Episode 145: Olympics! Qualifying in bball and soccer, Olympian Elana Meyers Taylor, and USA Gymnastics

At the top of the show Lindsay, Brenda, Shireen, and Jessica talk about animals. Yay, animals! [5:53] Then we dive into the Olympics! First up, the crew talks about Olympic qualifying in women’s basketball and soccer. [20:05] Jessica interviews three-time olympian and flamethrower, Elana Meyers Taylor, about her journey from professional softballer, to bobsledding champion, to a couple caps on the USA rugby team, and also her pregnancy and being a world-class pregnant athlete. [37:35] Finally, we once again discuss the garbage fire that is USA Gymnastics, Michigan State, and the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee [TW for this segment and discussion of sexual assault]. [51:46]

Of course, you’ll hear the Burn Pile, [1:04:31] the Bad Ass Woman of the Week segment, starring Candice Lee, [1:07:34] and what is good in our worlds.

Links

Capitals, Monumental sponsor second future service dog, Scout: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/30/capitals-welcome-second-future-service-dog-scout

The Hilary Knight "go home and die" fiasco: https://www.theicegarden.com/2020/2/6/21126163/us-wins-game-4-rivalry-series-3-1-canada-womens-hockey-dani-cameranesi-hayley-scamurra-hilary-knight

Nike unveils Team USA uniforms for basketball and other Olympic athletes: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/02/06/nike-unveils-team-usa-uniforms-basketball-other-olympic-athletes

The promise of thrill on the field has turned to chaos off it for Asia’s Olympic qualifying: https://equalizersoccer.com/2020/01/30/asia-olympic-qualifying-tournament-china-coronavirus-australia-host-north-korea-withdraws

Qualifying in the Americas doesn’t have to be a self-fulfilling prophecy: https://equalizersoccer.com/2020/02/06/concacaf-conmebol-womens-world-cup-olympic-qualifying-self-fulfilling-prophecy

Is it safe to trust USA Gymnastics again?: https://www.powerplays.news/p/is-it-safe-to-trust-usa-gymnastics/

Olympic doctor Bill Moreau says he was fired by USOPC for reporting abuses: https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/28645700/olympic-doctor-bill-moreau-says-was-fired-usopc-reporting-abuses/

⚠️ Petition: “Trustees Ferguson and Mosallam have failed MSU. Their time is up.” https://www.change.org/p/gretchen-whitmer-trustees-ferguson-and-mosallam-have-failed-msu-their-time-is-up/

USOC accused of cover-up in sexual abuse lawsuit: https://www.ocregister.com/2018/03/16/usoc-charged-with-cover-up-in-sexual-abuse-lawsuit

Maggie Haney suspended by USA Gymnastics: https://www.ocregister.com/2020/02/03/maggie-haney-suspended-by-usa-gymnastics

Former gymnastics coach Michel Arsenault seeks stay of proceedings in sexual assault case: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/former-gymnastics-coach-michel-arsenault-sexual-assault-seeks-stay

Where Misplaced Loyalty and Misogynoir Collide: On Snoop, Cosby, and Why Protecting Black Women Always Seems the Last Priority: https://theglowup.theroot.com/where-misplaced-loyalty-and-misogynoir-collide-on-snoo-1841521124/

'Our voices are being silenced': Athletes speak out about media ban at All Native Basketball Tournament: https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5454469

James McClean receives sickening letter celebrating anniversary of Bloody Sunday: https://www.irishmirror.ie/sport/soccer/soccer-news/james-mcclean-receives-sickening-letter-21451993/

Boston Pride’s Jillian Dempsey hits historic milestone: https://www.bostonherald.com/2020/02/01/womens-hockey-notebook-jillian-dempsey-hits-historic-milestone

'She's my medicine on the tour' - Mladenovic, Babos talk friendship: https://www.wtatennis.com/news/1603620/-she-s-my-medicine-on-the-tour-mladenovic-babos-talk-friendship/

Jimenez Kasintseva wins historic Australian Open girls crown: https://www.wtatennis.com/news/1599456/jimenez-kasintseva-wins-historic-australian-open-girls-crown/

PAIGE BUECKERS COVERS SLAM 226: https://www.slamonline.com/the-magazine/paige-bueckers-cover-story

Yashmin Harun who champions BAME women in sport awarded 'The Spirit of Britain': https://www.ilfordrecorder.co.uk/news/ilford-woman-named-as-spirit-of-britain-1-6503123/

Washington NFL team hire Jennifer King, NFL's first African American female full-time intern: https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/id/28661698/sources-redskins-working-hire-jennifer-king-nfl-first-african-american-female-full-assistant-coach

Former student-athlete and longtime Commodore Candice Lee to lead Vanderbilt Athletics as first female athletic director: https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2020/02/04/candice-lee-ad

Transcript

Jessica: Welcome to Burn It All Down, the feminist sports podcast you need. I’m Jessica Luther, freelance journalist and author in Austin, Texas. On today’s show I’m joined by Brenda Elsey, associate professor of history at Hofstra on Long Island; Shireen Ahmed, a writer, public speaker, and activist in Toronto; and Lindsay Gibbs, the creator of Power Plays, a no-bullshit newsletter about sexism in sports that arrives right in your inbox three days a week. Go sign up!

First things first, as always, thank you to our patrons whose support of this podcast through our ongoing Patreon campaign make Burn It All Down possible. We are so, so thankful for you. If you’d like to become a patron, it’s easy! Go to patreon.com/burnitalldown. For as little as $2/month you can access exclusives such as extra Patreon-only segments, or our monthly behind-the-scenes vlog.

