organization that runs out of Europe, has actually come up…They came up with some suggestions a long time ago, actually. I'm not salty about that, but I'll just continue. And FIFA actually chose to overlook or sort of put aside these recommendations. Now, finally, and this is something that I think is quite unexpected, FIFA has actually decided to put these into practice now at the Confederations Cup.
Because, in my opinion, I think they're leading up to…There’s a lot of anticipation of what's going to happen next year in Russia. So, what's going to happen is there's going to be monitors who are plain-clothed officers, if you will, of the Fare network, that will be in the stands and be around. And this is something that…And they're being trained not by FIFA but by Fare network. And I think this is important to recognize because Fare is an incredibly important organization that monitors for homophobic abuse, Islamophobic, antisemitic, racist, and a lot of misogyny. So they specialize in doing this, and they train their monitors really, really well. So they'll be working in partnership with FIFA to sort of help implement this. And I think this is also very relevant for another reason, that last year FIFA announced that it had actually disbanded the anti-racism network because FIFA decided that racism was all finished!
So, it was very bizarre, and people were rightly upset, because as we know, racist behavior, you know, isn't finished because of a task force. Not that the task force actually did anything. So, this is what's happening. And the there's a lot of very interesting discussion about this. And I think there's some opinion that maybe FIFA is trying to preemptively save face by this, but I also want to give Fare the benefit of the doubt, because honestly they do a lot of really incredible work. So, that's where we are with FIFA. I still feel like I want to burn them down all the time, but I'm going to just hold off on pouring the lighter fluid. I also want to see what you guys think.
Julie: Well, yeah, I mean, FIFA is not out of the burn pile, for sure. I mean, they've earned a lifetime sentence in the burn pile. But I'm kind of surprised to see this. I'm interested that they're also going to be monitoring for homophobic language and abuse from the crowd, because we just had that again when the US played Mexico at Estadio Azteca. Seems like it happens every single time, no matter where we play, the chants of basically calling US players fags the whole time during the entire game. I wonder, given Russia's stance on homosexuality and LGBTQ community, I wonder how this is going to go over in Russia, Brenda?
Brenda: Well, one thing just to mention about the chant, the homophobic chant of the Mexican national team, which is very offensive. And I think that this new FIFA regulation is really exciting because it places…I mean, there's three steps that they'll take, including a public announcement goes first, and then the temporary suspension of play, and then the possibility of the referee canceling the match altogether for homophobic or racist chants. So, it seems a good thing if it can work in practice. One of the things this week that was a little bit frustrating was right-wing news media outlets reported that Mexican players directed that chant to US players, which is actually a really incorrect or inaccurate way to frame that story. That chant is used all the time, Mexican fans against Mexican teams, for whatever goalie is there. It is not directed at the United States.
It seemed like a particular way to whip up animosity between those two teams, which actually isn't there. So, just to say that that chant is not something that Mexico pulls out special for the United States. In fact, they're pretty awful all the time, no matter who they are playing. So, in that sense, I think Shireen is totally right to be skeptical of FIFA, and that maybe this is just one way to cover up the ongoing abuse of workers in Qatar and in Russia. But I also think there's a really good opportunity for those of us who really care about the Mexican national team and fans to clean up their act.
Once the Confederation Cup started, the chant has actually become popular with teams that aren't even Mexican, which is really upsetting. Seeing the Brazilian fans use the chant, seeing other fans, is highly distressing and it's really violent. Today, Mexico plays Portugal, and it'll be the first time that we might see the possibility of an Argentine referee putting a stop to this. He understands Spanish. There's no way he can say that there's some sort of translation issue, which is sometime their fall back. So it will be really interesting even if FIFA is doing this as a publicity stunt. Maybe a lot of people like Fare and activists on the ground level can use it to put a stop to the homophobic violence in this chant.
Julie: That's a really good clarification, Brenda, thanks. Shireen?
Shireen: In 2015, I was really lucky to see the Mexican women play in Ottawa during the World Cup. And I was super appalled because sitting in front of me was a man who would shout this derogatory remark out, and it's abuse. And he would shout it out every time the opposing keeper had the ball. Now, I was in a stadium full of women and young girls who were there to be inspired. So it was really horrific. And my best friend who happens to be from Mexico was with me as well. She’s not a football lover, but she's always willing to burn down the patriarchy wherever it may be. So, she got in a fight with him. And he literally turned around and was like, you don't know anything about Mexico. So then they got into a really loud fight in Spanish, which was interesting.
