Episode 1: Racism in baseball, NFL and DV, and FIBA rescinds head-covering ban
In the inaugural episode of Burn It All Down, Julie DiCaro, Jessica Luther, Brenda Elsey, Shireen Ahmed, and Lindsay Gibbs discuss racist taunts in Boston, the depressing state of the NFL draft, and FIBA’s overturning of the ban on headscarves. Plus you’ll hear The Burn Pile and Badass Woman of the Week!
We get into the racist incident at Fenway Park against Adam Jones of the Baltimore Orioles and the racist histories in sports towns, namely Boston (1:52) The group discusses the NFL draft, Joe Mixon and the other drafted players with ties to domestic violence cases, and the problematic way that major sports organizations do not care about women and what they can do better (21:38) Lindsay Gibbs goes through the history of football players involved in violence against women (31:48) How the current political culture validates a toxic culture of violence against women (36: 40) Watching sports and how, as women, we consume them and the news offered (38:38) Shireen Ahmed on the good news of FIBA rescinding the headcovering ban and the backstory of policing women’s bodies and how we move forward (45:36) Burn Pile – hosts set metaphorical fire to Magic Johnson meeting Floyd Mayweather (56:40)
Louisiana State University sent out an email to athletes asking them not to wear LSU clothing if they protest against DOJ decision not to charge Anton Sterling’s murderers (57:09) International football media’s silence on Cristiano Ronaldo’s involvement in a rape case (59:40) Brazilian sports media for not extensively covering Emily Lima’s football badassery (1:02:20) Nick Saban will be paid $11 million dollars to coach the University of Alabama (1:04:12) Penn State has elected Jay Paterno’s son to the Board of Trustees (1:05:55) Badass woman of the week – Boxer Amaiya Zafar is that 1st woman to wear a scarf in the boxing ring in the United States (1:07:18) Honourable mentions – Jane Meyer settles lawsuit with University of Iowa in Title IX case (1:08:25) Patricia Driscoll’s bravery in coming forward about the abuse she faced by NASCAR driver Kurt Busch (1:09:38)
Links
On Adam Jones: https://theshadowleague.com/story/classless-red-sox-fans-shout-n-word-threats-at-adam-jones and http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/blog/bal-reaction-orioles-adam-jones-racial-slurs-20170502-story.html
On the NFL draft and violence against women: https://thinkprogress.org/the-nfl-draft-proves-the-nfl-still-doesnt-care-about-women-fe44450b72c4
Jessica Luther’s work on football and sexualized violence: http://peninsulapress.com/2017/04/28/jessica-luther-sportswriter-profile/
FIBA’s headcovering ban: https://sports.vice.com/en_ca/article/after-a-long-fight-fiba-finally-lifts-its-ban-on-religious-headwear
LSU and Anton Sterling: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/justice-department-will-not-charge-baton-rouge-officers-in-fatal-shooting-of-alton-sterling/2017/05/02/ac962e66-2ea7-11e7-9534-00e4656c22aa_story.html
Cristiano Ronaldo’s Rape Case: http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/rape-allegations-against-real-madrid-star-ronaldo-it-has-to-be-less-a-1144878.html
On Emily Lima: http://www.fifa.com/womens-football/news/y=2017/m=4/news=emily-lima-a-pioneer-in-brazil-s-dugout-2879588.html
Nick Saban’s Salary: http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2017/5/2/15515544/nick-saban-11-million-salary-highest-paid-sports-coach-2017
Amaiya Zafar: https://www.theshadowleague.com/story/amaiya-zafar-fights-for-inclusion-and-acceptance
Patricia Driscoll: https://thinkprogress.org/patricia-driscoll-nascar-6ff66e7a7d96
Transcript
Julie: Welcome to the first episode of Burn It All Down! It may not be the feminist podcast you want about sports, but it's the feminist podcast you need. My name's Julie DiCaro, I'm a sports writer in Chicago. And let me introduce you to the rest of the panel today. Joining us from Austin, Texas is the fantastic writer, Jessica Luther, author of Unsportsmanlike Conduct: College Football and the Politics of Rape. Super cheery subject there from Jessica. She also writes for a ton of media outlets, focusing largely on sports and violence against women. The amazing Lindsay Gibbs of ThinkProgress, who also covers a lot of sports and gender issues.
Brenda Elsey, associate professor at Hofstra University, who studies politics, culture, gender, and focuses a lot on soccer. And from Toronto, the incomparable Shireen Ahmed, freelance sports writer, writes for a lot of outlets on the intersection of sports and race and gender and violence against women – places like Vice sports, The Shadow League, Unusual Efforts…Did I leave any out, Shireen? I know there's like 50.
Shireen: I'm not…I don't like listing bylines. I feel tacky. [laughs]
Julie: I’ll be tacky for you. Alright, this is our inaugural episode of Burn It All Down. We're super excited to be here. It has been a busy week this week for the kind of stuff we like to talk about when it comes to sports, mostly because of the Adam Jones case in Major League Baseball, where Adam Jones called out Boston Red Sox fans for taunting him, racially, throwing a bag of peanuts at him. And he’s only the latest person to speak out about feeling racially targeted in Boston. So, where do we want to start with Adam Jones?
Brenda: Maybe we should start with the fact that the Red Sox were the last major league team to integrate.
Julie: Yeah, I mean, I think that there's definitely…Boston has a reputation for this kind of thing. It's funny, I was at a conference a couple of weeks ago in Boston where this was a topic, and they had guys who had all won championships with Boston up on the stage, and they brought this up. And they played a video of Bill Russell talking about the Celtics, the way that he felt targeted when he was in Boston. And they played video of Michael Che from Saturday Night Live saying that it's the most racist city that he's ever been to. And immediately the white guys on the panel jumped in to defend Boston and said, “This is an easy question – there’s nothing racist about Boston.” And the black guy on the panel was Devin McCourty of the Patriots and just sat there while they basically declared racism dead in Boston. It was really something to see.
Shireen: I think if people actually spent as much time defending racism as they did combating the problem, we would see…Particularly what I saw at the Adams Jones case is that the attention drifted to the likeability of Boston and the character of Boston and “not all Bostonians are racist.” If people are actually focused on the hurt feelings and the anger and what had happened and transpired, and moving forward talked about that, it would have made a big difference because even the conversations were really, really bad. And the way that it rolled down was really, really uncomfortable on the internet.
Julie: The Albert Breer conversation was terrible, where he was like, “Well, I don't believe it. I need proof.” As if a Black man saying it doesn't count. You need to hear it from someone white before you actually believe it. And it wasn't until Mike Lupica told him that there was this history of this happening in Boston that he finally accepted it.
Lindsay: I agree, Shireen, and Julie. I think one of our biggest problems right now is that people don't believe individual people's stories. They don't believe the truth that people are saying. And there's this…What would Adam Jones gain from coming forward and complaining about this if it wasn't really happening, do you know what I mean? Like, what is in that for him? What, the MLB is right now less than 8% African American? I think maybe closer to 7%. It just keeps driving down year by year, the numbers of African Americans playing baseball – in particular the number of Americans making it to the top levels. We just had the…I believe it was the 70 or 75th of the Jackie Robinson anniversary, and things are getting worse and not better.