On today’s show we’re going to talk about Olympic qualifying in women’s basketball and soccer. Then I chat with 3x Olympian and flamethrower Elana Meyers-Taylor about her journey from professional softballer to bobsledding champion to a couple of caps on the USA rugby team, and also her pregnancy, and being a world class pregnant athlete. Finally we’re going to talk once more about the shit show that is Michigan State, USA Gymnastics, and the USA Olympic and Paralympic Committees. It’s an Olympic-themed episode, y’all. And of course we’ll cap off this show by burning things that deserve to be burned, doing shoutouts to women who deserve shoutouts, and telling you what is good in our worlds.

But first, before we get into all of that, Shireen sent us a link this week about some sweet, sweet dogs, and it has been, I don’t know, a difficult run recently. I don’t know how y’all are feeling, but I just like looking at the faces of sweet sweet dogs. So I thought we could talk a little bit about animals – maybe animals in sports, but just animals in general, before we get started this week. Shireen, tell me about these dogs.

Shireen: Oh, they’re so sweet. So the Washington Capitals have actually adopted a service dog and his name is Captain and it was adorable. The service dog will be trained to help vets and I just think that’s really important considering the shit show way the military industrial complex treats vets. Anyway, so Cap. He takes beautiful photos with the Washington Capitals, the Mystics, the Wizards, and then he got a new sibling: they adopted a puppy named Scout! Okay, Scout is everything you want this little dog to be. He is adorable, he’s playful, he’s just so cute, I was like, whoa. And we all know I am a cat person but I love dogs and I have such a soft spot for service dogs, I think they’re incredibly selfless and wonderful animals and just exactly what dogs are. So I was just sharing these photos – I was shocked that you didn’t see this, Jess. This is happy dog news, you’re always on the ball! Even Linz!

Jessica: Is it that these dogs are going to be shared in between Washington DC teams, correct?

Shireen: Yeah, their home is actually the facility, so they’re taking care of them, they recognize all the athletes, and I didn’t realize the Mystics were involved and I love everything the Mystics are–

Jessica: So we need a firsthand report from Linz, is what we’re saying here.

Shireen: Yeah. Linz, we need an update.

Jessica: I’m gonna need a selfie with you and these puppies. I believe in you.

Lindsay: It’s a tough assignment…

Brenda: Can I make a recommendation?

Jessica: Yeah you can!

Brenda: Okay, well you know I’m not the biggest animal lover on this podcast, which isn’t saying much because you guys are huge animal lovers, but I do like them and sometimes love them and–

Jessica: Brenda loves animals! That’s the title.

Brenda: I do…

Lindsay: Brenda’s not as heartless as she seems.

Shireen: You don’t eat animals, so that’s a thing.

Brenda: I don’t eat animals, which I think that gives me points forever, forever. But in any case look at this: there’s a Twitter account and I know Shireen’s on it too called Footballers with animals...

Shireen: Oh, I love it.

Jessica: I love accounts like that.

Brenda: No, it’s amazing. So yesterday was Thomas Miller with a group of chicken and I almost died. There’s lot of women, there are kangaroos invading the pitch, there’s Sam Kerr with her dog in the pool, there’s so much good content there. And of course there are many, many pictures of Messi holding a goat.

Jessica: I love it!

Shireen: Footballers with animals is actually really good, they contacted me before the Women’s World Cup really making an effort to make sure they had women on there a lot. I found out about quokkas through Footballers with animals. I didn’t know what a quokka is. Friends, you need to go Google a quokka, it’s an animal that is native to Australia but it has no natural predators so it’s literally labeled ‘the happiest animal on the planet.’ It is adorable. It is the happiest thing I’ve ever seen. I love it, it’s wonderful. 

Brenda: Life goals.

Shireen: I know. So fabulous.

Jessica: Aww. Well, I definitely feel happier now. Linz, I’m just really looking forward to Lindsay getting a picture with these dogs. Okay, well yay, animals. I really feel that they make this hellscape that we’re currently living in just a little bit better, and I’m thankful for them, but now let’s get on to talking about some Olymipcs.

Alright, Shireen, wanna get us started on Olympic qualifying?

Shireen: Sure. There was lots of business this week for soccer and basketball for women’s Olympic qualifications. Just to start off, I wanted to do soccer first because we’re still coming off the run of co-Prime Minister Christine Sinclair so I think it’s very apt to talk about that. We’ll be very candid and say there’s no question in anyone’s mind that in these two qualifying rounds the United States will not qualify – they will, they have. I think that’s pretty clear in the CONCACAF regional tournaments in soccer the United States is #1 and the reigning world champs are gonna go through to Tokyo which is very appropriate, they’re looking very strong. Some of the lineups…There was a discussion about the lineups. When I don’t see Lindsey Horan on the starting 11 I get a little irritated. Needless to say she wasn’t there but when she comes on she’ll score a brace. So I don’t get it, I feel really confused, I mean…We can can talk about Carli Lloyd and how we feel about Carli Lloyd who was, I think relentless. I like that about her, I’ve decided. I just like that about her.

So in terms of soccer, Canada had to play Costa Rica last night and we were all anticipating an easy win. That didn’t happen! Don’t know what the fuck Canada was doing, they just had to stress the nation out. The won 1-0, they only needed one goal, but only requiring one goal doesn’t mean you should only get one goal, hello! I just don’t know why they choose to function that way, but it is what it is. So this was actually Friday night, they played Costa Rica and I’m trying to remain calm at a book talk, and I kept checking the score, and Meg Linehan’s feed and Yang, Stephanie Yang’s feed. And it was…

Anyways, on to basketball. We can go into depth about this. Same things, like the qualifications were being played in Belgium. I want to just mention, because I think Jessica added this, that some of the qualifiers were supposed to be played in China, and those teams affected were Spain and a few others, they were moved to Serbia. I think this is something we should recognize, because there’s a bunch of other qualifiers, particularly in the AFC – sorry, I’m jumping back to soccer – they needed to be moved from Australia, so for whatever reasons in the world things had to be shifted quickly and in women’s sports, I will say this, that there’s a lot of times logistics are not as great, and women make it work. They make it work where they have to. I just wanted to point that out, happy to throw this around. We can also talk about the amazing team that is the US women’s national basketball team. They are phenomenal. Right now we’re not doing Olympic predictions but I do see gold for America in not necessarily women’s soccer because, I don’t know, some weird stuff happens at the Olympics to the United States women’s national team but for Worlds, yeah, y’all have it. So, just also wanted to shout out Canadian basketball, because I love them, and I think the Canadian women’s basketball team is the most underrated team in the nation, particularly in a country that doesn’t have a domestic women’s league for soccer, hockey, or basketball. Which sucks. So that’s my little intro!

