Episode 13: NF’nL
In Episode 13 of Burn It All Down, the whole gang is back together to discuss the NF’nL. Julie DiCaro, Shireen Ahmed, Lindsay Gibbs, Brenda Elsey, and Jessica Luther talk about the NFL where domestic violence investigations continue to be terrible, CTE is back at the forefront of the discussion, and where Colin Kaepernick still can’t get a job, Lucky Whitehead can’t keep his, and John Urshel doesn’t want his anymore.
Then Brenda and Shireen interview Ann Odong, expert on all things women’s soccer and editor of The Women’s Game, about the UEFA Women’s EURO 2017 soccer tournament.
Plus, you’ll hear The Burn Pile and Badass Woman of the Week!
Correction: Simone Manuel beat Sarah Sjöström, the world recorder holder in the 100m, to win the 100m freestyle title at the world championships. We incorrectly said that Manuel had beaten Yulia Efimova.
Intro ~ Discussion about the NFL’s failure to handle domestic violence cases properly, including Ezekiel Elliott’s (still) pending domestic violence case, per Diana Moskovitz’s piece at Deadspin. (1:10). What ever happened to the NFL’s baseline six-game suspension for domestic violence cases? (1:50) Colin Kaepernick still can’t get a job in the NFL, but he’s not being blackballed! Shireen talks about the hypocrisy of the league in failing to offer Kap a job, via Jemele Hill’s hilarious (and sad) tweet. (4:37) The Dallas Cowboys continue to be terrible, Jessica breaks down Lucky Whitehead’s horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day. (12:23) Lindsay brings us up -to-speed on the latest news about CTE in NFL players, via the big story in the NYT this week. (17:37) The panel discusses Raven Offensive Lineman and world-reknowned mathematician John Urschel’s retirement two days after the CTE report was released. (19:31) Julie talks about her discussion with Dr. Chris Nowinski about kids playing tackle football and his views on youth sports. (22:59) Brenda discusses the role of parents and schools in protecting children in sport. (23:52) Lindsay points out there are no federal guidelines for safety in high school football or lower levels. (26:10) Outside the Lines report on the NFL ending it’s relationship with the National Institute of Health. (27:25) Brenda and Shireen interview Australian sportswriter Ann Odong about the ongoing women’s Euro’s Soccer Tourney (28:45)
Burn Pile: (43:52) Lindsay burns Britt McHenry’s “awakening” as a conservative commentator. (44:00) Shireen sets aflame sexism in the Tour de France (47:08). Brenda takes a lighter to the treatment of the Mexican Women’s National Soccer team by their home federation. (48:50) Julie throws gas on LaVar Ball and Adidas’ actions at the Adidas Las Vegas basketball tournament. (50:43) Jessica lights up ESPN for showing corn hole/bags and drone racing rather than the women’s Euros soccer tourney. (52:45) Hilarity over the name “corn hole” ensues. (54:25)
BAWOW: (55:13) Shireen tells us about Yusra Mardini and her return to Budapest to swim for refugees everywhere. She’s the BAWOW. Julie awards an Honorable Mention to baseball beat reporter Claire Smith. (56:57) Jessica tosses an Honorable Mention to friend-of-the-show Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir for winning the Leadership in Sport Award from Beyond Sport. (57:52) Shireen honors swimmer Simone Manuel for winning the 100M at the FINA Championships. (58:23)
Lindsay is looking forward to watching live tennis at the Citi Open in DC this week. (59:19) Jessica is loving reading Women’s Gold Medalists: Rio Olympics 2016. (100:13) Brenda can’t wait for the US v. Japan soccer match in the Tournament of Nations on August 3. (101:24) Shireen is excited for the Euros and Anna Kessel’s book Eat, Sweat, Play. (102:03) Julie is finally diving into the book Rejected Princesses. (102:27)
Links
The Ravens sign a QB who isn’t Colin Kaepernick.
The Dallas Cowboys screw over Lucky Whitehead.
The NYT’ publishing a striking piece on CTE research among NFL players.
Michael Oher Situation Highlights the Ever-Growing Fear of NFL Head Injuries
Britt McHenry’s Conservative Awakening
Shocking Working Conditions for Footballers in the New Mexican’s Women’s League
LaVar Ball and Adidas Sell Women Referee Down the River
Yusra Mardini is Headed to Budapest to Swim for Refugees Everywhere
Baseball Writer Claire Smith Honored by Her Peers at Cooperstown
Simone Manuel Upsets at the World Swimming Championships
Women’s Gold Medalists: Rio Olympics 2016
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 house this week, including sportswriters Jessica Luther, Shireen Ahmed, Lindsay Gibbs, Brenda Elsey, and I'm Julie DiCaro. This week, we're focusing on the NFL, where domestic violence investigations continue to be terrible, CTE is back at the forefront of the discussion, and Colin Kaepernick still can't get a job. Plus Brenda and Shireen interview sportswriter Ann Odong about the women's Euro soccer tournament. And of course we'll have our burn pile and badass women of the week. So, let's jump right into topic one. The NFL continues to be garbage on social issues. This week, Deadspin’s Diana Moskovitz posted a piece detailing the way that the NFL is trying to investigate the allegations against Ezekiel Elliott. The criminal investigation in this case was finished up back in September of 2016.
The NFL is still emailing back and forth with the prosecutor's office, trying to get copies of their interviews with the alleged victim in this. And rumors have been floating around out there for a while that Ezekiel will get a one or two game suspension based on domestic violence allegations made by his ex-girlfriend. You guys, my question in all this is whatever happened to that six game baseline suspension? I mean, I understand that, you know, maybe they can't prove that this is what happened in the criminal case, they decided not to move forward with it. But whatever happened to, you know, if we find that something happened, that baseline is going to be six games? I can't remember the last time someone got six games.
Jessica: I don't think anyone has, right?
Julie: I don't think anyone has either.
Lindsay: Nope.
Jessica: Yeah. So it's not a real thing. I mean, it's one of those things where like, you know this better than anyone, Julie, right? Like, you can have a law, but it's how it's practiced that really matters, right? And so they made a rule, and they don't seem to care much about it, which I guess isn't really a surprise.
Julie: Well, Diana was on my radio show yesterday and she said that Roger Goodell has not even met with Ezekiel Elliott yet, which to me just blows my mind. But one of the other things that was in that piece that I thought was sort of shocking, and I totally missed this when it was first reported, but Jane McManus, when she was at ESPN, reported that Jerry Jones was seen yelling at Lisa Friel on the sidelines last year and telling her that “your bread and butter is going to get us both thrown out on the street.” So basically you have an NFL employee who they put in charge of investigating domestic violence allegations against players, and she's being harassed and screamed at by an owner because she's investigating one of his players.