And, you know, this is a chance for us to talk about that and to talk about the problems that Boston has. And instead it became a referendum on “Can we believe this guy?” And as a woman, that sounds kind of familiar coming from white men. So I think that that really bothered me. Like, why are we not…If we can take this guy’s statements at face value, look at historical context and then move the conversation forward – we’ll save about a week of the new cycle, which is white guys needing proof.
Jessica: This idea of proof bothers me, especially because so much of what we see…I mean, I'm sure you all are thinking the same thing I am, right? Like, I work on sexual violence cases and sort of whose experience counts as evidence in those cases is very much not the victims, right? And what we saw with Adam Jones was a lot of white men, especially white men, saying, “Well, I have never seen this before, so therefore it must not exist” – but I need proof of his experience, right? Like, they were literally privileging their experience as evidence, and saying that Adam Jones, his experience didn't count as evidence. And that just…Nothing makes me angrier than to watch someone do that, to say, well, mine counts, but his does not. And that's literally a…Like, you're participating in racism in order to prove to me that you're not racist. And just that whole thing is so frustrating
Julie: What I’ll never understand is the way that white men feel so attacked if you say “this happened,” and then it's like, they're all in there defending…Like, no one said it was you personally, just that it happened! I never understand the jump to defend all white men or an entire city or whatever when something like that happens. Go ahead, Shireen.
Shireen: I think the other thing too is just getting back to what Jessica was saying, and because this podcast is Burn It All Down, there was a Twitter thread about a prominent baseball writer who actually said, well, I want that idea of proof. And what that immediately does is the erasure of all the voices that are telling you that it has been microaggressions, it's been outward experience in this. And there's this complete disregard for all of those voices. And that is very prominent also in sports media, which we know is…You know, the Women's Media Center tells us it's 90%…Although I was doing some research, and that statistic has gone to 89%
Jessica: White men?
Shireen: White men. So, we're getting better.
Lindsay: I’m feeling the progress. I’m feeling it. [Shireen laughs]
Brenda: Somebody retired. [laughter] You know, I thought one of the depressing things about the reaction, apart from what you all are saying, which is absolutely correct, was that when this happened with the Red Sox in 1959, and Pumpsie Green, who was the first person to integrate the Red Sox, an African-American player, and was demoted unfairly. The fan base of the Red Sox protested outside of Fenway with these big signs that said, “We want a pennant, not a white team.” And so for me, it was sort of sad to see all these white guys getting upset and saying, “We're different than we were!” It's like, yeah, you're worse. [laughter] You’re not doing anything. You know, whereas at least in 1959, some of you got…The NAACP protested it.
I don't hear Black leaders coming out in large numbers right now – probably because they feel like they don't have the support that they did even then. So I sort of feel like people have been demobilized, and the fans…It’s like, I'm not saying you should want a pennant more than you don't want a racist…Like, the problem is you don't want a racist team even more than you want a pennant. But at least in ’59, the fans were like, you know, we don't want racism if it's going to cost us this. So at least they had that mobilization. Today I saw nothing from the fans’ kind of groundswell saying, you know, “We're not going to take this anymore” outside of Fenway, you know?
Julie: That’s a really good point, Brenda. And one of the things that I wonder is how much of this is driven by Boston sports media, which is really vitriolic towards anyone who expresses dissent. So whether it's, you know, minorities, whether it's women, whether it's people of color or whatever it is, you know, if you speak contrary to what WEEI wants you to hear, what Barstool wants you to say; if they feel attacked, then they reign hell down on you. And I just wonder how many people are silenced by that, and why that seems to be so unique to Boston media.
Jessica: Do you think it's unique? Because it reminds me of Chicago media. Like, I was actually wondering your opinion on this Julie, because when I was watching the Boston one unfold I was thinking, you know, everything with Patrick Kane or when the Derrick Rose stuff first took off in Chicago. I mean, it was similar. It felt similar to me in the way that we watched with stuff about the Patriots or this stuff with Adam Jones. Do you see parallels, or is that dangerous for you to talk about? [laughs]
Julie: No, I don't think so. I think maybe because I'm in the middle of it, I don't necessarily see it that way. And I'm sure people in Boston would probably say the same thing. I've had people tell me that when it comes to, you know, players being accused of stuff, that no one is worse than Blackhawks fans at like attacking other people. And certainly I've experienced that. I think the difference, at least for me though, is that the people who are on the air in Chicago, who sort of are like the sanctioned voice of Chicago media, aren’t like, you know, Kirk Minihane and whatever the other guy is on WEEI. Like, they to me are especially vitriolic in, you know, attacking people. And so that I don't see necessarily in Chicago, but I think you're probably right about the rest of it.
Lindsay: Yeah. This was Wednesday, and I think that as an outsider, you know, I'm from North Carolina, lived in New York for a while, and I'm now in DC. And I’ve of course seen toxic sports culture in all of those places, as well as many places that I've written about. But I do think that there are some on-air personalities and a kind of a cultish feel to Boston sports media. I think a lot of that's because maybe they went a lot of years without any success. They're very defensive, very me against the world. I know that even Bill Simmons talks about this on the podcast, how there's very much a, you know, “don't get anywhere near us, don't accuse us.” That's why Deflategate kind of became the perfect Boston scandal in some ways, because it confirmed all their fears that everyone was against them [laughs] in a lot of ways.
And I think you see that in some ways, in their jump to defend Boston athletes, Boston culture, Boston everything before doing any sort of research. And especially, I mean, look – we know that two of the places that promote the most abuse from people who were on their show or people they disagree with is the Callahan show in Boston and then Barstool Sports. And I don't know if that’s a coincidence that both of those sports media conglomerates or shows are Boston-based.
Shireen: Shireen here, and just jumping in to kick off on what Lindsay just said about toxic masculinity. Hockey culture I'm really familiar with, and Julie, you’re right – Blackhawks fans are super defensive, and I've run into this issue just even tweeting about Kane. In fact, my first rape email threat was because of Kane, something I tweeted about him. And I'm not saying that necessarily those are Chicagoans doing it, but they're Blackhawks fans wherever they might be situated. And like, I say a lot of mean stuff about the Toronto Maple Leafs and I live in Toronto, I'm not a Leafs fan.
But I mean, the whole idea about this type of behavior and just sort of making apologies…I like, I love Chicago as a city. I think it's a great city. And I think it's really important to recognize that these things happen all across the board, but there is something in Boston that we find about racism. And professor Lou Moore was tweeting about what Bill Russell was writing about this, about his experiences in Boston with racism. You can love the city, and there's a place to love a city, but be really cognizant of the racism that festers there, or the toxic masculinity, because just quite often they go hand in hand.