Jessica: I’ll just tell a little behind the scenes, when Shireen suggested that we talk about this she provided two links to us, they were both about the Canadian women’s national team and how they were doing in soccer and basketball. 

Shireen: On brand!

Jessica: Very on brand. I wanted to point out that yeah, the Asian Football Confederation was supposed to play in Wuhan, which is the center of the coronavirus. I mean, it’s kind of wild they actually…I think China pulled out of the competitions? It’s been chaotic, The Equalizer’s been following along. Then before I throw to Bren, I just wanted to make sure that I’m clear on this– the Olympics, for women, only 12 soccer teams make it, right? Like it’s a tiny number who’re actually qualifying. It’s kind of wild to me when you think about that, especially after the World Cup this summer. Brenda?

Brenda: Yeah, there’s an interesting history to that, which starts with the men’s game, and the reason that you have the soccer World Cup is because FIFA and the IOC break in the 1920s over amateurism and getting paid.

Jessica: Oh, thanks historian.

Brenda: Yeah, I know, I’m sorry.

Jessica: No, I appreciate it!

Brenda: Partly the reason why the World Cup started in the 1930s in Uruguay has to do with these tensions between FIFA and the IOC as FIFA takes its tentacles and starts to control and monopolize the entire game and women end up, like they often do, in a funky weird byproduct position where they’re always been amateurs until recently, the majority of the players, and it’s just weird how those rules are…I just want to throw some shade on the qualifiers, not for CONCACAF which makes sense to me but for CONMEBOL and I think if I understand the Euro qualifying then that as well. For CONMEBOL the one team qualifies by doing well in the Copa America, which also qualifies them for the World Cup and also the Pan Am Games at once, and that was 2 years ago.

Jessica: Oh wow. Who was it, do you know?

Brenda: Brazil, of course. So that’s shit. That is terrible, because it’s terrible for regional soccer. It means they don’t keep playing, they don’t have momentum, they’re not getting called up, they’re not playing. So if you want them to play a World Cup – and by the way, who knows where, FIFA, still!

Jessica: Still.

Brenda: If you want them to do well and compete they have to friggin’ play! So it’s pretty frustrating…Of course it would be Brazil anyway, it’s not that I’m disputing who’s going. And just also one last thing, I think Netherlands actually have a good chance at this Olympics to take on the US.

Jessica: Okay, intersting. Lindsay?

Lindsay: Yeah, I think kind of continuing the theme from Brenda is that it’s pretty staggering to see that there are these teams that we’ve loved so much during the World Cup which was just last year that now we’re seeing convened again and there’s a big question mark about their future. The Jamaican team, which we’ve talked about tons on the show, we’ve had members on the show, they might not even continue to exist. They’re back to fighting for their lives after not qualifying for the Olympics, and that’s a ridiculous standard because, like we said, there’s only 12 teams that qualify for the Olympics. So to have the future of your program finding on whether or not you qualify for the Olympics when there are only two CONCACAF spots for the Olympics, it’s just absurd. It makes me really sad to see. Ultimately every time I see a CONCACAF tournament it just reminds you again that almost every single game in the group stages was a blowout, you know? The haves and the have-nots, that invest in soccer in any meaningful way and the places that don’t. That shouldn’t be what determines everything, right?

Jessica: Yeah.

Lindsay: It should be about talent and strategy, in a dream world, but that’s very clearly not the reality. So it was exciting, I love the US team, that’s no question, I do think they’re trying to be the first women’s team to ever win the Olympics right after the Women’s World Cup, it’s never been done before and I think that’s really keeping them motivated. It’d be a great thing for their legacy, they certainly remember the last Olympics and what happened against Sweden and giving out in the quarters. As excited as I am to watch them and to see their success and to see Canada’s success, it’s certainly tampered for me to see the general state of the game.

Jessica: Yeah. Those are really good points. Shireen.

Shireen: Yeah, I just wanted to clarify about one thing because I’ve been hearing rumors about the Reggae Girlz and I am doing a profile on Tiffany Cameron who’s a Canadian national but who plays for the Jamaican team, and I was doing some digging – that about the Reggae Girlz, I wanted to let everyone know, right now it’s a rumor. This was also confirmed by Stephanie Yang. There’s no solid proof that they’re not coming back as a program, so I just wanted to let everyone know and debunk that because it’s not necessarily true. They’re struggling as a team but there’s no sign that they will not be going forward. They did not qualify for the Olympics. 

Lindsay: But in general they are still a drastic…Their coach, who’s amazing, just quit because he had been fighting for his pay. 

Jessica: He wasn’t being paid at all last summer.

Shireen: He wasn’t being paid at all. But I just wanted to say that there’s a lot of turbulence, but I don’t want to mislead people to think that the program is ending, it’s not. So yeah, Busby did resign, so that’s totally problematic. It’s really really rough. But it’s not confirmed that the team is ending, I just wanted to make that clear because I think it’s really frustrating for the players to hear those rumors and have to fight agains that because to my knowledge, and from what I’ve done, that’s not true. So I think it’s important as we look forward…And I agree with you, the disparity of scores with St. Kitts and Jamaica, Canada blew over Jamaica 9-0, and that’s a tough, tough match. You see that the scores are so uneven and CONCACAF has a lot of work to do.