Lindsay: It's absolutely just ridiculous. I mean, like we've said, you haven't seen any player get an actual six game suspension, including Josh Brown, the kicker from last year who had as clear cut a case of domestic violence as you're gonna have. And I mean, what we're just seeing over and over again is that they're trying to pretend like they care about this for PR reasons only, but at the end of the day, they want their best players on the game. They think women are lying and conniving, and that the men are just victims of these women trying to get their few seconds of fame or whatever it is they think they want. You see this in league after league. And it's infuriating. I mean, Ezekiel Elliot has not tried to lay low since this whole thing. He's not taking any of this seriously.
Jessica: No.
Lindsay: I mean, he literally lifted…He exposed a woman's breasts at a parade, I mean, earlier this year. Like, he's like involved in bar fights. He's all over the place. Nobody is taking this seriously. Jerry Jones is going on and on. I saw a quote from him this week that literally just said, “There is no divest domestic violence here.” Like he can know that! [laughs]
Julie: After he signed Greg Hardy.
Lindsay: Right. Oh yeah. That's right.
Jessica: Exactly.
Julie: Well, it just sort of goes back to my point, is that, you know, I've been saying this over and over for more than a year, that the people in this league who really need training in violence against women are the owners, because after the comments that George Halas made about how rape victims are inherently unreliable, because they're biased, the way the Bears investigated Ray McDonald, this stuff, the stuff with Greg Hardy, it's the owners that are the ones that really need to be educated and care. And I don't know how you teach someone to care.
Jessica: Yeah. Amen.
Julie: Well, moving on to topic number two, Colin Kaepernick still can't get a job, but he's not being blackballed. Don't use the word blackballed! Shireen, you want to tell us about that?
Shireen: I do. Thanks Julie. We all know and love Colin Kaepernick. Well, here at Burn It All Down, we do. And just, this was really interesting. Jemele Hill actually tweeted this out, because the Ravens have signed David Olson. And so her tweet, which I'm going to quote, says, “Oh, and in case you missed it, the Ravens signed a dude who quit football to be a realtor and played two games in college over a Super Bowl QB.” So now we're looking at just the summer, 22 quarterbacks have been signed above him. And there's this constant narrative in the media about him not being good enough, or his diets, or he’s not interested. And I think that's really, really problematic. One of the things that are super problematic here. Our friend of the show Dave Zirin wrote on June 8th, he wrote that it's a “farcical parade,” the reasons why that are being propagated in the media about this. He definitely, definitely wants to play.
And in that piece that Dave wrote, he wrote that, “Kap simply wants a camp invite. He's training six days a week, he's in the best shape of his life.” And I wanted to reference a discussion we had on Burn It All Down in episode 9. And Lindsay said something that still makes me giggle. She is an admitted Panthers fan. And she said that there are so many bad quarterbacks in the NFL right now. So it’s not like this justification that even if Colin Kaepernick wasn’t in the best shape of his life, which we know he is, it still wouldn't be a reason not to sign them because there's so many bad ones anyway.
Julie: My team's backup quarterback is Mark Sanchez. I just want to throw that out there.
Jessica: Oh, god.
Shireen: Butt fumble! [laughter]
Julie: Oh, sorry. Shireen, go ahead.
Shireen: I was gonna throw it back to all y’all, like, what you think in terms of that? I mean, obviously we know that it's sort of this narrative is trying to be, you know, set up that, oh, he's this toxic figure – and he's really not. And he's been defended by his former coach and the GM of the 49ers. He came out to defend them and sort of say, you know, he doesn't bring that stuff into the locker room, whatnot. He's focused on his play. It's just really what he's done by anthem protest it in a very silent way has offended so much of the NFL for whatever reason, and the powers that be aren’t willing to touch him. And I mean, to be honest with you, and I said this also in the conversation Jess and Lindsay and I had, was that he's the only reason I'm paying attention to the NFL right now. So, there could be a way to draw people in by this. So, I don't know. And that being said, I just wanted to throw in that I'm now a very new CFL fan, the Canadian Football League, we have our own. [laughter] I just wanted to add that in because I went to my first game and it was really fun. So yeah, but if it's not for Kap, I don't know how interested I'm going to be in football. So do you think there's a way to actually draw people in, like, do you think the NFL are getting new fans from him too? That's a possibility.
Lindsay: I think that definitely, that you're definitely seeing some people who really care about social justice, which is a large swath of Americans, really caring about it. My – I don't know if ‘advice’ or ‘plea’ is right, I don't like to do things like that as a journalist – but if you are a Kaepernick fan who wants to encourage your team to sign him, call the offices, speak up, because there was a report this week that the Ravens were getting a lot, a lot of calls from people who didn't want them to sign Kaepernick. So the other side is speaking up. So if you want your team to sign this quarterback, you need to let them know that, you know? I mean, we can't sit here and, you know, don't just complain on the internet. Don't just complain to your friends. I mean, I love complaining to my friends and complaining to the internet. Don't get me wrong. But you do need to call the teams, like, let them know that there is this support out there.
Jessica: Do you think it matters though? Like, I just can’t…Do you believe them?
Lindsay: No. No.
Jessica: Like, getting all these calls and stuff like that? Like, this is the thing. What are these teams getting? Like, what did the Ravens get this week by doing the song and dance around, “We're looking at Kaepernick. Oh, no, just kidding. We're literally gonna hire a guy who doesn't play football anymore instead of this guy. And we're going to blame it on people calling the office.” Like, I don't understand. I just fucking hate this whole thing. Like, it just makes me so mad that we're having the same conversation again with a new team who's doing the same stuff. I mean, to your point, Lindsay, people should certainly call if they want to. I just don't know if any of that matters. Like, I don't believe them, that there were really calls.
Julie: No, look, I mean, the reason that teams won't sign Colin Kaepernick is A) they're all blackballing him together, and B) they're afraid that advertisers are going to get calls from people and that advertisers are going to pull out and it's all about the money. So I had someone say to me this week on Twitter, and I wish I could remember who it is. He said, “This is the next thing that I expect to happen. Like, report: coach of X team praises Colin Kaepernick. Next day: Colin Kaepernick works out for X team. Next day: X team decides to sign German shepherd as quarterback.” [laughter] Because that's exactly what it's like! It’s so ridiculous. It's so insane. At this point, if you still believe that Colin Kaepernick is not getting signed because of his play, it's ridiculous. I mean, half the teams say he's not good enough, and the other half say, well, he's a starter and so we couldn't sign him as a backup because he's too good. So he exists in some amorphous plane in between starter and backup that enables him not to be able to play for any team, yet my team has Mark Sanchez as a backup quarterback! It's absolutely ridiculous.