But he was basically like, no, this is soccer culture. This is football culture. And she's like, no, it's actually not. And this is part of the problem, that people need to unlearn this culture. It doesn't have to be football culture. Like, this has to go, and it is misogynist and homophobic and completely unnecessary. So, although I agree with Brenda, I’m reluctant, but I want to see this pushed forward and hopefully this partnership and these recommendations by Fare net will be able to get there.
Julie: All right. I think we'll have that be the last word on that topic. Moving on. There's a debate about whether or not the Golden State Warriors will go to the White House – if they are invited, which to date, I don't believe they have been. Jessica, you want to talk about Golden State and the White House?
Jessica: Yeah, I'd love to. This is quite a story this week, you guys. So, Monday night, the Warriors became NBA champions again; Tuesday morning, 7:10am Eastern standard time, some dude named Josh Brown who has over 700,000 Twitter followers tweeted, quote, “NBA champion Warriors skipping the White House visit as a unanimous team decision, per reports.” He made that up, but not before it was repeated by normally reputable people and retweeted tens of thousands of times. Brown said later, once he was questioned about it, that he was relying on some other Twitter account. But according to the Columbia Journalism Review – which, yes, did a post-mortem on how this story went viral without a shred of evidence – that's not accurate. Quote, “Brown then posted a screenshot of a tweet by Mike Sington, a retired Universal Studios executive, as a possible source for his claim. However, Sington’s tweet was actually posted 50 minutes after Brown's, making it an unlikely source.”
Okay. Again, Brown made this up. Most likely it came off of some joking tweak that he saw across his timeline. He's not a journalist. According to his website, he's a financial advisor who sometimes goes on CNBC to talk about financial advising. Brown deleted the tweet, and the only thing he said about it since was another tweet where he wrote, “Yesterday, I referenced below story…” which, the below story was actually a screenshot of Sington's tweet, not his own tweet! He goes on, “When I found out it wasn't true, I deleted. My bad. Not a journo, but I do my best to be accurate always.”
Okay. So that was the sports story on Tuesday, and I think it was a perfect storm of three things, and you guys can agree/disagree. One, it was something we all believed could be true. Two, the sports media is obsessed with scoops. Three, the media is often these days more about aggregation than actual reporting. So then this spurred a bunch of talk about if the Warriors should go to the White House, if they are invited. Why and why not? And this ultimately culminated – and I know we're going to get to this, so – this ultimately culminated in columnist Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post basically arguing that the Warriors should seriously consider going to the White House if invited, because shaking hands with Trump – this is my paraphrase, by the way, just to be clear – because shaking hands with Trump when he ultimately doesn't believe in your humanity is a radical thing to do these days. So, what do you guys feel about this? What do you think?
Julie: Lindsay?
Lindsay: I feel not great about it, Jess, if I'm being honest. First of all, and I don't want to toot my own horn, but I just wanted to explain how basic it was to not spread this story. It was just not hard to not spread a fake news story. I saw the tweet on my bus ride in for work. I was actually looking for news as to whether anyone in the postgame celebrations had commented on the White House. So, I had an eye out for this type of thing, because I do write about the intersection of sports and politics. So it's kind of a good beat for me. I saw this tweet, my editor sent me this tweet, because it was going viral. So I said, okay, let me pre-write something. And then if we see another confirmation of it, I will publish. But I'm not going to publish until we see something from an actual basketball writer or some original reporting here. I'm not going to aggregate just off of one tweet. And so then I didn’t! And that was just really simple. It's just not that hard. It doesn't take that much moral high ground. It's just really easy.
You guys, media, left-wing media: we have to be better, because we're going to be just like the right wing media if we don't stop doing crap like this. It’s very, very infuriating. But look, first of all, a couple of things beyond that. The Warriors should not go to the White House if they do not want to go to the White House. If there is a member of the Warriors who does want to go to the White House, I do not agree with that, but I do not think that I should personally stop them. If they are invited, they of course have the right to go, if they feel like that's the best way to make a statement. But as a white woman, I do not get to sit here and tell them what they should or should not do about Donald Trump, who has been incredibly racist and condescending and horrible, and has a government now built around a pressing civil rights, essentially.