Brenda: Yeah, you know, I'm interested in what European soccer does with these kinds of incidents, because they're really the scourge of European football, though there's great organizations working on it. So it's kinda interesting to look at what they do. And of course they have a different structure, right? They have an international regulatory body. So, it's different than looking at the US structure of sports ownerships, you know, there’s not necessarily anybody to come and agree upon what the reaction is.
But at least back in October, there was a group of Black fans who were attacked in Ukraine. And what UEFA ruled in the end was a fine, of course, which no one cares about. I think it was like £12,000 or something ridiculous. But what they do care about is that UEFA, the governing body, said to Dynamo, you have to play your next European home games in empty stadiums. So, the next three European games they have to play, they have to play to empty stadiums. Nobody's allowed in. And that's actually a sanction.
Julie: Yeah, I think that's actually really interesting. And I saw someone actually bring that up, that that should be what happens when racial insults are hurled at players or whether there's incidents between the fans involving racism, that there should just be an empty stadium. And people suggested that for Boston. I don't think we've ever done that here in the US, but I think that would be really interesting.
Lindsay: Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think that's fascinating. I think what's so bothersome about this is the fact that, at the end of the day, baseball is…Like I was saying earlier, you were just saying the number of African Americans playing baseball decreased, and instances like this are obviously not going to help. And particularly, I mean, look, you don't have many managers or owners in baseball who are African American, you know? The whole leadership structure is really white. And then the majority of players are white, and then of course a large number of Hispanics playing as well. And I just hate seeing stuff like this and I hate not being able to talk about the issue, and the incidences of racism that are going to continue to keep African Americans out of the sport. It's just really sad.
Jessica: Yeah. I mean, that's so interesting, Brenda, because the night after Adam Jones was reported this, there was another incident where someone in the stands at Fenway said a racial slur, and that person got banned from the stadium forever. And, you know, good. I think that's good. At the same time, it's such an individualized, tiny response to an overall problem that lots of people have brought up, right? Like, you know that if they're not actually changing the rules of how they're going to respond to this, this will just happen again.
And maybe one person will get thrown out of the stadium again – or, you know, banned from the stadium. But the idea of, like, no one can come for a few games, that the players themselves have to participate in an empty stadium and that the fans don't get to be there. I mean, there’s something so much bigger and seems much more effective to me, if that's the punishment. You know that kind of that rule, like, if anyone here messes up, then everyone gets in trouble?
Brenda: Exactly.
Jessica: Like, who doesn’t…That’s so effective in making people be better and to think outside of themselves.
Brenda: And there’s nothing louder than an empty stadium.
Julie: Yeah. Wasn't there an empty stadium in Baltimore a couple of years ago during the protests in Baltimore? I want to say there was. I think I remember, and it was really eerie to watch. But I think Jessica is absolutely right. Like, you know, it is a problem that has been talked about with Boston fans for years and years and years. And it's not just the person who said the racial slurs or who threw the bag of peanuts or whatever, but all the people around him who didn't say anything, who just sat there and let it happen. To me, that is so, so disturbing.
Brenda: And he needs his fellow players.
Lindsay: I was about to say, where are his teammates in all of this, you know what I mean? I'm Googling right now, and I'll be honest, work had me a little distracted this week, but I'm just Googling right now Adam Jones’ teammates’ comments, and I'm not seeing a lot. And that really is horrible. I think that, look, people, we have to speak up, right? We have to stand up and be against this and speak out when we see people do things wrong and condemn them. And if that's not happening, then we're not learning and we're not progressing. And this is never going to go anywhere.
Julie: And white players in baseball are really conservative. I think that someone had just written about how probably upwards of 52% of baseball players are super conservative guys. And I think we saw that, especially with the Chris Sale thing, like, the crowd gives Adam Jones – well, part of the crowd – gives Adam Jones a standing ovation the next night to sort of, I guess, apologize. And then the first thing he does is throw behind Manny Machado's head, almost as if he was aggravated by the fact that people were showing some kind of compassion for this point of view. It was just…I mean, we've had stuff said here in Chicago by some of the players and things that have been done by players, and it is just a much more conservative base. So, while it's disappointing not to see especially his white teammates come out and say something, I'm not surprised.
Jessica: And I just want to circle back to Lindsay's point right at the beginning of this, like, well, what does Adam Jones get out of this? What does he get from coming forward and saying this happened to him? Like, he knows that he's not gonna even get support from his teammates by saying this. So the idea that he's making this up, that we need proof? That's the proof, right? And, oh man, that is a bummer. I didn’t know that. I don't know much about baseball, so I didn't know that about baseball players. I'm not surprised. But when we want more reporting, it's always about what the support system will be when that person comes forward to report whatever it is that's happening to them. And players of color are going to watch what happened to Adam Jones, and next time it probably won't be worth it, right? And so we won't hear about it. And so then when they finally do say something later on, it’ll be like, well, this is brand new information. This doesn't happen very much. Well, people aren't reporting because you're going to treat them like shit when they do! Oh, am I allowed to say that?
Julie: Yeah. [laughter]
Lindsay: Burn It All Down is for sure an explicit podcast. [laughs] Language is encouraged.
Julie: Alright guys, that was a really good discussion. Why don't we move on to the Joe Mixon situation – or I guess it's about a broader issue of guys who have a history of violence against women being recruited and signed and picked up by teams. Lindsay, you want to tell us about Joe Mixon?
Lindsay: Absolutely. So, it's been a week now since the NFL draft has ended, and we have a few more players – five players – with a known history of accusations of violence against women, sexual assault, or domestic violence, who were drafted into the league. I wrote about four of those players: Gareon Conley, Joe Mixon, Dede Westbrook, and Caleb Brantley earlier this week on The Changeover. And for me, look, I'm not against second chances. I'm not a hundred percent against these guys being drafted, but it's the way that we're talking about them. It's a way that the general managers and coaches and owners are talking about them being drafted into the league that makes me realize that we're nowhere near close enough to being ready for this.
It's now three years since Ray Rice first punched his wife and knocked her out and elevator of a casino in Atlantic City. It's two and a half years since that video became public, and everyone had a light bulb moment about how we're not treating violence against women properly in sports, and everything was supposed to be fixed, particularly in the NFL. You know, there were all these initiatives, which I think all of us have written about extensively. And here we are.
I mean, look, you have Joe Mixon first of all. I mean, that's the most…That’s the incident I think that's closest to what we had with Ray Rice, because there was video, right? He knocked someone out on video. This was back in 2014, so it was actually right around the time that the Ray Rice incident occurred, that he actually…Amelia Molitor, her name, I hope I'm pronouncing that right. This was not a woman he was involved in a relationship with. This was not a woman he really knew prior, as far as all reporting goes. But of course when they got into a fight, he knocked her out and he walked right out of the restaurant, the sub shop they were in.