Lindsay: Yeah. And this week we saw one of the kind of most extreme examples of this ridiculousness come out when the day after it came out that the Ravens might sign Kaepernick, you had this survey come out, written up by Darren Rovell on ESPN. And you know, the title of it was about how people were turning out because of the national anthem protest by Colin Kaepernick, that that was the biggest reason why viewers were tuning out. Now, this was ridiculous. I'm going to go through a little bit of my article I wrote on ThinkProgress that also cites a Deadspin article. So, the ESPN article was written in a way to make readers believe that the fans are leaving in droves, turned off by these national anthem protests. But in fact, JD Power asked 9,200 fans, whether they'd watched fewer NFL games in 2016. Only 12% of those fans said that they have decreased their NFL watching. And 26 of the 12%, which is 287 people out of 9,200, cited the anthem protest as the reason why. Comparatively, 27% of the people surveyed – 2,484 – said they watched more football than they had in previous seasons. So that offsets any of the losses right there. So this survey was crap, and it was written in a very uncritical way that was made to sensationalize this fact that Colin Kaepernick is bad for the NFL, and that is infuriating.
Shireen: It's a farcical parade. [laughter] That’s that it is.
Julie: And then we also have this week, in more of the NFL’s terrible news, we also had the Lucky Whitehead thing that was like an absolute disaster. Jessica, I know you were talking about that.
Jessica: Yeah. So, it's kind of unbelievable, the Lucky Whitehead thing. Like, I remember when it broke and I had to reread it like six times to figure it out. So, Lucky Whitehead was a third year wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys, who we've already talked about, until he was cut this past Monday by the team in the midst of this weird series of events. So, Whitehead missed a court appearance related to a shoplifting charge, and a warrant was put out for his arrest on Monday. Whitehead maintained that it wasn't him and law enforcement had the wrong guy, but the Cowboys cut him anyway. And then head coach Jason Garrett said it was necessary to cut him because, I shit you not, “We have built this team with great character guys.” [laughter] So, it turns out Whitehead was telling the truth.
And so I'm going to pull from Lindsay's piece about this at ThinkProgress. “The man who was arrested for shoplifting in Woodbridge, Virginia provided Whitehead's name and social security number,” which, that's insane, “to officers. And while he didn't have identification, he reportedly looked similar enough to the photo that cops had on file of Whitehead that they didn't question it.” And then Lindsay says in parentheses, (in other words, he was a Black man.) Okay. So, by the time the police figured this out on Tuesday, that they had the wrong guy, Whitehead no longer had a job with the Cowboys because he was apparently hurting the stellar character reputation of Greg Hardy's former team. [laughter]
Julie: Ezekiel Elliot's team.
Jessica: Yeah. So, given the team’s hemming and hawing over the reported behavior of other players, this move to make this about Whitehead's off-field character or the reputation of the team is bullshit. This is one of those moments where I wish these grown ass men would grow a backbone and just tell us the truth, which is probably that Whitehead isn't a good enough player for them to worry about, and that if you aren't a good enough player, you shouldn't expect your team to back you up. What do you guys think? Like, what did you think when you heard about Lucky Whitehead?
Julie: The funniest thing about this was that Whitehead’s agent said, “Well, I guess, you know, the young man probably learned some lessons here,” after this whole thing was over. And I was like, what lesson do you learn from being falsely accused and then cut by your team and then later people are just like, oh, sorry. Like, what's the lesson in that!?
Jessica: I have no idea.
Lindsay: There's no lesson. So, Whitehead did get signed by the Jets, so he's on the Jets practice squad now, or training camp. But in this New York Post article I'm reading, he says “It was very confusing,” he told reporters following Jets training camp Saturday. “I came off the field and found out I had an arrest warrant I didn't know about. And then I was released.” [laughs] You know, I mean, the thing that gets me about this is it was disproved so quickly, right? The Cowboys reacted so quickly to this arrest warrant when they don't react quickly to anything, right? This was disproved the following day. I mean, within hours they could have gotten the proof from his agent that he wasn't actually in Virginia where this whole thing took place. So it's just, you know, there's gotta be a balance between enabling all this horrible off the field behavior versus, you know, reacting rashly and costing people their livelihood. Like, we've gotta be able to find the middle ground here you guys. It should not be rocket science.
Jessica: And like circling back to where we started with Diana Moskovitz’s piece about a Ezekiel Elliot, they're shaking down prosecutors for months on end to try to get a little bit more information about Elliot. But then on the flip side of this, they let Whitehead go immediately without any consultation – and then tell us that the reason is because of all the great character that they have on the team! Like, I don't know. Flames on the side of my face from like the obvious hypocrisy here.
Julie: [laughs] Flames, flames.
Jessica: It just, oh, it kills me. I don't know. I don't have anything brilliant to say about this. It's just so blatant. Like, what do you say to this?
Shireen: That's all you can say, like, “great character”?
Brenda: Their character is a dumpster fire. [laughter]
Shireen: It’s a disaster.
Lindsay: I love you, Brenda.
Shireen: The whole thing is that, Jessica, you just said you had to read this six times. I think Whitehead had to read it six times, because he didn't even understand what the hell was happening. And you said that, like, this is terrible. The whole thing is just terrible.
Brenda: But the bottom line is we don't care at all about domestic violence or concussions, but shoplifting is a moral conundrum. So it's just like Jessica said, it's so blatant.
Julie: Yeah. I think the whole point of the first segment here is that, you know, you can beat someone or you can get in bar fights. You can do all kinds of things in the NFL, you can certainly use drugs. You can certainly use steroids, you get suspended, but not cut. But when it comes to something like being falsely accused of a crime or doing the most passive protest you possibly can about police brutality, then you can't play in the NFL anymore. The whole thing is just insane. And speaking of insane, concussions and CTE in football were back at the forefront of the conversation this week. Lindsay, I know you talked about this.
Lindsay: So, Dr. Ann McKee, chief of neuropathology at the VA Boston Healthcare System and the director of the CTE center at Boston University, has examined the brains of 202 deceased football players. And a survey of her findings was published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Before I go any farther, we should know that this is a self-selected group of brains. These are people who donated their brains either while they were living or their family donated them after they had passed away, because they suspected that the deceased football player had CTE, which is just, to catch everyone up, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a generative brain disease which has been linked to repeated sub-concussive hits to the head, and causes the chronic symptoms of memory loss, depression, dementia, mood swings. Well, a lot of horrible, horrible things.
So, anyways, this study that was released this week found that 87% of the 202 brains that Dr. McKee studied did have CTE. And the findings were particularly alarming in NFL players. 110 of the 111 brains that Dr. McKee studied had CTE. It's a staggering number. And yeah, I don't know what you guys' thoughts are on this. I mean, we know how bad this is. This is about double the figures. I think last time we saw figures like this, it was close to this number, not as many brains, but it's really hard to read and hard to fathom.
Julie: Yeah. And two days later, Ravens center John Urschel retired from the NFL. He was only 26 years old. He is probably by quite a large margin the smartest guy to ever play in the NFL. He's a world renowned mathematician who's invented all kinds of algorithms and stuff that I don't even understand. And you know, he didn't say it in his statement, but those who knew him said he was pretty convinced and he's been concerned for a long time about what this is doing to his brain, and he just wasn't going to do it anymore.