I know Brenda can probably add a bunch on this but I did want to add…Jess, what you were talking about the 12 coveted spots for the Olympics, it also means that Denmark, who were finalists in Euros, won’t get to go. They didn’t qualify, we didn’t see them at the Women’s World Cup, and also it’s very frustrating in that way because I love Denmark and they were runners up at the women’s Euros, they were literally the second best team in Europe according to these standings. But they won’t be there. And it’s not just because I totally love Nadia Nadim…Yes, it’s totally because of that. Brenda can also shed more light on the ways in which this is so messed up, how the teams go. My only chance to see Denmark is to go to the Euros next year, the women’s Euros in 2021, which I plan on doing. But I don’t know, it’s a thing.

Jessica: Yeah, I think the point is we’re not gonna see the 12 best teams play this summer, because we just don’t know based on how they qualify. Lindsay?

Lindsay: I think another thing to keep in mind is how much more important…I’m not saying qualifying for the Olympics isn’t important for the men, of course it is, but these federations are not investing in women’s soccer because they should or because it’s the right thing to do, they need these qualifications. I feel like what’s on the line for these women’s teams as far as fighting for respect from their federations and fighting for funding is so much mores and that makes it even more devastating to me that there’s only 12 spots because decisions about the future of the game are being made.

Jessica: Yeah, they will use it against women, as they like to do. Brenda.

Brenda: I mean that’s interesting – the women started playing soccer in 1996, so it isn’t that old of a tournament either, and I’m just thinking out loud as to like what would happen if that pool was expanded and if there’s pressure from FIFA to expand it, I wouldn’t be surprised if they felt a dominion as they always do over development or support. Just really quickly, I would just like to mourn that we will not see…I was happy about the Netherlands but we will not see Ada Hegerberg because she has suffered a rupture in her right knee of her ACL. I was so bummed. I thought she might come back, she who has done the most to push for equal conditions between the men and women’s teams for the Netherlands. We also won’t see France, that’s a bummer as well, so I hate to dwell on who we won’t see, because it’s gonna be fun and it’s gonna be great, but I would just like to acknowledge that my favorite player won’t be there, and it looks like she has a very long road to recovery. So I hope that Shireen gets to see her in the Euros.

Jessica: Nice. Just to wrap up, I wanted to go nationalistic a little bit and talk about the US women’s basketball team. I’m really excited to see both Breanna Stewart and Skylar Diggins-Smith back on the court playing great basketball, and then also this week one of the things that made me happy – maybe I should say this at the end – this amazing picture of Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi in the uniforms that the US will wear at the Olympics, and I just have looked at this picture so much this week. It is just so great. Diana’s looking off to the side, Sue’s got her arm around her and is looking straight at the camera and they just lookin fucking amazing. I’ll be so sad when they leave the game, but to think that we’re gonna see all these women play this summer is very exciting. 

Up next, I talk to Olympian Elana Meyers-Taylor.

I’m so happy today to be joined by Olympian Elana Meyers-Taylor. Elana has competed in three Olympics, winning one bronze and two silver medals in bobsled. She is a four time world champion and a 2015 World Cup champion in bobsledding. That same year she made history when she became the first woman to earn a spot on the US national team competing with the men as a four-man bobsled pilot. She became the first woman to go on to win a medal in a competition in a men’s event. She’s also a former president of the Women's Sports Foundation. What I didn’t know until I was prepping for this interview is Elana played softball in college and was a professional softball player before becoming a bobsledder. She also has two caps with the US rugby 7’s team, I’m definitely gonna ask her about this. She’s currently taking a break from bobsledding because she’s pregnant with her first child due weeks from now. She is married to a fellow US national team bobsledder, Nic Taylor. Welcome to Burn It All Down, Elana.

Elana: Thanks for having me, I love the show.

Jessica: That means so much to us! I wanna start with your sporting career, it’s amazing. How did you get into softball?

Elana: Thanks, so I always was an active kid growing up – my dad actually played in the NFL, so he was active in getting us into organized sports early, I was outside playing and things like that with the boys: kickball, tackle football, you name it I played it. But I wanted to play something more organized when I got into school, and it took me about a year of begging him to let me play softball in order for it to happen, and actually how it came up was I was actually playing baseball outside with the boys, and I actually wanted to play baseball, but when I went to school they told me…They were handing out baseball flyers to all the boys, and I didn’t get one. I said I wanted to play baseball, and they were like no, girls play softball. For some reason my eight year old brain took that at face value.

Jessica: Yeah, of course.

Elana: They handed me a softball flyer so I was like okay, this is what I’ll do. After a year of begging my dad he finally let me sign up. 

Jessica: Why was he so opposed?

Elana: I think what we’re seeing, especially nowadays, more and more professionalization of youth sports. It’s just gotten really crazy outta hand. He really wanted me to have the chance to play sports because I enjoyed it and not get too crazy about it. Little did he know – or maybe he did know – it wouldn’t take me long before I got crazy about it.

Jessica: So then how does one transition from softball to bobsled, of all things? And how did you go about that transition? How do you get into bobsled from scratch as an adult?

Elana: Well that’s the thing is like, we still recruit to this day. So if you wanna try out for bobsled please feel free to contact me! We recruit from across the country regardless of people’s sporting backgrounds. We just look for speed and power. What happens is basically, for me, I grew up playing all different sports and didn’t specialize until college, and I was trying to make the Olympic softball team and 2008 was the last Games for that. I played a year professionally and wasn’t really having the success I wanted with softball, so decided to switch over to bobsled after my mom actually saw it and was like look, they’re looking for fast and strong and powerful people, why don’t you try this? I was like sure, why not. It’s a chance to win an Olympic dream and I just Google’d it, emailed the coach and got invited to a tryout. 

Jessica: Wow. And so you go to the tryout and what do they have you do there?