The Cincinnati Bengals drafted Joe Mixon 40th overall. There was talk that he was first round talent or whatever that means, but he dropped into just the middle of the second round. So, not very far. Talk about coach Marvin Lewis of the Cincinnati Bengals, who said, “He gets an opportunity to move forward and write his script from here.” Mixon was very emotional after he was drafted. He said a lot of the right things. Of course, since this happened in 2014 and was so public, there's been a lot of opportunity for the PR spin to happen. Right before the draft, he and Amelia Molitor met, settled their civil suit, met in person and both released statements about how it was time to move on. But later in the week, the Bengals owner came out and said, look, we're taking a risk with this. We know we're taking a risk.
He said there was a lot of talk about how they're going to do everything they can to have the support system in place for Mixon. But I don't know what that support system looks like. I don't know what type of help he's actually getting. I don't know what type of intervention help he's actually getting. I don't know what anyone is doing. And it’s scary he’d say “We're taking a risk” because your risk on the football field is very minor. The risk that you're giving to women in your area when you're drafting someone like this, if you recognize it's a risk, I mean, that's who is really at risk here. That's scary to me.
There are a few other instances that we can talk about. I know I'm kind of hogging the conversation, but I think the most disturbing was Dede Westbrook who was drafted 110th overall by the Jacksonville Jaguars. He was accused of domestic violence twice by the mother of his children back in 2013 and I think 2014. Tulsa World – have to get them a shoutout – did some fantastic reporting on this. It really just came out at the end of the year when he was going through his Heisman campaign. But the Jaguars drafted him and the general manager of the Jaguars, David Caldwell, said, “I think we've all been accused of things. Well, not all of us. But many of us have been accused of things.” And so the attitude is still we're taking risks, accusations happen, and we'll go from there. And I don't know. Jess, I know you've written tons about this. What do you think about the types of systems you would like to see in place and the attitude that we're seeing these coaches and general managers have?
Jessica: Oh, you want me to say nice words? [laughs] I do think it's hard. Like, what should happen, right? And it gets complicated when we move from college to the NFL because we're talking about employee now, like actual employees, versus, you know, the lie we say about college kids that play ball. You know, part of this for me is that this is…I’m a historian by training, and so much of this is just the same as always, right? One of the things that I do now is on draft day I tweet out like a 1988 New York Times article where they talk about how they now care about character in the NFL draft. And so like, we're still here. It's the same exact PR spin on this idea, going back to 1988 – at least 1988.
And then you talking about Dede Westbrook makes me think about Frank Clark, who the Seahawks drafted two years ago. Well, I think he had pending charges for domestic violence after Pete Carroll and other Seahawks people showed up in videos saying, like, domestic violence is bad and we would never stand for it, right? And that hurts. And so, yeah, it's interesting because what would we like to see from the Bengals? I don't know. I just don't believe…I guess what I would actually like to see, honestly, at this point, is just them telling me the truth about it, right?
So like, when Mike Brown, the owners of the Bengals, released his statement, he counts the risk. Like, they're getting smarter, right? It's like they're reading us. He talks about the community within which “the Bengals take pride in our hometown and want to provide winning football on the field and successful players off the field. That is the reason we redrafted Joe.” This is literally what he wrote. “In making our decision, we took a risk. In this case, the risk has an upside as well as a downside.” I don't know. The thing that bothers me about this idea of “risk” coming from an NFL owner is I think he means, like, risk of suspension if Mixon does violence, rather than the risk of someone like being physically harmed by this player.
But it's all couched in this idea of community, because like when Greg Hardy happened at Dallas, one of my huge critiques of that was they kept saying like, “We don't condone domestic violence. We're taking a risk…” but they really just meant the team. And I kept saying, you can't have a community tab on your site and tell us you care about the community of Dallas and bring this guy in, knowing everything we know. So it's like the Browns are smarter. They're couching it all as if this is part of a community decision and they're thinking about the community. But then there's using this language again. I wish they would just tell the truth. Just stop saying it's about any of that. Say that it's this calculated thing where you want to win football games above and beyond every other thing, and you don’t…That's it! That is the beginning and the end of it. Julie?
Julie: Yeah. I teed off on this on Chicago radio yesterday. I'm so sick of having to care about this. I think of all the “stick to sports” crowd, and honestly I'm envious of people who are able to watch a sport they love and just not think about anything about the sport, because it seems like for every team out there, there's always one of these guys, right? Like for the Cubs it's Aroldis Chapman, for the Lakers it's Kobe Bryant, you know? There’s always somebody. And the idea is always, “we care about domestic violence, it’s very important to us.” Really? Then why are you drafting Joe Mixon? You know, I'm just so tired of the obvious falsity of the things they say.
And the idea that somehow this is even believable to anyone? I could feel my blood pressure rising when I talk about it. And someone actually texted into the show yesterday and said to Maggie Hendricks and I, “You have no business caring about players' personal lives.” So, I mean, that's the level of thinking that we're dealing with here, that there are people who…The idea is just, yes, he hurts women. No, we don't care, because we want to win football games. And honestly, I would respect teams more if they said that.
Shireen: I'm going to derail this conversation just a little, but it's Burn It All Down, so I feel like this is exactly the place to do that. This “stick to sports” crowd – if it's issues of domestic violence, sexualized violence, systematic oppression within sport – people that say they don't want that are literally the most privileged…I've never watched the sport and not thought about it. I don't know if it’s because I'm a racialized Muslim woman, but I have never watched a sport without thinking along different lines. So I really am fascinated almost that these people exist. That, “I don't want politics in my sport. I don't want you to ruin my sport” – because my sport has always, always been inherently political, I guess, if that's what you call it. Bren?
Brenda: I think, Lindsay, you wanna take this?
Lindsay: Yeah, I just wanna say real quickly I completely agree. That's why the title of my piece this week was, the NFL draft proves the NFL still doesn't care about women. And that's what I feel when I see that they're not taking this seriously. You know, women are watching this too. The women who are victims of these crimes are fans too. They love the sport too. And I think that really bothers me. I mean, look, there were two other incidents that really bothered me in the draft. You had Gareon Conley – there were accusations that surfaced the week of the draft that he was accused of sexual assault. He was projected to be probably a top 10 pick. He ended up falling to 24. The Oakland Raiders drafted him.
This is from the police report. The woman said – trigger warning – that he grabbed her and ripped her pants off and then assaulted her. And she did go to the hospital for a rape kit, and that always sticks out to me, because rape kits are incredibly unpleasant. So when I read that someone went in for a rape kit, that's just not something people do for fun, or just because.
But anyways, the Raiders said in one statement, their general manager, Reggie McKenzie, said, look, “We did our due diligence, we did all the research. We feel really good about picking him. We trust our research.” The reports had just surfaced that week. How could they feel confident about it, right? That's a lie. They were taking a risk. The reports were just at the time surfacing. There's no way they had time to do due diligence. This isn't something that happened three years ago. So that really bothered me. And then you had Raiders coach Jack Del Rio who said, “We were fortunate to get him late in the first round,” you know? And that's what it is. That’s what it comes down to. The sky fell because a woman accused him of rape, had a rape kit done, filed a police report, and then the Raiders got lucky because of that.