Jessica: Yeah. There was a really interesting New York Times article about Urschel, and there was a story in it that he had a head to head collision in 2015 and that his high level of math, that high level math that he does, was temporarily affected by it. And a fellow lineman for the Ravens that season Eugene Monroe said he spoke to Urschel after he sustained the concussion, and Urschel he said told him that he was unnerved that the hit had affected his ability to solve math problems. He did go out three weeks later and play again once he passed concussion protocol, because he was in love with football. But you know, definitely, he could see in his own life that he had instances where playing football made it harder for him to do math.
Julie: Shireen?
Shireen: Also just, yeah, just recently, Mike Freeman for Bleacher Report wrote about Michael Oher and how he had Instagrammed bottles, pill bottles, and then he deleted that. And then on July 20th, just last week or about 10 days ago, he tweeted, “The brain is a scary thing. You have to be careful with it.” And Michael Oher is famously known to everybody as the player who was represented in the movie The Blind Side, and just like his fear about it and his own…He’s being public about his own concern with what's happening and how you have to protect yourself and your brain, understandably. And I think when players start doing that, it becomes really poignant and really, really important as well. Like, just reading this article, and we'll add it to the show links as well, about, you know, choices they have. They make millions, it's written. But you know, they have to make choices, and some end up with so much damage that they just find difficulty in functioning normally. It's really scary stuff.
Julie: Yeah. I have a couple of friends who played in the NFL. One says that he wakes up routinely and doesn't know where he is. And one had talked about how he could not remember how to walk downstairs. And these are young guys. These are young guys. I mean, you know, forties, not guys in their eighties. And I think one of the things that was so striking about the New York Times article was the way they set it up. It was a very artistic spread, and they showed you the slice of everyone's brains, each of these guys' brains involved in this study, like Dave Duerson, Kenny Stabler, all kinds of famous guys whose brains had been donated. And they showed you their face, their picture of them in their prime, and then they showed their brain and what had happened to it. And I thought that was a really striking way to do it. I think the issue is not that necessarily we need to all stop watching football, because that's what everyone jumps to whenever you talk about this. But I think that the issue is that we want people to go into this knowing with consent, voluntarily, knowing what they can expect and knowing how to best protect themselves.
So when we talk about consent and being able to protect themselves, that leads us to the topic of kids playing football and, and other sports, because there are other sports where CTE has been reported in very young peoples – as young as high school in the case of soccer. But the difference is I think that, you know, in soccer, you can decide not to take a header, but you can't do that in football. There's no way you can avoid getting hit. In the New York Times piece, they even had a punter and a kicker in there who showed signs of CTE. So I had Chris Nowinski, who's a Harvard educated neuroscientist on my show earlier this week, and he talked about kids playing youth football and said, you know, there's no excuse for hitting the kid in the head 500 times. So, while adults can decide whether or not they're going to put themselves at risk, a five-year-old who – how old my child was when he started playing football – can't make that decision. So, Brenda, I know that you have a lot of concerns about the way parents and schools and programs that are supposed to be in charge of protecting our kids are handling this issue.
Brenda: Yeah. Julie, I'm sympathetic to the connections parents see with their children playing the same sports as they did, or they love, and feeling as though it was a place they grew and developed and enjoyed. So, I understand that there's that connection there. At the same time, I think, well, I used to take road trips without seat belts as a kid, and I wouldn't turn around and tell my kids, “Take off those safety gadgets and man up.” I mean, I just wouldn't do that anymore. So, now that the research is out there, as sympathetic as I am as parents, it seems pretty convincing that it's a really bad idea. And as a teacher, I find football contrary to our mission. I really do. We're supposed to protect our students and provide a learning environment that sharpens their minds, not dulls it.
At Hofstra, where I teach, the administration canceled the football program in 2008, and alumni were furious, furious. But the result was that we had space and budget to build a medical school. And just as a teacher, it seems really obvious to me that there's a contradiction in terms of the educational mission of our schools and sending kids out and saying, well, you know, go for it. And I know if they're of age, it's a different story, but a lot of our college players are 17. So they're actually not of age. So, I have that feeling where I completely understand sharing that love of a game with your kid and what that means, but I also think there's a lot of things I love that aren't good for me. And I get rid of them. [laughs]
Julie: Yeah. I mean, you know, as a parent who's had two kids who played football, thank god they don't play anymore. One of the things...You know, every year the league comes out, and our league was run by a Catholic school district. So, I mean talk about, you know, supposed to be protecting kids. We had every year, they came out first it was like heads up football. You know, we're going to teach kids to tackle with their heads up and that way they're gonna avoid concussions. And the other one was, this is a helmet that's going to protect your kid. It's $350, but really, can you put a price on your kid's safety? And the thing is that neither of those protect kids from this. First of all, something protecting the outside of their brain doesn't protect the inside of their brain, which is really where all the damage happens. And you can't stop that from happening with a helmet.
Brenda: Right.
Lindsay: I just wanted to agree, like, this is really ridiculous. There are no federal guidelines for high school football or below. So whereas the NFL has like reduced full contact practice to once a week and the NCAA only permits two such practices a week, I will repeat myself: there are no corresponding federal guidelines for high school football or below. And at the lower levels, this is where you don't have all these trainers on the side. You don't have people who are educated. You don't have people who know what to look out for when it comes to, you know...You don't have the facilities. I mean, the NFL does so poorly with this, with all of these resources. Think about the people who are doing it at the lower levels with kid brains, which are so much more fragile than adult brains, and without any federal guidelines to go on. It’s terrifying.
Julie: Well, you know, the thing is we do have trainers on the sideline to this level. That's one of the things that has become a big deal lately, but the issue is they're looking for concussions. And the kids who get concussions get pulled out and their brains get time to heal. But the kids who are just getting hit in the head over and over and over again with those sub-concussive blows, those are the ones that wind up with problems.
Lindsay: And if we want to tie all this back to how horrible the NFL is, which is always good–
Jessica: Do it.
Lindsay: This week, ESPN’s Outside the Lines reported that the NFL is ending its research partnership with a National Institute of Health, which they announced in 2012, that they were giving $30 million to the National Institute of Health, no strings attached, for concussion research. And this is research that would help not only NFL players, but down to the lowest levels of the sport, because there's one thing that people…We need more research, right? We need more science. We need the science to catch up with public awareness at this point. Well, guess what? That money was not no strings attached, and in August, that partnership is going to end without them giving $16 million of the $30 million funds to the National Institute of Health, because they had so many strings attached to that money that the NIH is just letting this expire because the NFL's money is so tainted and the NFL was so horrible to work with on this study. So, thanks, NFL.
Shireen: More of that “excellent character” shining through. [laughter]
Brenda: Dumpster fire.
Julie: Well, speaking of character and excellent character, the women's Euro soccer tournament's going on right now – or football tournament, for those of you who practice a more pure version of the sport. Shireen and Brenda interviewed sportswriter Ann Odong about the tournament. Do you guys want to tell us about that?