Elana: It was a pretty massive tryout, my first tryout. I went up to Lake Placid and when I went up there…I didn’t own a winter coat because I’m from Georgia, so I had no idea what was–

Jessica: Yeah, I’m the same way. Yeah.

Elana: I went up there and we did a combine, which is like a 30m sprint, a squat test, a power clean, and some other jumping tests. Then based off of those scores they decide whether or not to invite you back to learn how to push. I scored pretty well and they started talking to me about coming back for the season and pushing on ice and all this kind of stuff. I was like, I have no idea what you’re talking about, sure, I’ll be here. And so I came up later when the on-ice season started and basically it’s a trial by fire – at that time it was, this was 2007. They just put you behind a sled on ice and tell you to go!

Jessica: Whoa.

Elana: I had no idea what I was doing. 

Jessica: That sounds terrifying, honestly.

Elana: It was.

Jessica: Wow. And within bobsled you actually had a pretty big transition, so your first medal…Please correct me if I’m wrong, your first Olympic medal, which is such a cool phrase by the way, was when you were the pusher, and then you transitioned into being the driver, correct?

Elana: Yup.

Jessica: So why did you make that shift, and how do you learn to drive one of those things?

Elana: Most people thing in bobsledding there’s not much driving that goes on, most people just think you lean and that’s how you get down the track, but driver’s actually have a skill. We have a driving mechanism, it’s not a steering wheel or anything like that, it’s a pulley system mechanism that works in the sled and we’re actually driving the sled down the track. But within the first couple of days when I’m sitting in the back of the sled when I first started, I knew I wanted to drive. I was like, look, the braker in the back sits with their head tucked between their knees and you can’t see anything. After a couple of days I was like, I can’t do this, I need more control. I’m more of a control freak than an athlete. I need to be at the front of one of these things to see where I’m going and control my own career. But I know my best chance of making Vancouver was in the back so I stayed a brakeman as long as I could, took that time to really learn, and had the great privilege to sit behind some of the greatest drivers in the world who were the US drivers at that time, learn from them and then when I transitioned to the front of the driver’s seat it was much easier at that point.

Jessica: Have you had the scary looking crashes that we see on the ice, have you experienced that?

Elana: Yeah, I’m a little bit of an all or nothing kind of driver, I tend to take risks that probably you don’t need to take and probably now later in my career I probably won’t be taking, but actually my last race before I got pregnant ended in a crash at world championships, ending in a pretty bad concussion. I’m all recovered from that, but I’ve had enough crashes, probably more than any other pilot at my level will just because I like flying new lines and I’m willing to take the risks to see what happens to get there.

Jessica: Can I ask about rugby?

Elana: Of course!

Jessica: How did these two caps in rugby come about? Because it’s in the middle of your bobsled career. So when did you learn rugby in all this?

Elana: That’s the cool thing about bobsled is because during the summer because there’s no ice anywhere in the world we can train anywhere in the world because we’re just doing running and trying to get fast and strong, so Olympic year 2013 I was actually training down in Chula Vista, California at the Olympic training center – or it was the Olympic training center. The rugby was based out of there, and of course they were prepping up for Rio and getting ready to have their first team and there was a couple of spots down there. The rugby staff kept coming up to us like “Oh, why don’t you try rugby, why don’t you try rugby!” Uhh, I’m kind of busy at the moment! I’ll hit you up after the Games. And so actually right after Sochi I was very disappointed in my performance at Sochi, I just thought I let myself down. It’s not the medal that matters, it’s the performance itself. I had a very tough time there and was really looking for something else. So when the coach had mentioned trying out for rugby I was like maybe this is an opportunity to do something different, so I contacted them, asked if he was serious, and he was. They brought me down there and taught me rugby in about a month, and next thing you know I’m in China playing against the Canadian team which is like the 3rd ranked team in the world at the time. So I learned a lot very quickly, it was a lot of fun, but definitely something different than bobsled!

Jessica: Wow, that is so cool. 

Elana: The cool thing is you have 15s rugby and you have 7s, I was playing 7s rugby which is more geared towards faster people, but this team…One of the coolest things why I love it so much, there are positions for every single body type, like there’s a spot for you on the rugby 15s field. When you see a rugby 15s team that’s what’s really cool about it. You have people from all different shapes and sizes, from girls who are 5’ and 100 lbs to girls who are 6’ and over 200 lbs, there’s a place for everybody on a 15s field, which is why I think it’s so universally loved.

Jessica: So now you’ve taken this bobsled season off because you’re pregnant, congratulations.

Elana: Thank you.

Jessica: What has the pregnancy been like for you?

Elana: Oh, it’s been very…It hasn’t been the easiest pregnancy, but at the same time we were told that we’d have difficulty being pregnant to begin with, so it’s something you have to keep in perspective. Fortunately we were able to get pregnant naturally and are here now, which is amazing, this is awesome. But I was pretty sick at the beginning of my pregnancy and I think I had two weeks off where I wasn’t really feeling horrible, but okay, it’s part of it, and it gives you a new respect for your body because I’m growing this human and all I’ve known for so long is your body as an athletic tool to get you to the next athletic goal but now my body transformed in this way is pretty cool.

Jessica: Yeah. So how does a world class athlete approach pregnancy? Like I was wondering if, were there people you reached out to, other athletes who had been pregnant in the middle of their careers? Is there some cool massive private chat that you’re all a part of talking somewhere? It’s one thing to be pregnant, and that’s a huge physical thing/mental thing/emotional thing for anyone, but then on top of that, like you said, your career is in your body and so much of what you’ve done with your life is controlling that body. How do you as an athlete approach this?