You also had Caleb Brantley, who was drafted 185th overall by the Cleveland Browns, who also had a recent allegation against him of domestic violence. This was just a couple of weeks ago, in early April that this happened. He's a former Florida defensive lineman. According to the police report, the woman admits that Brantley called her crude names, then she hit him first. But after that, Brantley's use of force far exceeded what was reasonable or necessary and was clearly out of retaliation and not self-defense. The woman was 187 pounds lighter than Brantley. And she had a tooth knocked out and needed dental surgery after the incident.
And the Browns’ quote…He went late in the draft. I believe it was the first pick of the sixth round. So he did fall pretty late. And the Browns’ executive vice president Sashi Brown said, “This may not be something we can get comfortable with.” [laughs] And do you know what that tells me? That means there's a possibility they could get comfortable with it. This is a pretty clear cut case, in my opinion. It probably won't blow up unless there is video or unless he becomes a big huge star in the league, which is unlikely for a defensive lineman. But I think that this is a case where all the witnesses were on that side. The Cleveland Browns are an organization who just went through this with Johnny Manziel at the end of 2015. That was a case where Johnny Manziel was pulled over; there was an incident where he wasn't charged for domestic violence, but where his ex-girlfriend said that she was in fear for her life.
The police ended up not doing anything. The NFL investigated, everybody investigated, didn't punish him for anything. And guess what? Three months later, there's a much larger domestic violence incident involving Johnny Manziel where he got indicted. So the Cleveland Browns should be more aware than anyone that there are patterns here, you know? Ignoring doesn't do anything. So, I just keep seeing this, and I just keep getting more and more frustrated with the way we're just dismissing this and the way we're feeling “lucky” when these allegations happen to these players so that you can get them later in the rounds. And as a woman, I just…Of course, I want these players to get due diligence. Of course I don't want any of this to be true. I really don't. But the way it's working now is not appropriate. It's not okay. Brenda?
Brenda: No, I was just going to briefly comment that I'm pretty terrified about the fact that right now we have a president of the United States who's been accused of sexual assault and harassment at least 15 times. And so it's not just in sports, but I feel like there's an empowerment of people, if it's coming from the very highest office in the country, and Donald Trump is perfectly willing to say he can do whatever he wants to women, and that all you need is money. And so I just think it's validating a lot of the same things. And I don't know if other people feel like that, but I feel like it's been different since November 2016. And if this is off track, we don't have to talk about it. It's just a brief comment to say it’s disturbing.
Lindsay: I completely agree. And I keep going back to this quote that Mike Freeman, who's a writer for Bleacher Report, wrote in one of his articles after the election. It was an anonymous general manager quoting…I don't have exactly in front of me, but was something along the lines of “hopefully now in Donald Trump's America, hopefully this will be good for the NFL because maybe people won't care as much about concussions and sexual assault and stuff.” I don't know if he specifically said…I know you certainly mentioned concussions, but I think it was his hope that people would go back to just thinking about, you know, the football. That all this other stuff would get pushed to the background.
And look, I think in some ways, because there is so much going on in our government right now, because the 24 hour news cycle is pretty much centered around the White House at this time, that other things are getting lost in the shuffle. I mean, in a bigger scope, you're seeing police shootings and police killings not getting any coverage that they probably would have a year or two ago. And look, I mean, I too often feel like I had a limited amount of outrage and sometimes just get burned out. So, you’re right. I think that it's certainly not a good time.
Julie: You know, I just wanted to comment on the whole whenever teams say “we've done our due diligence,” or “we're confident in what our team uncovered” and blah, blah, blah. And what they really mean when they say this…And, you know, I've seen this from the Bears, and I think we saw this from the Bengals and the Joe Mixon…Or, excuse me, in the Browns and the Gareon Conley case, is that…No, was it Gareon? Was he Oakland?
Lindsay: Brantley was drafted by the Browns.
Julie: Right, right. So, I mean, when they say this, they say, you know, “We talked to the witnesses that were there.” Of course they're all with him. They're all like other guys from the draft and the girls that are with them. So they say, oh yeah, nothing happened, we were all here, we all saw it. And what they're really saying when they say we did our due diligence is we've interviewed…We feel like we have enough people on our side to be able to shout her down and cast doubt on her story. That's what they really mean. They don't necessarily mean that it happened or we know it didn't happen. But what they're saying is, you know, “we are confident that we have enough people to intimidate her into not pursuing this.” That's what always happens.
And you know, like I said earlier, I'm so tired of having to care about this and be like the shrill, angry woman talking about this stuff – and that being like the outlier in the media, where so many people, so many men and women in sports media just ignore this and act like this stuff has never happened and never mention it. And at this point, I just feel like women are a big enough part of the fan base that it should matter to teams. You should worry about alienating a third or 40% of your fan base with a pick. But it just doesn't happen. And every time I see someone in sports media who talks about these guys and never mentions any of these off the field issues, it’s just enraging. And I’m just so tired of being angry about it.
Shireen: I'll jump in, and I'm happy, Julie, to accompany you as another shrill out here that is really frustrated. I have these deep, deep, deep cavities within my soul for rage. And it comes out very often when I see it, whether it's former players that are being lauded…And I'm going to sort of segue here from American football and just sort of say it goes across. So, the experience of a sports fan who identifies as a woman generally can be really stressful and even triggering at times. And it's also because the way they about it is so bad, and the way they're handled…Other than, you know, present company obviously excluded, is the exception, I mean. But that's one of the reasons that this podcast is so important to me and generally the work that you all do is so important to me, because it's just something that I can say, yes…
And I actually feel like, and taking us on a bit of a positive note, I see other folks out there who are equally as angry, but they don't have the platforms to share that. Or they're not amplified in a way that I think they need to be. So, you know, just to sort of say and connect that, that I agree. I can't wholly enjoy my sports without having a little bit of that emotion in me – with everything. Like, nothing's perfect. And I understand that. But just to be able to sit back and enjoy sport without thinking about anything is not being…I don't think I've ever experienced, nor will I ever be able to do that in my life.
Lindsay: Yeah, I think that's true, Shireen. I mean, I can't just turn off the part of me that cares about women and equality and racism and homophobia when I turn on sports, right? I can't just like sequester that part of me that cares about society being good, you know? I love sports, and look, I've certainly rooted for problematic players, and that will happen again sometimes. I'm not always perfect, but it doesn't just cut off. And I think going back to Julie's point earlier about how some teams are just looking to make sure that they have enough backup legally, that there are enough people casting doubt on people, that they have enough people telling them basically what they want to hear.
And I think about how before the Buccaneers drafted Jameis Winston, they never reached out to Erica Kinsmen or her lawyers, even though they said they talked to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. They bragged about how much research they done on him, but never once even reached out to his lawyer. And listen, I talked to and work with a lot of women who have come forward and accused athletes of domestic violence or sexual assault. And honestly, I don't think I've ever heard of one who's had a team reach out to them and get their side of the story, and that really bothers me.