Brenda: We were really excited to interview Ann Odong. She's the women's soccer Yoda from Australia, and after the group stages of the Euros, it's been wide open. That's the national tournament UEFA sponsors, that's been expanded to 16 teams this year, and getting the highest ratings in its history.
Shireen: We are so excited at Burn It All Down to have the incomparable Ann Odong with us today from Sydney, Australia to talk Euros, woman football and so much more. Ann is the editor of The Women's Game. She's an expert on women's soccer, namely, the Matildas, Arsenal, and Perth Glory football club. She's one of my favorite Twitter followers and a fellow Japan national women's team lover. Ann, thank you so much for joining us today.
Ann: Guys, thank you so much for having me,
Shireen: Brenda, do you want to get us started with our conversation? I know that you've been really excited to talk about the Euros.
Brenda: I am really excited. The Euros, which I've dubbed the frenemy tournament. It's been really exciting in the group stages, but now we're at the quarter finals. So, I wanted to ask Ann about a few of the storylines that have come out of the initial round of play. I mean, for one thing, I guess I'd like to ask about Spain. It seems really strange to me that they left off Verónica Boquete, the captain and leading all time goal scorer for Spain. Do you have any thoughts about them or about those choices?
Ann: Yeah. Look, that was actually probably the shock leading into the tournament of players who were missing that were not injured. Boquete has been such a large part of the Spanish national team for a while, and not just on the pitch but also off the pitch. She was one of those players that I guess led the revolt in terms of the Spanish women's national team getting more attention, getting more resources from their federation. And there was a bit of a hint of that this might be the way to be able to get rid of a player who has actually done so much to make the federation accountable. I think her loss now is much more evident on the park where she had immense leadership. She had immense control of the playing group and of the game. And it feels like Spain are bereft of that during this tournament so far.
Brenda: Yeah. I remember seeing her in the last women's World Cup and she was just electrifying. So, I was really surprised myself and wondered about questions of retribution. She's been really active in terms of trying to build the respect for women within Spain and the Spanish federation. So it's really interesting to hear you say that. Okay. All right. So, I won't dwell too much on Spain, but I do want to also…Another collapse, Italy – were you expecting that result from them? Or where you were you kind of surprised at that? I was sort of a little bit surprised.
Ann: Look, Italy had had issues for a little while. They’re in their rebuilding period. They lost one of their stalwarts in Patrizia Panico just a couple of just in the last couple of years. And then they had a couple of other senior players go, and they're sort of in their rebuilding phase. But look, for them, I actually think they had a pretty decent tournament after what was a really, really lackluster first game against Russia. And they paid for that. They came out and they came out really, really soft and allowed Russia to dictate a lot of things. And in the end, when they played against Germany and they had a fantastic game and Italy would be thinking, what if Mauro hadn't been injured just before half time when they were starting to get on top? That game against Sweden, they totally dominated large portions of that game and came away with a win. So, they're definitely a victim of starting the tournament slow and being caught out when they were chasing points late in the game.
Brenda: Okay. Shireen, you want in on this?
Shireen: Definitely. Thank you. Ann, I'm going to want to talk about France. I'm gonna want to talk about them scraping through and keeping their head above water. And although in the last match, we didn't see Bouhaddi do a Bouhaddi, which is usually what happens. I have an incredible emotional attachment to her. I mean, my own daughter is a goalkeeper and I don't know what it is. But I also really am rooting for them. I know you and I also share an incredible love and respect for Louisa Nécib Cadamuro, and she's not there anymore. So there's like this forever longing and sadness and yearning for them to do well, which just doesn't seem...They don't seem to be jelling the way we would expect. What do you think and what are your predictions for the quarters between England? That's going to be a huge match.
Ann: Look, I think France are an interesting team this tournament. They came into the tournament as favorites, which they have for the last couple of tournaments, but there was real talk about them changing their mentality under their new coach, and the She Believes where they defeated the USA pretty convincingly and really took it to Germany and came back against England, a lot of people maybe thought, okay, this France has finally toughened up mentally and knows how to take on the challenge of, you know, being challenged by the teams and still come out on top. But really in the group stages, they struggled against Iceland and had, you know, in the last couple of minutes, a penalty. And then against Austria, they ended up with a 1-1 draw, and again, they were behind in that game and had to come back. And the same, before Camille Abily went for a kick, which really should have been saved by Thalmann in goals to get them the draw, which kept them in the tournament. I think what you can say for France is that they're still here.
I mean, in years past, maybe this France would have limped out of the tournamentand really given up when they were deep in the 76th minute and they were down and pretty much out of the tournament. But I think they've got a lot of work to do. Wendie Renard is going to be out for all the quarterfinal, which is a massive loss. She's not only their captain, but she's a set piece threat for them. And I think England will feel a lot more comfortable, but particularly with Steph Houghton and Millie Bright in the center of the park being able to contain them early. But now they have to try and regroup and try and see if they can play their best fluid football. The difference is they're actually going to go into that game as underdogs, which is the first time in a long time that France had done that. And maybe just taking off that mental pressure will allow them to play the beautiful free-flowing football we know France can play, but you're right, they just don't need a Bouhaddi moment. Although I love a good Bouhaddi moment. Just as long as it doesn't cost them a goal. [laughter]
Shireen: Yeah. I mean the squad itself, Amandine Henry, like, they've got some superstars on that squad, so it's just…You're sort of like, ripping out your hair watching, saying, why isn't this flowing? I mean, hopefully they'll get it together. And my question is, one of the full-backs in women's football is on England. I think that Lucy Bronze is incredible.
Ann: She is.
Shireen: And I mean, will France be able to penetrate in a way to be able to challenge them? I have been so incredibly impressed with English football and I've never said that in my entire life. [Ann laughs] So, I mean, obviously we're speaking about…But I'm speaking about the women's game, right? So it's okay. So, I mean, it's just going to be…What do you think? What do you think might happen there? Like the clash of France versus England?
Ann: I think England go in as probably the best defensive side in the tournament. As was shown against Spain, they had only 24% possession. And in terms of how they were able to just defensively reorganize themselves really, really well when they needed to. I think that's going to be a problem for France to be able to break them down. The way France are going to have to approach it, I think they're going to have to go with pace – really, really test England's ability to play and defend the counter attack, which Spain didn't really allow them to do. I think that's where France is going to look to attack them. And if they can do that, it means then that Lucy Bronze, who is one of the world's best full-backs, she'll probably stay at goal home. She'll have to stay at home because she's going to have to defend the flanks with the likes of Eugénie Le Sommer, Élodie Thomis, Marie-Laure Delie, all of those players attacking those flanks. And hopefully that will give France the opportunity to do what they do best, which is be able to then switch it to the center of the park.