Elana: Yeah, I think – and you’ll hear many athletes talk about this – at the beginning when you first find out you’re pregnant and everything just keep training, because that’s what you know. The other thing is there’s always a fear in the back of your mind that oh, somebody finds out and I’ll lose my health insurance, I’ll lose this, I’ll lose that. This is a career for me, for 13 years my primary source of income, my primary finances, everything like that relies on bobsled. So you always have that fear of what’s going to happen now that I’m pregnant, am I gonna lose everything? So part of it is you just continue training to put on airs because you’re afraid of what the repercussions are, but after I got past that initial feeling I just started reaching out to people who I knew I could trust, like the Lamoureux have been great the entire pregnancy, even just through Instagram. I’d met them all before but it wasn’t a bit chat, but now I feel like it is. I’ve had conversations with them, Meghan Duggan of hockey of course, Alysia Montaño, she’s been absolutely great recommending a workout with the pelvic floor especially, which has allowed me to to continue to train throughout my pregnancy. Just getting tips from them about what they’ve done and everything like that.

I even had a chance to connect with Allison Felix shortly before her world championship which was pretty amazing, just to hear from their experiences, because there’s not really many guides. There are a little bit of guides now online about how to train through pregnancy but it’s not very detailed so to try to figure all these things out…You don’t wanna do anything that’s gonna harm your baby, but at the same time know that your body is your money, income, just trying to figure this all out.

Jessica: Right, and that’s been a big thing, that discussion around female athletes who get pregnant and their bodies being their income, especially around Nike. Have you had any repercussions that you’ve had to deal with since you’ve become pregnant?

Elana: Fortunately the USOPC, which I think is…I’m not sure exactly when it’ll be announced, but they’ve created a maternity policy that wasn’t in place when Alysia Montaño first got pregnant and it’ll allow you to stay on your health insurance and it allows you to keep your stipend, so for bobsled every month you get a stipend – it’s not really big at all! Bobsledders are by no means ballin’ out of control! The good news is, we get the same amount of money the men do, it’s just not much money. We’re equally paid not much. So we get a stipend every month. By keeping me on that and being able to stay on my insurance, that was a USOPC ruling that really helped me throughout the entire pregnancy and not lose too much income. Of course I’ll lose quite a bit of prize money, and even the fact that I’m not going to do as many appearances and speaking engagements which is where I make a lot of my money has really hurt the bottom line, but at the same time we planned for this and we knew that this was potentially what could happen, so we were ready.

Jessica: I wanted to specifically talk to you about these amazing videos that you have continued to post of yourself during your pregnancy lifting weights, or squatting is one I remember, where you’re clearly visibly pregnant in the videos, so I find them very inspiring. I think we’ve mentioned them on the show before as part of our badass woman of the week. Why did you decide to post these? There’s so much scrutiny on pregnant bodies. And you’d put your little disclaimer that your doctor approved it, so obviously you were worried that people would say something, so why did you decide to post about your continued working out?

Elana: Oh, people still do that…

Jessica: They will for years, I’m sure.

Elana: Yeah. I think for me it’s really interesting to see…You guys talk about it on your podcast all the time, the over-policing and over criticizing of women’s bodies, and I feel like that some intensifies when you’re pregnant, like everybody’s the expert on what’s gonna make your baby healthiest and what’s the safest. I think for me what really came down to it was I read a book in a bookstore one day and it said well, “there’s no studies that exercise shortens the labor time, so you don’t need to do it while you’re pregnant” and I was so infuriated by that message that we’re sending women. I was like, I’m gonna throw this book across the room. There’s a lot of healthy ways and a lot of benefits to exercising while you’re pregnant and I just wanna be able to show that. I think the biggest thing is to see me squatting this or that or whatever, all of these are within safe ranges and I think people don’t necessarily pay attention to what we’re doing when I’m not pregnant. It’s all within safe ranges, it’s all cleared, and I want to be able to show how strong we are as women and how strong we are as female athletes.

There’s no intention, in my case, to try and shame anyone. I have a couple friends who, whether it’s placenta previa or sciatica, some have to stop working out very early in their pregnancy. That’s a consideration and that’s definitely something you have to take into account. Not every woman’s pregnancy is the same, not every woman is gonna be able to squat throughout their entire pregnancy, but that’s okay. We need to encourage those who can to continue working out because it has so many positive effects other than, y’know, not being able to shorten labor time. 

Jessica: From everything you’ve said I’m assuming you have plans then to return to bobsled and compete and go back to the Olympics?

Elana: Yep, that's’ the plan.

Jessica: Alright!

Elana: I’ve always had in my head that I wanted to compete in the Olympics with a child. I actually didn’t think it would be this way, I’m 35 now and I thought it’d be a little bit sooner, which…The amount of shaming that comes with being an older mom and quote unquote “geriatric” maternity age is kind of crazy. But I’m blessed that we were able to get pregnant and definitely one of the things I look forward to most is having my baby at those Beijing 2022 Games and being able to share that experience with them.

Jessica: Man, I cannot wait to see those images. That’ll be beautiful. We wish you the best of luck in your pregnancy, with your career postpartum. Thank you so much for being on Burn It All Down, we’re huge fans of yours. Where can our listeners find you?

Elana: So I’m on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter, so I’m very vocal there, especially now that I’m a little less active these days, but feel free to reach out to me especially if anybody seriously wants to try out for bobsled because we are always looking for new athletes. So if anyone wants to try out, man, woman, hit me up.

Jessica: That’s amazing. If anyone does this because they heard this podcast you have to tell us that that has happened.

Elana: Okay.

Jessica: We would love to hear that story. Thanks so much, Elana. I really appreciate having you on.

Elana: Thank you, appreciate it.

Jessica: Last but not least this week we’re gonna talk about gymnastics again. I just wanna give a general trigger warning about sexual assault because it will inevitably come up in this discussion. We always post time stamps in our show notes so please skip ahead if this is a topic you feel you don’t want to deal with right now. Lindsay, where should we start?