And going back to the draft, there was a moment…Peter King and his Sports Illustrated Monday morning quarterback column was kind of embedded in the draft, and he had this moment where there was a player, Reuben Foster, who ended up being drafted by the San Francisco 49ers. But they waited til the very end of their draft window, and it looked like he might fall to New Orleans. And so New Orleans coach Sean Peyton called up Foster and thought he was going to probably be able to draft him. And Foster had had a diluted sample at the NFL combine, and he'd also gotten into an argument with the hospital workers.
So, there were the general character concerns about him. And apparently Sean Payton asked Foster, “What’s your girlfriend’s name?” And Foster told him. And then he's like, “Can I speak to her?” So Foster put the girlfriend on the phone, and according to Foster's quotes with Peter King, he wanted to make sure that the girlfriend was going to be that guidance and to make sure that Foster didn't get into any trouble. This is seconds before Sean Payton was about to draft him, and he wants the woman in his life to guarantee that she's going to keep him in line, and he's reaching out to her at that point. And to me, that was just a really telling way.
And this was just casually mentioned in the column, but it just, it just really stuck out to me. We want women to keep these men in line, and we want them to shut up when the men don't stay in line, and we want them to tell us what we want to hear. And that's the only time we really want to speak to them or hear from them. So, forget this stuff about community. Sean Payton didn't care anything about the girlfriend. He just wanted to make sure she was going to keep this guy in line. And you might tell me, well, this was just a casual conversation, you're making too much about this. But I don't know. It really stuck out to me.
Julie: Well, we actually did get some good news this week from FIBA. Shireen, you wanna tell us about that? Because you wrote about it.
Shireen: Yes! Thank you, Julie. I am happy to say – annoyed that it happened in the first place – but FIBA finally, the congress ratified their change and allowed the head covering of all forms: turbans, headscarves, kippah in the game of basketball. So that is pretty…Yay! That’s very exciting. Exciting, and also interesting to look at, because I was going over some of the rules for the recommendations, and they said that they didn't actually want any openings around the face or the neck – which was really interesting because IFAB, FIFA’s governing body, ruled absolutely differently in the way that they wanted their design. They wanted a fastener, a Velcro in the front. Well, Velcro material – that sort of textile or whatever material. And they wanted to be able to take it off. So FIBA’s recommendation for the design of a scarf is different, which is really interesting, because I just picture a whole bunch of like sitting around a table, you know, philosophizing on what is a good hijab style to wear, [Jessica laughs] which is very bizarre.
Julie: And why does it matter? Why do they care?
Shireen: Well, this goes back to the point…And that's a good question, Julie. They care because they need to look like they put a lot of thought into this. For the piece that I did, I interviewed Rimla Akhtar, who’s a friend of mine, and she's the director of the Muslim women's sports foundation in the United Kingdom. And something that really stuck…Struck me, and it stuck with me. I need more coffee. She said that in federations they tend to “act first and think about it later,” and that really, really resonated with me because the ban in the first place is a reaction. It was a reaction to Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir wanting to go pro. It was always a reaction.
Like, the FIFA ruling was a reaction to a young player in 2007 named Asmahan Mansour, and she wanted to play. So then they're like, well, we don't know how to deal with this, so we're just going to make a ban about it! And I think that that's really very important to recognize, that this is where this stuff stems from. And so that being said, the players I talked to, a couple of them that were in charge…And they really did an incredible job of using social media, aligning with the Sikh community to create change.org petitions and rally. And it was really important. But at the end of the day, this didn't have to happen at all. And to put a person in a position – because this happened to me, to have to choose between them wanting to practice her faith a certain way and having to choose a sport is really, really devastating.
And that they've lost three years, four years out of a possible career, and what they're going to do now, because some of the questions to these players now are “Well, are you going to play? We all want you to play.” And it's almost like this pressure on these women to have to go and be performative now, to play. And that's a lot of pressure because they've moved on with their lives – Bilqis got a master's degree. Another one is coaching and teaching. So they're all involved in the game, but they may not be playing particularly…Because the life of a professional athlete is really different. It's difficult. And I think the transition from being away from the game in that sense to back is a lot.
And so, I mean, there's still work to do. Like AIBA, the boxing federation, still has bans. And, you know, more on that a bit later. But there's still work to be done. It's almost like you have to knock down each federation. They're just not all going to learn from all these experiences and say, you know what? There is actually a really ridiculous policy. It doesn't need to be there. So they just need to be pushed and pushed and pushed until it happens. So I'm ready to do all the pushing, and there's a lot of other people. So, you know, gotta just really keep moving forward.
Julie: Jessica?
Jessica: Yeah. Shireen, I just wanted to, like…Not to put too fine a point on this, but I mean, this is just straight up bigotry, right? Like, I mean, there's no reason to have these bans at any point, right? Like, this is literally just they see someone different, specifically Muslim or Sikh, you know? But yeah, they were reacting to Muslim women wanting to play sports and trying to keep them out. I mean, there's no…That’s it, right? I mean, this was bigotry just on its face.
Shireen: Well, yeah, and I mean, they don't like it to be called that. They hide behind things like initially it was like, “oh, no religious objects.” And when that gets too contentious, because in the world of football, I mean, you don't have a player getting on the pitch without making like a crucifix symbol or rain or praying on it or something.
Jessica: Wearing a necklace with a cross on it or something?
Shireen: Well, exactly. I mean, jewelry is very specifically in football, international football, not allowed, and there's rules about that, which makes sense, because you can get hurt from jewelry.
Jessica: What if you have a tattoo?
Shireen: Exactly. You can't get rid of religious icons, you can't do it. And I think the thing is that it is a bigotry, absolutely. And it's an exclusion, it's a very, very obvious exclusion and a pointed exclusion. And the most important point in all this is that there's not one shred of evidence within football, within basketball, within volleyball, that there has ever been an injury caused to a player or an opponent in a contact sport from a hijab. There's none, because I've spent years looking for it. It does not exist. And if it did exist, you can bet that that information would have been highlighted on a billboard somewhere. They just don't have it.
Julie: Yeah. And I feel like, you know, any of us that have played soccer or football know that the most dangerous thing for a woman to have on the field is a ponytail, because it gets grabbed and it gets yanked back. And I think we've probably all experienced that. I mean, I remember French-braiding our hair and duct taping it to the back of our neck in high school and college so that people couldn't yank on it. And so to hear that is…By far the most dangerous thing for a woman to have out there, every woman running around out there has a ponytail though. So for me, it just never made any sense. And you know, beyond the idea of men wanting to regulate women's bodies, I don't know what justification there ever was for this.