I like England. I think they've got a really good solid team. They've got a good, solid midfield, and they'd like to play that counter attacking football. And Jodie Taylor has been very, very good. I think the other person who probably hasn't got enough plaudits has been Ellen White. She's been fantastic in linking up alongside Taylor and I think that's where I see the game being won in the middle of the park and either team been being able to…What’s the word? Let loose their forwards and do the job. But I think defensively, England are definitely more solid. And I think that's where they're going to look to start the game and see if France can break them down.
Shireen: Brenda, I know that you wanted to ask about your fav?
Brenda: Well, I don't know that they're my fav. Well, Steffi Jones is my fav in this tournament. I mean, I loved her as a player. I'm really excited to see her coaching Germany. So, I do want to ask, because it's a kind of new…Lot of new faces, different faces for Germany. But they've looked good, if inconsistent. What do you think, Ann?
Ann: Yeah, I think you you're right. They've looked good but consistent. And I think the problem for Germany at the moment is they've had so much ball, but they are yet to score a goal in open play. They've had green penalties and they scored off a set piece, and a goalkeeping blunder at that. So for them, their problem is they just haven't been able to score from open play so far. Dzsenifer Marozsán has been really good. I think she's dictated things. For me, I think she's played a little bit too deep. I'd like to see her being able to link up more with the likes of Mandy Islacker and Anja Mittag as well. But I think Germany...Look, Mittag, when I spoke to her before the tournament, she said, “For Germany, the tournament really starts at the knockout stage.” This is where they play their best football. They are a tournament side. They know how to pace themselves and be there at the business end. And considering now they're in that bottom half, which contains the likes of Austria and Spain, I think they'll like their chances of being able to go through to another final and possibly a ninth European title.
Shireen: Wow. I mean, I have to admit actually Brenda and I were discussing this before we were speaking with you, and I've just never been able to recover from the loss of Célia Šašić and Nadine Angerer moving on. I mean, I don't know. My heart gets really…I fall in love with these beautiful footballers and the way that they play. And I mean, I hope, truly. It’s just been some really incredible football actually, like, Scotland really wowed us. It really wowed me. And the passion and the perseverance with the way they played. And was this not the first time Scotland had entered the Euros?
Ann: It’s the first time in I think almost 20 years that Scotland had been part of the Euros, but this is the first time since they moved to the finals format that Scotland had been a part of it. Look, they had a horror first start for them. And fortunately then they slowly recovered from it, but the loss against Portugal really hurt them, even though they were able to defeat Spain for their first tournament. But in all honesty, for the tournament debutantes, it's actually been a pretty good tournament for them. Switzerland of course went really, really close against France and almost knocking France out and going through themselves. Then you had Austria who finished on top of groups C who nobody would have been able to predict pre-tournament that they'd be able to do. And they had the likes of Nina Burger who has been in excellent form for them. And then of course Belgium who had the very, very tough group A, but again, they went very, very close to going through and even had a win themselves.
So I think what it's shown is that women's football is continuing to increase its depth across nations, and much like the women's World Cup in 2015 when they expanded to the 24 teams, if you give nations a chance to step up to the plate and if you give those debutantes the opportunity to step up to the plate, a lot of them are showing that they can do so. So I'm hoping that in the next couple of years, we're going to see a bit more expansion. And a lot of these teams are now starting to see the value of women's football and therefore putting more resources into their programs.
Shireen: Awesome. That's brilliant. We want to thank you so much for being on the show. Can you tell our listeners where we can find your work and your brilliant commentary?
Ann: Thanks so much. Yeah, we are at thewomensgame.com. We've been going for nine years and we cover all of Australian women's football. We also cover the Asian Confederation and we're looking forward to next year going to another Asian Cup. So, thewomensgame.com is where you can find the work of myself and also my excellent and really talented team.
Shireen: Thank you so much again. Bren, any final words?
Brenda: I guess I just want to put you on the spot and ask you to pick us a winner. [laughter]
Ann: Oh, okay. So, I have to go with two winners. I have to go with my heart choice and my head choice. My heart choice is of course France. [laughs] Because that’s what I'm like. But my head choice is that Germany will do the business. They've got a nice side of the draw. The big teams are on the top half of the draw and look like, you know, they'll knock each other out, but it wouldn't surprise me if Germany get a ninth title. But I would like to see a new European champion though.
Brenda: Yeah. It's nice to see the crown be passed around a bit.
Ann: No, it would be fabulous. And I think it also means that a lot of nations will really feel like it's worth it, doing all the work that they can do.
Brenda: Good point.
Shireen: You've managed to make Brenda and I both equally happy. Thank you so much. [laughter]
Brenda: For your heart and your head. [laughter]
Shireen: Thank you so much for joining us on Burn It All Down.
Ann: All right. Thanks for having us, guys.
Julie: Now it's time for everyone's favorite segment that 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. Lindsay, do you want to start?
Lindsay: I would love to. So, we have Britt McHenry, who was laid off by ESPN recently, which I'm not celebrating anyone being laid off. But now that she has been laid off, Britt McHenry, who was a kind of…She did some sideline reporting. She did some on the ground reporting at NFL games and stuff like that. She is now, according to this ESPN article, having an awakening as a vocal conservative. Now, it's not that she's a conservative that is really making me put her on the burn pile, but it is this concept that she is this maverick because she has these conservative ideals in sports media and that she is painting herself as really standing up to the establishment with ideas such as “Colin Kaepernick can't get out of his own way, any good deed he does comes at the expense of bashing the United States of America.” She tweeted that Kaepernick survey that I pointed out how false it was earlier this episode. She tweeted about that with the phrase “not shocked,” and then she added some emojis.
And this all really started when she put out a blog on July 4th that was titled, or this was her tweet leading up to it: “Kaepernick can't truly celebrate America? Well, I can. He expressed his beliefs, and we can express ours.” And then in capital letters, “BLOG.” [laughs] Sorry. She just drives me crazy. It's just, you know, she's made it far in her career. I'm sure she will get more employment. Looking through her feed, she seems actually pretty reasonable on a lot of issues, pretty on the moderate side. But it's just this notion that in that spot in the sports world you're this maverick if you have these conservative ideals – when Kaepernick doesn't have a job. [laughs] So like, you know, it's not like everyone is coming out and supporting him and you're the only one who's not? And it's also this concept of just there's this...You’re not thinking of things critically. You're not thinking of things. You're saying these things because you want to make people mad.
And that was pretty much proven in this Washington Post article when she says that she emailed her agent before this Colin Kaepernick blog and said, “I know this opinion is really going to ruffle media feathers.” And then she told the Washington Post that having all these reactions pour in from all sides of the political spectrum was “kind of addicting.” So, look, she wants the attention and she's doing this and she's painting herself as maverick of sports media. And I wish her all the best in her career, but I just can’t…I can't support this ‘maverick standing up for your beliefs’ cause when it's at the expense of true Americans, so, burn pile.
All: Burn.
Julie: Shireen, you’re up next.