So, Sally Jenkins was way, way, way out of line. Steph Curry's already said that he's probably not going to go. Steve Kerr has said also that they're probably not going to go. They haven't made a team decision. I think that it would be a very, very powerful statement for them to not go. We've seen athlete activism in the past year really have some important impact. I mean, we've seen it really spark a national conversation, really helped elevate the national conversation. And I think they should follow their hearts. And I think based upon the words that a lot of them have said in the media before this, a lot of their hearts are not with what's going on in the White House.
Julie: You know, one of the things that bothered me so much about the Sally Jenkins article was this idea that came out about “we have to listen to both sides,” right? Even if one side is completely off the wall and totally terrible and completely racist and sexist and homophobic and everything else. So, you know, this idea that you have to do this, and if you don't do it, it's disrespectful…Protest has never been founded on being respectful. Protest is about a radical act that makes people think. And so this idea that anything anyone does that is outside what's considered “polite” is somehow an affront to American ideals is something that really bothers me. I hope they don't go. And I hope the Warriors decide as a team not to go, because for me, that would be a statement. You know, we've seen a couple of guys that go here and there, but if the whole team decides not to go, that would really be something, and I hope that that's what winds up happening.
But Jess touched on with the journalism. There's so much of that going on these days. We saw last night especially with a bunch of bloggers that no one's really heard of talking about Jimmy Butler being traded in this NBA trade or draft picks between Boston and Philadelphia, and all of a sudden everyone ran with it. And I've got a producer, “Do you want to talk about the Jimmy Butler trade on your show?” And there is no Jimmy Butler trade! What are you talking about? I think you guys are exactly right, that when it comes to this stuff, it's got to come from more reporting and more vetting than just looking at someone tweeting with a verification hashtag. Anyone else?
Shireen: Yeah. I just want to reiterate, I don't work for a specific outlet. I'm a freelancer. So, dotting my I's and crossing my T’s is really important, and I think that in the issue and talking about discussion and radical journalism, radical journalism doesn't mean you have to make up facts! It doesn't work like that. And the only thing I really wanted to say about this whole topic, like, the whole thing, was, “Sally, sit down.” Like, I am so exhausted by people opining on race. Like, I'm sorry, if you're white, I really don't want to hear your opinion on race. This is also a thing that we can talk about, that you don't actually have an experience in terms of an oppressive side when we're talking about this. There's so many more interesting people that I would rather read about. And her response to people calling her out was equally as obnoxious, and I don't know. I mean, at some point you're just laughing about it, but no, really, I'm not laughing about it.
Lindsay: And the worst part about Sally is that when people…Well, the column was the worst part, let's start there. But when people started criticizing her, Bomani Jones from ESPN, who does a lot of great work on race and athletics, started explaining why her article was wrong, mainly that it didn't mention race at all. [laughs] And she was completely dismissive of him. She refused to listen, and she kept saying, I know what Bomani is going to say. And now look, maybe they have a past. Maybe there's been some conflict there in the past. Certainly seemed like this was not a dismissal based on one day of events.
But it's just ridiculous. You have to listen to people, you know? I mean, look, I get a lot of criticism for my work that I don't like, and sometimes I dismiss it and sometimes I don’t. You have to make a conscious decision about who you're going to listen to criticism from and who you're not. I'm not sure that Bomani Jones is the person you should be dismissing when talking about race. I just don't think that’s really accurate.
Julie: I will give the Jessica the last word on this one.
Jessica: Yeah. The only thing I want to say is that I hope the Warriors don't go, because Sally Jenkins was wrong in that column. And that would really just be spectacular, if they're invited, that as a group they decide not to head to the White House.
Julie: I love that idea. All right. Moving on to topic number three: the NCAA is terrible. That is no surprise to anyone who follows the NCAA. But they continued to be terrible this week. Lindsay, you’re up.
Lindsay: Yeah, I think that we can say this will be an ongoing topic here on Burn It All Down, the horribleness of the NCAA. This week though there are just a few things I think we gotta touch on. The NCAA sanctions against Louisville – for what has been called a sex scandal but is really an exploitation of women scandal – were handed down. I think they were pretty lax, but we are going to get into that in a minute. I know that some panelists have a few other ideas. But look, let's just go through a little list. This week, the NCAA reportedly nixed the YouTube account of a University of Central Florida's kickoff specialist after discovering that some of his videos contain content of his day-to-day life as a football player. This guy had been making a YouTube channel and producing, I mean, I think he had hundreds of videos on there. He had 54,000 followers. He was making money off of his channel to send back to his family who was struggling to pay bills. And the NCAA says, no, you can't do that.