Lindsay: Yeah, so with the Olympics on the horizon, it’ll be here before we know it, I wanted to revisit where we stand with the post-Nassar world and how the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee and USA Gymnastics have done in their reforms and look at, you know, is it safe to trust them and root for them again. Unfortunately no! Spoiler alert, it’s not. There’s still some really disturbing stuff going on. So on January 30th USA Gymnastics offered a $215 million settlement to more than 300 plaintiffs who had sued them for failing to protect them from former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State doctor Larry Nassar’s sexual abuse. So the settlement is all part of a reorganization plan filed by USA Gymnastics in federal bankruptcy court. This John Manly, who represents more than 200 Nassar survivors, has said that the offer is not just unworkable but it is unconscionable.

So with that offer each survivor would get about $250,000-$300,000, and while that might sound like a lot of money Manly pointed out that many of his clients had been abused hundreds of times and they will need lifetimes of therapy. When you add in the earnings losses and just the horrendous amount of emotional toll, that doesn’t come close to dealing with it and as Rachael Denhollander pointed out – Denhollander was the first Nassar survivor to come forward publicly and is really the leader of this army of sister survivors, as they call themselves –  she said, “Noticeably absent from this plan is any of the specific reforms we've publicly asked for, for years.” So what USA Gymnastics is still trying to do is to get out of this in a way that does the least amount of damage to their brand, and it seems to me their brand is still the #1 concern that they have.

At a certain point I understand, while relying on lawyers and going through these legal and financial processes because you’re a business, at a certain point you have to go around that and put the humanity of these people first. You are a non-profit and safety should be your foremost concern and when you’ve failed so tremendously to do that there’s no way around it, you’ve got to put the humanity and the safety of these people first. There’s a lot more we can get to but I’ll throw it to you all first. I just keep thinking about Simone Biles and the way they’ve treated Simone Biles and the way they purposefully didn’t talk to her or tell her about the Nassar stuff until after the 2016 Olympics because they wanted her to focus. She’s their cash cow and they wanted her to be fully focused on that.

I just keep thinking about the way they were gonna make her, and of course many others, go back to the place, the Karolyi Ranch, where she was abused. It wasn’t until she spoke up about it that they shut down the Karolyi Ranch. I just keep thinking about the fact that they have made so much money off of her, she is the best athlete in the world right now and she’s competing for these two organizations, USA Gymnastics and the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, that enabled her sexual abuse. It’s mind-boggling to me. I can’t parse it. I can’t fathom what it is she’s going through and what so many have gone through, and when the Olympics come up it’s though because of course I want to root for Simone Biles, of course I wanna cheer her on, but it’s so hard because there’s still organizations profiting off her that enabled her abuse. 

Jessica: Yeah, I’ve been thinking the same thing around Simone, and thinking about what it means to protest during the Olympics, because she has been vocal…

Lindsay: Very vocal, yeah.

Jessica: In ways that I…I deeply respect so much of what Simone Biles does. It’ll be interesting to see how she handles this. However she does it will be the right way, but whether or not she says anything during the Olympics will be interesting to watch. Because they will absolutely be tweeting their faces off and putting this stuff on Facebook and pushing for her in commercials that will benefit them. I think at this point…Lindsay had a really good roundup of all the news on Power Plays on Friday and I suggest people read that to get all of the details. I just feel like every once in a while Lindsay comes to us like, “We’ve had another terrible week, here’s 45 links about all the terrible shit!” I miss like 98% of it, it’s just constantly ongoing. 

I keep thinking…I don’t understand how the USAG and even USOPC fix it at this point. I don’t understand how anyone will ever trust these organizations around this issue, what would that even look like? What kind of reorg would actually have to happen? And this is true of Michigan State too, which is its own story this week, but is it just firing everybody and rehiring? Is it the way the system itself is set up? Are we talking about a total reboot, and what does that even look like? I feel so impotent in the face of all of this because it’s so big and it continues to remain big and very bad. As Lindsay just said, very bad decisions for brand reasons rather than for people’s humanity. Brenda? 

Brenda: I love the question of ‘what should you do,’ like what could you even do with these institutions? I think you can just totally disband USA Gymnastics at this point, if I was the IOC. I mean I’m not, obviously, but if I was it seems really simple to me that they should not be representing that sport whatsoever. I really think that like the subtly-titled podcast that we have it should just be like buh-bye, burn it all down. It needs to let go. I can’t believe the IOC wouldn’t have intervened at this point when it intervenes to force women to modify their testosterone levels by 0.001%, but this gigantic shit…

Lindsay: Whew. That’s a good point. 

Brenda: The IOC’s like, no problem there! Nothing to see here! So I do think you start completely over. Michigan State is a little more complicated, because those trustees are elected. So Ferguson, who I voted for when I was a Michigan resident and way back when thought he was a civil rights advocate…Yeah, way back then, I mean, that’s what happens, right? I’m talking 20 years ago, he didn’t look like what I know of him now. That’s almost a little different in terms of administration, right? But anyway, I just would like to see it all go, personally.

Jessica: You wanna burn it all down, Brenda? Is that what you’re saying?

Brenda: I do, I do, I do, everyday and twice on Sunday.

Jessica: Lindsay.

Lindsay: Just a super quick thing. Regarding that Brenda, the USOPC finally last year stepped up and said they were decertifying USA Gymnastics which was a long-overdue thing, but then USA Gymnastics filed for bankruptcy which has then stalled the whole decertification process, and now they’re trying to settle this lawsuit as part of the bankruptcy settlement, so basically they’re just buying time. It’s really bizarre to see how it felt like such a big moment when the USOPC finally took steps to decertify them, and then it’s just been…I mean, obviously they’re still gonna be in power come Tokyo, because at this point you’re not gonna get any organization in. 

Brenda: Interesting. That’s good to know.

Jessica: Shireen?