Shireen: Thanks. My burn pile this week is actually something emanating from the Tour de France, which happened, and on Monday there was a report in the Guardian written by Suze Clemitson about a Belgian cyclist, and his name is Jan Bakelants, and a comment he made while on the podium after winning. When asked what he would take with him for his free moments during the Tour, he said, and I quote, “A pack of condoms, for sure. You never know where those podium chicks have been hanging out.” So, it was so nasty, so absolutely inappropriate, unnecessary. It was just so gross. And I think…He’s also been in this article that was written for the Guardian. It talks about how he has a daughter and the fact that he says this stuff, this is the same world that his own daughter will grow up in. So this blatant misogyny and this commentary…And I mean, I'm sorry, I have issues, yes, absolutely, with the sexualization of women during award ceremonies. Absolutely. Does that justify his commentary? No. This really has to stop. And I think that we tend to forget that the issue of sexism in sport is really across the board and affects not just players but everybody involved, every woman involved in sport at any facet. They’re all recipients of this type of horrible commentary and sexism. So, I'm burning that Jan Bakelants. I'm sorry, burn it.
Julie: Okay, Brenda, your turn.
Brenda: Yeah, I'm ready to burn a repeat offender, the Mexican Football Federation, this week, for botching the launching of the Mexican women's football league, which kicked off this past Saturday, July 28th. It's actually really exciting. There's 16 teams competing, and the Mexican women's football league – or soccer – has been trying to really make a go at this since the 1960s, and even had some seasons in 1971, 1972. So this seemed like a really exciting moment where they were going to put some resources into women's soccer in Mexico, and it was supposed to buoy the national team. But I've got to put the Mexican Football Federation on the burn pile for bungling this. First of all, they instituted a rule saying that players were not allowed on the team if they weren't Mexican nationals. Basically, the women were on planes to Mexico when they were told that they wouldn't be able to be fielded because they were foreign players, even though Mexican American players from the US and Central Americans have lit it up for the national team – captained the national team, like Monica Gonzalez, who we interviewed recently on the show. And secondly, the players' contract supposedly discouraged them from “lesbian or manly behavior” or getting pregnant.
Jessica: Damn.
Brenda: Which is totally against Mexican labor laws, totally against them! Now, those labor laws are routinely violated. So I'm not saying it’s not commonplace, but it's disgusting. So, FMF, don't take some big, awesome step to advocate for women only to make it another machista womp womp, right? [Shireen laughs] Don't do it. So I'm still excited about this season. I really am. I'm going to be watching, but I want to burn the administration of the Mexican Football Federation.
All: Burn.
Julie: All right, I'll go next. I am throwing Adidas and LaVar Ball – metaphorically, LaVar – on the burn pile. I've been defending LaVar Ball because I think a lot of what he does is just silly, goofy stuff that, you know, I think a lot of guys sort of act the way he does. And I think that the response to him from a lot of people has been really overblown, especially when people are talking about his relationship with his children, which seems to be lovely. However, LaVar Ball was coaching at Adidas' tournament in Las Vegas this week. He’s coaching his son LaMelo, who I believe is 15. He's been a spectacle through this entire tournament. He's pulled his team off the floor. He's argued with every referee that's been there. In one of the games, the referee was a woman, and he actually had her pulled and replaced during the game because she gave him a technical. Adidas had issued before the tournament started a directive to the refs telling them not to throw LaVar out of the game, because he was a draw for everyone who came there to see him, and also because they were hoping to sign a contract with his son, Lonzo.
So, after the game, when this woman was taken out of her role as referee and summarily ejected from the game because of LaVar, he made a bunch of comments about her being a woman, saying that, you know, “I know she needs to stay in her lane,” which is what he said to Kristine Leahy. He also said, “As a woman, she's trying to get attention. She's trying to act like a man.” Things like that. It is the second time that he has responded to controversy with really, really sexist statements directed at a woman who is challenging him. And whether or not you agree with what Kristine Leahy had to say – and I did not – it’s really disturbing to me that he continues to say this kind of stuff, and even more disturbing that Adidas seems to care more about signing a contract with Lonzo than they do about the millions of women out there who buy Adidas. And by the way, who do they think buys all these shoes for their kids? Most of the times, it's the moms. So I would be real careful where you try this Adidas. I'm throwing them on the burn pile.
All: Burn.
Julie: All right, Jessica, you're wrapping us up this week.
Jessica: All right. So, last weekend, I wanted to watch a match in the women's Euro competition. I think it was like middle of the day, Saturday, you know, you sit down, you think, okay, I knew the game was on. I had checked the schedule earlier in the day. So I was confused when I brought up the guide on the television and I looked at ESPN’s two channels, you know, ESPN, ESPN2, to see which channel the game was on. To my surprise, on ESPN there was something called The Basketball Tournament, and on ESPN2 they had drone racing. I was so confused! So I went back to check the schedule again. So, and it turned out that if I wanted to watch some of the best women football/soccer players in the world, I needed to hook up my Chromecast and stream the game from a device, since that was the only way it was available. The quality was pretty low too. I just want to complain about that. It was pretty blurry. My husband suggested that this was on ESPN’s side because so many people were watching that it was coming through blurry, which, you know, huh. Funny about that. I also remarked to him that the fact that it was so blurry, you couldn't actually tell anything about the gender of the people I was watching play soccer. And so I would today like to burn ESPN’s coverage of drone racing over and above the women's Euros.
All: Burn it.
Julie: You know, it's funny too, because ESPN actually showed cornhole/bags, depending on what you call it. You know, the game where you throw beanbags through a hole. They had that on ESPN2 one morning instead of women's soccer, which is just unbelievable.
Lindsay: [laughs] Isn’t that just like a drunk game?
Julie: It is! Seriously.
Shireen: Why don't they just call it beanbag throwing, like why the fancy name?
Julie: We call it bags.
Jessica: Is that fancy? [laughter]
Lindsay: Shireen, I don't think cornhole is a fancy name! [laughter]
Brenda: But it does make you think I might be more interesting. [laughter]
Shireen: Exactly!
Lindsay: I don’t know what you guys are doing up there in Canada, but cornhole is not fancy. [laughs]
Shireen: You know, I happen to love corn on the cob. [Lindsay laughs] So anything with food draws me in. So I think this is maybe…I don't know.
Julie: That's probably why they call it that then. After all that burning it's time to celebrate some remarkable women in sports this week with our badass women of the week segment. Shireen, you've got the badass-iest of them all this week.