Shireen: And just to talk about…That’s the crux of what I say all the time when I talk about this. It’s men controlling women's bodies and what they wear. And in some research I had done over the summer – and this is just a quick anecdote – this is really so much about that. Controlling all types of women, not just Muslim women, because when I did research about the FIVB, the volleyball federation, I didn't know that in beach volleyball, the size and the bandwidth of the woman's bikini bottom was also regulated. I didn't know this. And do you think the men are? It's mind-blowingly…In terms of the centimeters of what's allowable for women to wear. And I was like, you cannot be serious! How come no one is…This is exactly, exactly what misogyny is. It's structured, implemented, systemic misogyny on a policy level. Can you imagine? You can't have shorts, you have to have a bikini band this wide in centimeters. It’s the same thing as saying to a Muslim woman you can't wear this. It just can't happen.
Brenda: And no one wants to admit that it's also about what they can and can't show with television contracts. So, you know, it's tied into an economic imperative too, in terms of a lot of those regulations.
Shireen: Totally, because the men don't have these restrictions. They seem to be able to wear whatever they want to all the time.
Julie: Brenda cracks me up because the way she just drops knowledge into a conversation is exactly the way she dropped the fact that she won a Fulbright scholarship on us in the middle of just a random conversation about something else. [laughter] And she's just like, oh yeah, I can't do that that weekend because of my Fulbright scholarship, and that was it. [Brenda laughs]
Lindsay: We are not worthy, Brenda. We are not worthy!
Shireen: She’s like an academic assassin. This is what I call her.
Brenda: My plan on this podcast is to be the annoying person that begins every sentence like an academic with, “But actually…” or something like that. [laughter] You're all humbling with your productivity. It's like I do one thing every couple of years and it looks like a lot, but… [laughs]
Julie: I’m impressed.
Jessica: Can I just say one last thing? I watched Shireen on an interview this week – her beautiful face was all over the place on television talking about this. And one of the things that you said that was really impactful for me, to the point where like I went and quoted you back to my husband because I liked it so much, is you said this great line about how important this ruling is because it redefines what basketball looks like on the court and expands sort of what the sport looks like and how important that is. And I just wanted to make sure we said…I don't want to take your words, but I really liked that image of, I mean, the idea of sport, right, is to be about a community and expansive and to bring all these people together. And the idea that these women, especially these women, have been excluded for no reason except bigotry…Like, that basketball will be bigger now and that we all win for that, I just think is a really lovely image. Anyway, thank you Shireen for the work that you do.
Julie: I love that.
Brenda: Yay!
Shireen: Aww. Group hug.
Julie: Group hug. Alright. Time for this week's burn pile, where we all take something that we hate and throw it on the burn pile. I’ll start this week. I saw yesterday that Magic Johnson has met with Floyd Mayweather because Floyd Mayweather wants to buy an NBA team. Magic Johnson, the vice president of basketball operations for the Lakers. I do not want to be mad at Magic Johnson, but I do not understand this continual acceptance of Floyd Mayweather by the mainstream media. This man has been accused – not once, not twice, MANY MANY TIMES – of beating women. He has been convicted of it. He's pled guilty to it, he spent time in jail because of it. These are all different women.
And whether it's Stephen A Smith going around at Floyd Mayweather's house, doing a Cribs episode with him and talking about how great he is, or whether it's Magic Johnson meeting with him, I felt like it was such a slap in the face to every single woman sports fan, NBA fan out there. And I am really disappointed. Magic Johnson is someone I've always looked up to as a human being and a basketball player and a businessman. And the fact that he took time out of his schedule to meet with someone like Floyd Mayweather, who apparently is being encouraged to invest in an NBA franchise, absolutely is just fucking ridiculous.
Lindsay: Amen. [laughs]
Julie: Amen!
Brenda: Yes, I endorse that.
Lindsay: Yeah, I can go. I’ll start with LSU, who sent out an email this week to its athletes – that is Louisiana State University, in case anyone did not know for some reason – saying after Alton Sterling, whose murder by police was caught on video, unfortunately this week the Department of Justice decided not to press charges against the two officers who were involved. So, that was announced. LSU sent out an email to students, its athletes in particular, saying, "If you choose to express your opinion on this issue, including on social media, we ask that you not wear LSU gear or use LSU branding.”
Julie: Does that mean, like, if you're sitting at your laptop tweeting about this, you shouldn't be in LSU gear? [Shireen laughs]
Lindsay: I don’t know. I think they probably meant like an Instagram or a Vine or something, anything visual. But I just think that's ridiculous. We're exploiting these Black bodies for profit, for an insane amount of profit – not paying them. They're injuring their bodies on the field for us. And yet if they want to speak out for social justice, we want nothing to do with them. And that's sickening.
Brenda: Can I ask who they're sponsored by?
Lindsay: You can – I do not know. [laughs]
Brenda: I was wondering if they're getting pressure from the sponsors.
Lindsay: That's a good question. It could certainly be the case. I think it probably has more to do with the fact that this is in Louisiana and just the tensions there. But you're right. I mean, it could be sponsors, it could be board members, you know, this could go in a lot of different directions.
Jessica: That's interesting, Brenda, because last year Leonard Fournette showed up did something about Sterling where he was in LSU gear. So I wonder if there was reaction at that point from sponsors or brands or whatever.
Shireen: Oh, and Brenda, your anti-capitalism is showing. [laughter]
Brenda: What?! [laughs] But I mean, sponsors…I was just looking up who's on their gear, because that's such a good point.
Shireen: I'll go next. Shireen has been waiting and angry about this for a while. And I don't speak on behalf of Brenda, but I know she'll agree with me and can add to this. Cristiano Ronaldo and the rape case that he's directly involved with – I don't want to say alleged because I have such a problem with “alleged.” He settled 400,000 euros, and this is a man that is so super careful with his money. And Der Spiegel translated this article into English and had the court documents, because El Mundo was under gag order. I found this out when they referenced his tax stuff. And they were under court order, they’re not allowed to talk about him at all. And this feeds directly into this case, because of the financial implications of it. So they weren't allowed to report on it because otherwise they would.
Now, the burn pile for me is the entire football media, international football/soccer, for not talking about this. I haven't seen it anywhere. In fact, I had to ask a friend of mine, who's pretty awesome, to go look for articles in Spanish media for me, because I’m not gonna read it. And now Brenda will do the same. And I just am so frustrated because it's almost like, “Let's talk about how amazing he is” and “He had a hat trick last week in a Champs League semifinal.” And everyone's like, “Oh, he's so amazing.” And I get that same nauseous feeling watching him as when I watch, say, Kobe Bryant’s face anywhere. It makes me want to vomit. It's the same feeling. And just the lack of discussion around anything to do with this.
Brenda: Yeah. And even when it is discussed, it's usually like a highlight box next to some sort of new thing that he's done. Like, Clarín in Argentina put an article out about the case and Der Spiegel had published the letter from the woman, which was really important because it's the first time that people could really hear her voice. And then right next to it, there's two highlight boxes in the article: one that says “Cristiano Ronaldo gave a huge triumph to Real Madrid in Munich this week” and the other one saying he had reached his hundredth goal. And his quote was, “No one should doubt me.” Now, that was about the goal. But the way in which it's couched is in reference to an article on sexual assault. So, it's so trivializing. Anyway…
Julie: Burn it.