You also have Dylan and Dakota Gonzales. I feel like lots of times when the horribleness of the NCAA is talked about, it's talked about in regards to male athletes, but here you have two female basketball players at the University of Las Vegas who decided to forego their final year of eligibility in their basketball careers because their music career has taken off. And because of all of the NCAAs amateurism restrictions – they didn't get to specifics here, but I'm assuming in regarding to autographs and being paid for your time and how much of your likeness you can make money off of – because of this, they felt like they had to forego their final year of eligibility, even though they still love basketball and want to play basketball.
To cap things off, you had another example of how these athletes are not on their own freewill, how they are employees, to the point where where they can go after they leave, their current place of employment, is being restricted. Like, it would be in a non-compete clause in a work contract. You had Ed Orgeron…And this is this isn't directly in the NCAA's institution, this is an LSU football coach. But look, this is all part of the same evil. So you had an LSU football coach, Ed Orgeron, deny offensive tackle Willie Allen's request to transfer to TCU. TCU is not a school that LSU even plays. But the reason it seems that at Orgeron blocked this transfer request was because TCU had signed a quarterback that LSU really wanted, and Ed Orgeron is really mad about any Louisiana football players going out of state, to the point where he has prevented Texas and TCU from holding football camps in Louisiana, because he wants to “protect the borders” and keep these student athletes from going anywhere else. Oh, I'm so mad. Jess?
Jessica: Yeah. I mean, I don't have anything good to say about the NCAA, ever. It's an exploitative system from the top down. I mean, oh man. I do want to talk specifically about Louisville. This is right in my wheelhouse. Yeah, I have all sorts…I have mixed feelings about what happened this week with Louisville. To be clear, they originally got in trouble because they spent money, too much money, on each of these recruits, right? So, they just happened to be spending money on sex workers for these athletes. But the actual problem originally was that they had spent too much money, that that was against the rules. But this week, when they handed down the punishment to Louisville, the thing that was significant for me was that Rick Pitino, who people love and adore, the head coach of the Louisville basketball team; he's an incredible coach at winning.
The NCAA didn't let him get away with the argument that because he didn't know, therefore he can't be punished. And I think that's a significant if small thing. They only punished him five games for this next season, he won't be able to coach. But it does matter, because when everything broke – and for those of us who are willing to be critical of the system, you know, the idea that Pitino didn't know that this four year long repeated behavior was happening by one of his coaches – the idea that he had no idea never passed the smell test. But there were so many male sports reporters who want to believe in the goodness of coaches, and Rick Pitino in particular. And they bought it. As soon as Rick Pitino said, “No, I didn't know,” they were like, oh, well, he didn't know, he said so!
The NCAA, of all places, said nah, we don't believe him. That's not true. Even if he for real didn't know, he should have known, is what the NCAA said. And that's a really big deal when we talk about coaches being responsible for the behavior happening underneath them, that this kind of denial, the NCAA has made it so the sports reporters can't say anymore that that doesn't matter. And that's really useful. The fact that he got a five game suspension, you know, didn't really back up with what could have been a much more significant punishment. So, I'll stop there and let someone else take over.
Julie: Yeah. You know, Jess, it's funny that you talk about male sports reporters and how willing they are to believe these guys. It just made me remember a guy, a sports reporter, who was just telling me about his family, and said, “X coach was more of a father to me growing up than my own father was,” except that he'd never met that coach. He just felt like he was a father figure because he watched him so much on TV and saw him so much. But I think you hit the nail right on the head. There's a dynamic going on I think sometimes between male sports writers and male coaches that perhaps us women just don't understand. Brenda?
Brenda: Yeah. Just a quick update on NCAA news from last week. The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill has still, despite some pretty negative press, refused to allow historian Jay Smith to offer his class on the history of big time college athletics. Somewhere out there, if we've got some professors that are fans of the show and fans of justice and education, I'd love to start a movement where we all teach Jay Smith's class – with his permission, of course, because syllabi are copyrighted property. [laughs] But Bubba Cunningham continues to be silent on the issue of his direct intervention, and with inflated salaries and this kind of pressure on departments, big time college athletics continues to be a threat to academic freedom. So, I’d just like to update people on that. And if any of our fans out there feel like teaching Jay Smith's class or contacting him, I think it'd be great if we could give him a lot of support.