Shireen: I do. I was so happy to see this. I wrote about Team Refugees during the Olympics last year and Yusra Mardini was one of the athletes that I had mentioned in a piece that I wrote for Media Diversified in their coverage of athletes of color during the Olympics. And Yusra Mardini is swimming as an independent in Budapest, in Hungary, in the FINA world championships in the in the 200 meter freestyle or 100 hundred meter butterfly that she's competing in. She's a refugee, she's a Syrian refugee. And her story is so, so incredible because she and her sister actually jumped out of the raft that they were in and swam the raft to safety. It was unbelievable. I think she was 17 at the time. And it was something that I've never forgotten, the story about how someone had used her athleticism to do this. And now she actually was part of Team Refugee and she went to the Olympics. She didn't medal, but she qualified after the first heat. She advanced, I mean. And I'm now to see her as an independent...She trains in Germany full time. But to see her in Budapest, speaking up…She’s also an ambassador for the United Nations, and she advocates for refugees and campaigns for them and draws attention to the issues of them and migrants that are in danger. And I think that's really important and I'm so happy to see her and hopefully we wish her all the best.
Julie: Yeah, definitely a worthy badass woman of the week. I also have an honorable mention. This goes out to sportswriter Claire Smith. She was the first women's beat writer in the country when she covered the Yankees for the New York Times in the 80s. She was honored by receiving the JG Taylor Spink award, which is an award voted on by her peers. She was given the award in Cooperstown yesterday, and a lot of really important people in the industry were there. Jay Jaffe I know went there. There were a whole bunch of sportswriters there honoring her. And she's someone who hasn't had a ton of attention. She certainly doesn't have a really high profile like some other women writers in sports. She's very soft-spoken, but she's one of those people who has just sort of survived and grown to be really respected and admired by other sportswriters just by how well she does her job and how good she is at it. So, I was really, really gratified to see her getting that award at Cooperstown yesterday. So, Claire Smith is my choice for honorable mention this week. Jessica, I think we have one more.
Jessica: Yeah. We want to say congratulations to former guest of Burn It All Down, Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir, on winning the leadership in sport award from Beyond Sport, an organization dedicated to sustainable social change through sport. Abdul-Qaadir is a Muslim hooper who became an activist when the international organization that oversees basketball, FIBA, banned head coverings on the court. That decision was reversed in May. Abdul-Qaadir now teaches and coaches young girls through her organization Muslim Girls Hoop Too. This honor is so well-deserved. Congrats, Bilqis.
Julie: You know what? I actually misspoke. Shireen, I think we have one more honorable mention this week.
Shireen: Yeah, I just wanted to actually mention that, just the news comes in, Simone Manuel won the 100 meter at the FINA championships that we were talking about. And I think that’s...We just love her. So happy to see this happen. It was an upset because Efimova was the actual favorite to win. So, Yulia Efimova was beaten by Simone Manuel, and I think that's really important. And just how Manuel amplifies Black women in swimming, which is something we don't always see. It's just awesome. And the news was all over the place. And I always love a good upset. So congratulations to Simone.
Julie: Yeah, that's a great story. All right, let's move on to things we're looking forward to this week. This can be a sporting event, something you want to read, something you're currently enjoying – movie book, whatever. Lindsay, what about you?
Lindsay: I'm going to see live tennis! [laughter] And I'm kind of ready to be done with this podcast because I'm going right when I'm done. But love you all. But yeah, the Citi Open is in DC this week. There's a men's tournament and a women's tournament. The field is phenomenal. Juan Martin Del Potro is there for the men. Simona Halep is here for the women. So, I'm going to be there today and every day after work this week, and it is really one of the tournaments where I got my start as kind of a sports reporter when I was blogging for free and would come down here and they would give me a press credential and let me interview players that I probably had no business interviewing. And so just so many good memories at this tournament from way before I lived here. And now it's that time of the year again! I can't wait.
Julie: That sounds great, Jessica, how about you?
Jessica: Yeah. So, this week I've been totally into this new book that I got called Women's Gold Medalists Rio 2016. It was part of a Kickstarter done by an Australian designer and illustrator named Wendy Fox. And it's this beautiful book that features an image that Fox has drawn of every single woman, all 293 who won a gold medal in Rio. And it's so great because her style is a lot of simple lines and block colors. There's no details in the face, but she's put them true to size. So you can see in comparison to each other how tall or big each woman is. She tells you their age, their height, their weight, their country, which sport they play, and for what event they won the gold. And then towards the end, there's this amazing section where she compares like the extremes. So she has the youngest, a 15 year old diver from China, next to the oldest, a 47 year old equestrian from Germany. On the shortest verses tallest page, it's Simone Biles, who's next to Brittney Griner. And you can really see the difference in the size. It's just a really gorgeous book to look at. And it's just the neatest celebration of all the female gold medalists and their different body shapes and their sports and their accomplishments.
Julie: That sounds amazing. Brenda, do you have one this week?
Brenda: Yeah, I'm looking forward to the US versus Japan soccer match in the Tournament of Nations. If you can believe it, in addition to the Euros, there's another international women's soccer tournament [laughs] and that's this August 3rd. And Japan has a lot of new faces following some big name retirements after last women's World Cup. So I'm going to learn a lot. I plan on learning a lot about the Japan team right now. The US is at home, but really you can't count Japan out. It's a fabled rivalry in women's soccer and they're playing 7:00pm August 3rd on ESPN2 – if there's not drone racing. [laughter] I'm really looking forward to it.
Julie: Alright, Shireen?
Shireen: In addition to the Euros that I'm so psyched about, and you heard a little bit of that in our conversation with Ann, right now I'm reading my friend Anna Kessel's book, Eat Sweat Play: How Sport Can Change Our Lives. And I'm just really excited to see more women writing about sport and sports media. So, really excited about everything, including that book.
Julie: As for me, I'm finally diving into Rejected Princesses, which is a book I've had for a while, where it doesn't have to do with sports in the sense of, you know, modern sport, but it's a book about women who have been rejected throughout history because some of them were bloodthirsty and many of them were extremely violent and all of them sort of threw off society's conventions about women. And this wonderful guy named Jason Porath researched the whole book and drew them as Disney princesses, because he said in real life they would never actually be Disney princesses because they're just too controversial. So he drew them all as Disney princesses, and it's a really diverse book. I think it's pretty wonderful. So I'm looking forward to sitting in the sun today, outside, and finally diving into Rejected Princesses.
All right. That's it for this week's episode of Burn It All Down, Burn It All Down is mixed and edited by Ellie Gordon-Moershel and lives on Soundcloud but can also be heard on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn and Google Play. We always appreciate your reviews and feedback, so feel free to subscribe, rate, and tell us what you like or didn't like about the show. We hope you'll follow us on Twitter @burnitdownpod and on Facebook at Burn It All Down. You can also reach us via our website at burnitalldownpod.com. That's where you'll find all our show notes and links to all the topics we discuss each week. And of course you can email us at burnitalldownpod@gmail.com. We love to hear from our listeners, so please drop us a line and consider taking some time to check out our GoFundMe page and make a small donation to help keep the pod going and allow us to make technical improvements. We're really grateful for everyone who has contributed so far. That's it for this week. For Jessica Luther, Lindsay Gibbs, Brenda Elsey and Shireen Ahmed, I'm Julie DiCaro, and we'll see you next week.