Brenda: Burn it!
All: Burn it! [Brenda laughs]
Julie: Brenda, did you have something else, too?
Brenda: I do. I have something. I want to put it on the burn pile – always in forever, but especially this week – the Brazilian sports media. They have their first female coach for the women's national soccer team. Her name is Emily Lima and she's a total badass woman of the week in the future. And basically she just took over the Brazilian team. She's really young, she’s like 37. And in the last few months they've done…I mean, they put in the best performances that they have in years. Vadão, who was their coach before, was not a winning coach. He had never had a winning record, and yet was given one of the world's best women's soccer teams. And so here she is, she's coaching.
She beat Costa Rica 6-0. Costa Rica, who's a really good team. Then they went on just a couple of weeks ago in Bolivia to beat them 6-0. Now, Bolivia is not a traditionally strong team. But the article about it has zero likes, zero shares on Facebook. And the Brazilian media has done nothing to amplify her. So, I would like them to go in the burn pile and burn, you know, at least until they get a clue, because it's totally insane. They're gonna play Germany. I mean, they've been playing so good that Germany is actually gonna play Brazil in June or July in the lead up, which is big news, right? But it's zero news. So yeah, burn ‘em. Burn the Brazilian sports journalists that won't cover Emily Lima and her awesomeness.
Shireen: Burn. And if you can send a link of that, I would love to share it, even though I can't read Portuguese, but that's okay.
Brenda: Yeah. I’ll share it. You know, you can figure it out. You just see awesome Emily Lima…And no shares, no likes. [Shireen laughs] So, I will. I'll do a tweet out. I commit to tweeting my burning-ness.
Julie: Yep. Anything else for the burn pile this week?
Jessica: Me, me!
Julie: Okay, Jessica!
Jessica: So, Nick Saban, the head coach at Alabama, is now going to get paid $11.125 million a year to coach college football. That will probably…I don't have this for sure, but I'm like 99.9% that that will make him the highest paid state employee in the entire United States of America. And this is at the same time that Alabama as a state decided that they weren't able to give a 4% pay raise for state employees because that would cost them an additional $19 million in the state budget. I write about football and sexual violence, and I speak to this a lot, and people always ask me like, why is it like this? And my number one answer is always money.
Like, there's lots of things, there's many factors, but the number one has gotta be money, right? And this idea that we're paying these college coaches $11 million – and I don't know if that includes his possible bonuses for winning. That is an outstandingly disgusting amount of money, especially because he's making all of that off the backs and the labor of these players who are getting almost nothing. And I mean, I can talk about this too much. I know this exists somewhere, but like, what’s the data on how many Alabama football players actually get degrees? Are they getting even the free education that they're promised? On the other side of why it's worth it to pay Nick Saban $11 million in order to coach.
And then I just want to say one more thing about college football that needs to be on the burn pile, the perpetual burn pile from Penn State. Jay Paterno, Joe Paterno’s son, has now been elected to the Penn State board of trustees. So, that school does not know what to do with themselves.
Julie: They just can’t help themselves. They cannot help themselves.
Jessica: They can’t. So, burn that too.
Julie: Brenda?
Brenda: Oh, no, sorry. I was just going, “Oh god.” My hand was up. [laughter] Oh god, make it stop. Like, Joe Paterno's son is on the board? Jesus Christ! [laughter] And you can just bet that University of Alabama faculty are making squat.
Jessica: Yeah. Probably pulling their hair out, like, what the hell? [laughs]
Brenda: They start by saying, look at our salary database, we make really good money – but that's all the medical school and the athletics department and physical trainers that also have elevated salaries.
Shireen: And they probably don't have healthcare at this point. A lot of that stuff. And a lot of those people…
Brenda: They pay a lot for it. That's for sure.
Shireen: Or they pay lot for it. Absolutely.
Julie: Yeah. But roll damn tide. [Shireen laughs] Burn it. Okay, anything else? Badass woman of the week?
Lindsay: Yeah, let's do it.
Shireen: We talked about this, and there's so many incredible women that we want to acknowledge, and non-binary folk, but I think that badass women of the week, I'm happy to say is Amaiya Zafar, who is an almost 17 year old. She'll be 17 this month. First woman in USA history to be allowed by the boxing federation to wear a scarf. She had her bout last Saturday; she did not win. I was really happy to talk to her and wrote about it for The Shadow League – incredibly poised and articulate young woman. So, really happy that she's our badass woman of the week. Amaiya Zafar of Minnesota, congratulations. We're rooting for you and we hope you keep fighting and we hope you challenge AIBA to be able to compete. She can compete regionally, she can't compete out of state or out of region because of the headscarf ban that she faces. So, we love you, and congratulations on that accomplishment and we look forward to more.
Julie: We’re going to have to get like a certificate or something to give people for this.
Lindsay: I know. I got a couple of honorable mentions, if that's okay. I just want to shout out women. First goes to Jane Meyer, former senior associate athletic director at the University of Iowa. She sued the school for gender and sexual orientation discrimination, and on Thursday a Polk County jury awarded her $1.43 million in damages. This is a really huge Title IX verdict because, as her attorney said, a lot of the discrimination she faced was subtle discrimination, and it's often hard to prove that in a court of law.
What's happening at the University of Iowa, there are more suits – her partner was a coach there, and she has her own wrongful termination suit coming up, a field hockey coach, Tracey Griesbaum. And then also Tracey Griesbaum’s students have filed a Title IX complaint against the school about wrongful termination. So Iowa’s got a lot coming up, but this is a huge victory for women in sports who are just feeling like they're being treated differently from their male counterparts, and that it's wrong. So, good for Jane Meyer.
I also wanna do a quick shoutout to Patricia Driscoll, who is a very dynamic woman who I wrote about this week. A few years ago she her ex boyfriend, Kurt Busch, NASCAR star Kurt Busch, of domestic violence. And in three years since then, her life has been a roller coaster. I’d been working on this story for a year and it finally published this week. And of course she's receiving a lot of hate – as any woman who comes forward against a big star does. And a lot of that's been regurgitated. But I just want to give her a shoutout, because these women coming forward and sharing their stories, even if they're not positive stories about the aftermath, it's the only way things are gonna change.
Julie: Hear, hear.
Shireen: Absolutely.
Julie: All right, ladies, that is it for our inaugural episode of Burn It All Down. Hopefully this will be a weekly thing.
Shireen: Woo!
Julie: We did this just as a test. We'll see how it goes. But I'd say it went pretty well. We talked for almost an hour – over an hour.
Jessica: Yay team! [cheers]
Julie: So, for Shireen Ahmed, Brenda Elsey Lindsay Gibbs, Jessica Luther – I'm Julie DiCaro. We’ll see you next week.