Julie: That's great. All right, Jessica, and then we'll give Lindsay the last word.
Jessica: Yeah. I just want to add…I said a lot of things about Rick Pitino there, and I just wanted to say, with the other three things that Lindsay talked about at the top of this segment, the way that the NCAA exploits these student athletes and controls so much of their lives, like, if you can listen to what Lindsay described as how the system works and not feel disgusted in some way by it, I literally don't understand your moral compass at this point. It is so upsetting, anytime I hear about how the NCAA is treating these students who, let's remember, are like 18, 19, 20 year olds. It's horrible. And I just wanted to make sure that I said that out loud in this episode.
Julie: All right, Lindsay. Final word.
Lindsay: All right. I just want to very quickly, I think that what sums this up is Louisville's argument against why they're sanctioned, while they're violations were not a level one offense. So, this is found in the NCAA’s ruling on Louisville. It says, “The institution agreed that the violations are level one violations in the aggregate. However, it submitted that each individual violation was only level three. It made this argument based solely upon the assigned monetary value of the striptease dances and sex acts.” Yes. They were saying that they did not pay the women very much money, so therefore it was not a very bad violation. Just let that sink in!
I’d also like to add another story came out this week from Patrick Hruby at Vice sports, who always does a wonderful job really hammering home the horrible hypocrisy of the NCAA. And so he has a story on Vice sports about the Rebel Rags, an Ole Miss themed merchandise store, which is suing two Mississippi State players. And the reason they are suing these two Mississippi State players is because in this ongoing NCAA investigation into recruiting violations against these two players, there is a mention that this Rebel Rag store gave these players a total of $2,800 in free merchandise. That too is a level one violation.
So, what we're seeing here is just a ridiculous conflation of what is right and what is wrong. In one case you have the complete exploitation of women, using women as props to trade, and that is just as bad as giving a guy a sweatshirt. [laughs] So, I know we're not quite to the burn pile yet, but burn it all down, NCAA.
Julie: Now it's time for everyone's favorite segment, we like to call it the burn pile, where we pile up all the things we've hated this week in sports and set them on fire. Shireen, I know you've been waiting all week for this. We'll give you the first one.
Shireen: Thanks, Julie. So much to burn, so little time. I'm going to start off with the reviews that came out about…Because of the tax forms being released, it was actually reported in the Washington Post that Jill Ellis, who we all know is an incredibly winning…She’s the coach of the 2015 Women's World Cup championship team USA, she received $90,000 in a bonus, which, you know, for winning the World Cup, which is pretty amazing…But it is less than a fifth of what Jürgen Klinsmann, the coach at the time for the 2014 World Cup, won for guiding the men to the second round only. So basically, her bonus was minimal. Now, there's a lot of discussion about why this happens and there was excuses for this and the pay structure is different and the men have contracts through, you know, through their clubs and then the money is trickled down through FIFA.
But at the end of the day, I'm sorry, the reality is that women are paid less for as much or more work, and for coming first. This is a reality and we can't deny it. I want to burn this. And also, the way that US Soccer handles this and so many other things is complete garbage and I'm not here for it. So I would like to take pay inequity and women not getting the money they deserve, and I would like to flame it.
Julie: All right, Jessica, you're up.
Jessica: All right. So, this week I wanted towards the evergreen issue of athletic administrators interfering in investigations when a player from their program is under investigation for a crime. So, the latest example is Curtis Blackwell, a former football staff member at Michigan State. He's former because he was led out of the football building in February in handcuffs, and so no longer works there. The Michigan State University police had arrested him because they had determined that he interfered in an investigation the police were doing into a reported on campus sexual assault involving multiple football players.
According to the Lansing State Journal, Blackwell told investigators he had spoken with two players later identified as suspects about the incident days after it occurred on January 16th. That was before MSU police and the university's Title IX office knew about the reported involvement of the two players. And in fact, after a player told Blackwell about finding a distraught woman in pain in a bathroom at a party, Blackwell texted with one of the suspect's fathers about the incident – all before police learned which players were involved. Last week, the State Journal finally saw the MSU police's report that they submitted to the prosecutors about Blackwell. In it, the police wrote the Blackwell, “Took it upon himself to investigate the incident. He interviewed suspects, and he did not share that information that he received with police or MSU’s Title IX office.”
The best part, and this is so good: Blackwell, in defense of his actions, told police, “I wasn't doing an investigation or anything. I was just trying to find out exactly what happened.” He told police he was trying to determine if the sex was consensual. The county prosecutor has charged three players with sexual assault. She chose not to press charges against Blackwell, but still. Athletic officials need to stay out of investigations! This is ridiculous, and it happens all the time. They need to stop interfering. I just want to burn this. Burn this kind of behavior. It makes me so angry.
Julie: Burn it down.
Brenda: Burn it.
Julie: Brenda, you've got the next one.
Brenda: Okay. This week, Yanina Martinez, a Paralympic sprinter from Argentina who won the gold in the 100 meters in Rio last year, was informed this week that she would no longer receive what is a very small government disability pension, because she accepted a sponsorship to help defray the cost of competing. You can imagine that Paralympic athletes receive very little support in Argentina, and this is part, really, of a larger project of the current president, Mauricio Macri, to suspend pensions that really are going to the most vulnerable people in Argentina. But there are several athletes that have become flashpoints for this particular program.
And so, in honor of Yanina, who apparently has raised enough of a fuss…God, love her. I mean, she has cerebral palsy. She's got a lot on her plate. But it looks like they're going to reverse the decision, but in honor of Yanina and all of the show’s Argentine friends, I'd like to torch downsizing the Argentine state on the backs of the most vulnerable, and particularly athletes like Yanina.
Shireen: Torch it.
Julie: Lindsay.
Lindsay: Yeah. I'd like to add an old friend of ours to the burn pile, which is Floyd Mayweather. As you all know, Floyd Mayweather is going to be in another fight, this time against Conor McGregor, the UFC champion. It is a stupid thing for many reasons. Number one, they do not really play the same sport. But anyways, that is beyond here. What I want to talk about is what you all know, that Floyd Mayweather is a convicted domestic abuser, and we should not be celebrating him, but yet we still are. And the thing that really gets me about this is of course a lot of this was talked about a couple of years ago when he fought Manny Pacquiao and, you know, we were having kind of a rebirth of the domestic violence in sports conversation based on the case of Ray Rice and the video. And there was a lot of good, thoughtful discussion about it. And there was a lot of bad stuff too.
But what I feel now, even myself, is what else is there to say? And so then you don't say anything. It's like, I've already written my big piece about how bad this is about Floyd Mayweather. I wrote it two years ago. We can just repost that one, can’t we? You know, we've all said it, and you start to sound like a broken record, and it gets really frustrating, especially…Look, I do want to just enjoy sports. Like, I do want to just have fun, but I just can't let this go. I can't not throw this on the burn pile. Floyd Mayweather, there are seven incidences over 14 years involving five different women and resulting in five convictions. That is a pattern of domestic violence that we should not be able to just brush aside.
A quick trigger warning before I read this quote. Like I said, I think it's important to keep bringing this up, which is why I'm doing this, even though it's not pleasant to talk about. Just want to read a quote from Floyd Mayweather's son, who in September of 2010 saw their father beat their mother, Josie Harris. The youngest son, only nine years old, gave a statement to the police that says, “He was punching her and kicking her. He was punching her in the head and he was stomping on her shoulder.” And TMZ had video of Harris being taken out of the home in a stretcher after that incident. It's horrific. It is mind boggling that this is still a celebrated athlete. It is upsetting. It is frustrating. And I'm sorry for bringing it up. I feel like I have to apologize, but look, let's burn it all down. I don't know how we're still here, but I'd also don't really know how to move on from from here. So, that's my burn pile.
Shireen: Yeah. I'm not necessarily sure this is burn pile, but I want to addend it. It's kind of a funny thing, but slightly burn. IFAB, the International Federation Association of Football, that governs the rules of soccer, has announced that they're considering shortening professional matches and matches generally to 60 minutes. Now, those of us who have grown up in this sport, this is hysterically funny, because it's two 45 minute halves, period. And the idea is they want to speed up the game to make it more relevant and interesting. That was what it was reported to have said. And I think that's really bizarre. The Guardian reported this. And it's bizarre and it's weird because it has a culture. Football has a culture around the world. They said that the proposals could be implemented immediately and require no law changes, while some are “ready for testing experiments.” So, that was just something so weird, and I want to burn it. I'm not up for discussion on changing anything about the timing of football.
Julie: All right. I will wrap it up. The St. Louis Cardinals are holding a Christian night, which is something that they've done for the past three decades. To be fair, they also have Jewish night and a bunch of other religious nights on their schedule. They're also going to have a pride night coming up, not in June, but I believe afterwards. However, for Christian night, they're having Lance Berkman, former Astro, former Cardinal, come speak. Lance Berkman is someone who has been incredibly outspoken against equality laws. He is very anti-LGBTQ. He spoke out strenuously for a bill in Houston that would've prevented transgender people from using bathrooms that are in accordance with the sex they identify with. He has said that he thinks tolerance is one of the things that is ruining America. He is someone who has been unapologetic about his homophobia.
And, you know, in 2015, the Cardinals had a player named Tyler Dunnington who wound up quitting baseball – he was a minor league player – because of the homophobia he encountered in the locker room and from the organization. So, Lance Berkman is a terrible choice to have speak at Christian night. I had a Christian friend say to me, it's not Christian night, it’s right wing extremist Christian night. It's another in a continuing series of bad choices by the St. Louis Cardinals. So, Lance Berkman speaking at Christian night, burn it. Okay. After all that burning, it's time to celebrate some remarkable women this week. Lindsay, I think you have our badass woman of the week?
Lindsay: Absolutely. This is badass women of the week here. The Seattle Storm, in particular the ownership of the Seattle Storm, the WNBA team. This is a team that is owned by women, it is coached by women, and their general manager is a woman. And of course it is a woman's basketball team. And they have taken activism to the next level by partnering with Planned Parenthood. They're the first professional sports team to publicly support and partner with Planned Parenthood. I have a story on it at ThinkProgress, which we will drop in the show notes. I just really want to applaud them. They are giving $5 from every ticket they sell at the July 18th game to Planned Parenthood. There will also be an online auction to benefit Planned Parenthood – more details on that coming soon. They also are holding a rally before their July 18th game against the Chicago Sky, and this is incredibly significant because this is their only nationally televised home game.
This will be on ESPN2, pretty much a game a week of the WNBA. There's one game every Tuesday night, that's going to be the big ESPN2 game. And the goal is to have a bunch of people at the rally. Seattle's a very progressive and activist-minded city. They're also hoping to, I think, flood the screen with pink shirts in the audience with people wearing their Planned Parenthood t-shirts with supporters in the audience. I don't know if this is going to force ESPN to talk about Planned Parenthood live on air, but gosh, I certainly hope it does. This is really exciting news. This is a really big deal, and I'm really proud to cover a league and to be a fan of a league that has a team that is willing to do this. So, thank you, Seattle Storm.
Julie: Brenda.
Brenda: Yeah, I'd like to acknowledge the passing of a bad-ass woman, Bambi Wulf, Jane Bachman Wulf, passed away this week in Larchmont, New York. She was known as Bambi, officially Jane, and she joined Sports Illustrated in 1977 as copy editor – or a clerk, and then soon after copy editor, which is really the lowest rung in the late 1970s at the magazine. Quickly she was promoted to reporter. She traveled a lot, writing some really memorable pieces on golf among other things. And then she was promoted to chief of reporters in 1992, where she stayed until leaving for Time Magazine in the late 1990s. It's just so remarkable, her career, and she's really not been very acknowledged by the mainstream media, despite the fact that she hired some of this show’s favorite writers like Grant Wahl and Pulitzer prize winner Amy Nutt. So, I'd just like to say, on behalf of the show, rest in power, Bambi.
Julie: That's amazing. All right, Jessica, you're up.
Jessica: I just want to quickly put in an honorable mention for Doris Burke, the legend. Last week after the Warriors won game five at home and once again became the NBA champions, Burke was the person in charge of postgame interviews on the court amongst the chaos of celebration, and then she shepherded us through the NBA trophy presentation onstage. Like, it was a wild time to try to be in control of anything. And Burke was spectacular at it. It was so fun to watch her be magnificent. And it mattered to me that I was watching a woman do this in this male. It was a masterclass in smarts, preparedness, patience, confidence, poise, all in the middle of a scene that would be easily challenging for anyone. So, hats off to Burke this week,
Julie: I’ll add one really quickly. Hats off this week and honorable mention to Diana Moskovitz of Deadspin, and she's also writing for Jezebel. She was typically known as a sportswriter to all of us, and much beloved as a sportswriter, but she was at the Bill Cosby trial. She covered it, a trial that a lot of us did not want to look at, think about, and something that we knew was probably going to go south. And of course it did. I was really disappointed in that. It was hard for me to want to read it and understand what happened. Diana covered it all beautifully. So, a Burn It All Down honorable mention, badass woman of the week to Diana Moskovitz.
Shireen: Yes. Thanks. I wanted to mention Brienne Minor, who is a University of Michigan NCAA champion. Now, this is important, and she's a single's champion, but she's also the first Black athlete to win an NCAA Div I singles championship since Arthur Ashe in 1965. Now, she won this, and she didn't actually realize the historic importance of this happening, because winning this championship is incredible. But her quote is amazing. She said, “I didn't even realize it until my sister said something to me a couple of days later.” And she spoke from Ann Arbor, Michigan where she’s studying. And she said, “It's such an honor, and I hope I can be a good role model for other African American tennis players, because there's not a lot in this game.” So, hats off, honorable mention to Brienne Minor. Congratulations. You deserve it.
Julie: Lindsay gets the last one.
Lindsay: Yeah. I just want to mention Crystal Griner, one of the Capitol police officers who was heroic earlier this week in taking down the lone gunman who opened fire at the Republican congressional baseball game practice in Alexandria, Virginia. Now, this is sports. Griner was a basketball player in both high school and in Division III in college, and she's also a Black woman and she is a lesbian and her wife was at the hospital comforting her. Her injuries are non life-threatening, which is great news. She is a hero. She did save lives. And I just want to want to give her a shout out, to a true hero, a true badass. You know, it is worth noting, not to make this too overtly political, although there's nothing wrong with making things political here on Burn It All Down. But of course the people who she saved, Steve Scalise and a lot of them, were fighting against her very rights as a human being. So, I think that what she did was incredible and want to give her a shout out. So thank you, Crystal, for being a hero.
Julie: All right. Real quickly, we've got some listener mail this week. We love hearing from you guys, so please keep them coming. This week's listener mail comes to us from Andrew. He says,
Hi everyone,
Loving the podcast and look forward to it each week. Thanks for making it happen for me and the rest of the world. A light bulb went off when you were talking about Mili Hernandez and the competitiveness of parents and youth sport. You covered many angles of that burn-worthy situation, but I wanted more on the intersection of competitiveness and sexism. I've seen my share of wildly competitive sports parents, but it really struck me that the opposing team's parents’ protests were rooted in deeply ingrained sexist attitudes about girls and boys and women and men in sports. It felt clear to me that those parents were particularly resistant because so many of us have absorbed the idea that boys and men are better at sports and girls couldn't possibly compete with or handle playing alongside a big strong boy – even if that boy was eight years old and no different physically, as you rightly pointed out. If I could start the world over, maybe gender and sport wouldn't be part of it. But if they were, I would definitely make sure the girls and boys grew up playing sports together. As it stands, burn it. Thanks again for all your energy, sharing your perspective with us. Your voices, perspective, and all the things you talk about are so, so critical. You all win my badass women in sport each and every week.
Rock on,
Andrew
PS: I also thought you should know that I presented today on sexism and gender equity in sport with my staff and was very proud to add a Burn It All Down slide under my keep learning resources. I thought it would be cool to know what likely started as a “what if we did a podcast” idea for you now is being made into training presentation slides by sport and recreation professionals.
Thank you so much for that email, Andrew. We love hearing from you guys, and you can always send email us at burnitalldownpod@gmail.com. All right, that's it for this week's episode of Burn It All Down. Burn It All Down is produced by Brian Dusek and lives on SoundCloud, but can also be heard on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, and TuneIn. We always appreciate your reviews and feedback. So feel free to subscribe, rate and tell us what you liked or didn't like about the show. We hope you'll follow us on Twitter @burnitdownpod and on Facebook at Burn It All Down.
And to check out our website, head on over to burnitalldownpod.com. That's where you'll find all our show notes and links to all the topics we discussed each week. And of course you can email us at burnitalldownpod@gmail.com. And please take some time to check out our GoFundMe page and consider making a small donation. We really want to improve the podcast and make it a sustainable endeavor. We've already been able to get better mics for those of us who didn't have them, and we're really grateful to everyone who's contributed so far. That's it for us this week. For Lindsay Gibbs, Jessica Luther, Brenda Elsey and Shireen Ahmed, I'm Julie DiCaro. We'll see you next week.