Shireen: I just wanted to say I really appreciate the work, particularly you Lindsay, that you’ve stayed on top of this story, particularly the interview we had on the show with Rachael Denhollander remains one of the most harrowing I’ve ever heard, and your commitment to it, your latest Power Plays is how I prepped for this segment, just catching up. I think we find when people report on this they helicopter in and then just leave but your reporting has been diligent and I just wanted to say thank you and the others that are on this beat. It’s a tough beat and there’s a lot to navigate through, so I just wanted to say that. I don’t have a lot to add beyond that, but I wanted to put that out there. It’s really important, and thank you.

Jessica: Yeah, absolutely. One thing I wanted to say about all of this is that we intensely focus on USA Gymnastics, and we talk about gymnastics at Michigan State…There was even a thing this past week around sexual assault in Michigan State football…So much of this we’ve definitely seen in reports of abuse in Olympic sports and other USA national governing bodies, that this is the things we’re talking about all the time around gymnastics, around Michigan State, around even the USOPC, of course they’re not just happening there, right? They’re happening in all these other places. When the Michigan State football stuff came out this week if you thought this was just gymnastics at Michigan State, well, of course you’re wrong! And if you think this is just Michigan State, of course you’re wrong about that too. That’s one thing that whenever I think about the enormity of this problem, man, it gets me down. Lindsay?

Lindsay: Yeah, speaking of that, also this past week there was a former doctor with the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee who filed a whistleblower retaliation lawsuit against the USOPC alleging he was fired because he reported sexual abuse complaints. This is Dr. Bill Moreau who was the vice president of sports medicine at the USOPC, and it had been previously reported, we’d already known this, but that in 2012 for the London Olympics he recommended that Nassar stopped treating his young female patients alone. He was already sounding alarm bells! He didn’t know for sure that Nassar was, I don’t think, sexually abusing, but he knew that the conditions and the way Nassar was operating was highly suspect. Once again, 2012! But Moreau also says he sounded the alarm about a series of sexual abuse and mental health injustices within the USOPC system in 2018 and 2019, and he says that this is why he was dismissed in May of 2019. The USOPC of course has said that they believe in all the cases he’s talking about that they follow proper protocols, but obviously take that with a grain of salt.

Michigan State obviously still, like Jess said, there’s tons of stuff going on. There’s a change.org petition requesting that two of the legacy MSU trustees Joel Ferguson and Brian Mosallam do not go up for reelection this year and step down, we’ll put that link in the show notes as well. But ultimately this all comes down to power, and I wanna shout out a book I read, and I did an interview with the authors in Power Plays, it’s called Start By Believing by ESPN reporters John Barr and Dan Murphy, who did great investigative work on the Nassar case and put it into a book. The things that really struck me throughout reading the book were the ways power operated in a system, both on the club level where they said “Well-connected club coaches become power-brokers, gatekeepers who decide which gymnasts get the time and opportunities to continue climbing.” That’s a way that this abuse permeates. Then within USA Gymnastics itself Steve Penny, who was the former president of USA Gymnastics, he became a bully. As his power grew so did his ego, so did his bullying, and he just kept hoarding the power. He developed what was called a ‘god complex’ and so I don’t know how we fix this but one thing for sure is to figure out a way to not have the power be so concentrated within these individuals and to somehow make it a more democratic system, because this power is corrupting.

Jessica: Now it’s time for everybody’s favorite segment, the burn pile. This is when we pile up all the things we’ve hated in sports this week and set them aflame. I am going to start with Shireen this week because she has as I understand her own giant bonfire. Shireen?

Shireen: Yes! Okay, so I like my co-hosts very much, and they’re very tolerant. I was going to burn Hilary Knight being told to go home and die at the Rivalry Series, which I know everybody’s expecting me to say that yes, the US won, yes, I will say that. I love Hilary Knight. 

Lindsay: I think 3 out of 4, Shireen, is that…?

Shireen: It was 3 out of 4. I consider Hilary Knight an honorary Canadian because she played for Les Canadiennes and she still lives here, people! Anyways, that’s fine. But they played the third game in Vancouver and people were shouting at her to ‘go home and die’ so she shushed the audience, and rightfully so. I don’t like that, and I’m uncomfortable when US scores on Canada, but that doesn’t give anybody the opportunity to say that. I love Hilary Knight and will protect her at all costs. The other thing is I wanted to burn was death threats to Gayle King. This week has been a shit show for her, and I mean the way that the interview with Lisa Leslie went, while it will be spoken about on this show at some point, I wanted to specifically burn that because of the death threats to her, being a Black woman, and the way that things unravelled is just…I wanted to center some love and some really good energy.

Now, what I’m really gonna burn on that kindling/bonfire: I’m really angry with colonialism generally, and how violent it is, but also there’s a beautiful basketball tournament that happens on the west coast of Turtle Island. Turtle Island for those of you that don’t know is what Canada is called, and it is also an Indigenous basketball tournament. What happened at this particular tournament was that there was a media blackout at the tournament, and this made the athletes themselves very uncomfortable and I just got a quote from them. Organizers said, speaking with CBC producers over the phone, Haugan said, who’s an organizer, he said he “feared that the games are becoming too political.” I stopped, and I’m like, what the fuck? It’s an Indigenous basketball tournament. Some of the athletes and former teams have gone on to protest, and hold on to your hats friends, protested pipelines on Indigenous territory. Because they can, and they should! It’s their land. And what do you mean by “too political”?

So essentially a local radio station bought the rights to this, but before nobody could go in. Athletes want an opportunity to be showcased, some of them can look for pro, semi-pro playing abilities, possibilities and opportunities, but to have a media blackout at that tournament particularly, it sounds like a whole lot of fucking oppression and a continuous sense of suppression of voices and in this case Indigenous basketball players, and in this country every day there is a fight by Indigenous peoples to get basic respect and services for land that is theirs. This literally makes me want to implode. I’m just gonna throw this on the burn pile and have a continuous solidarity with these Indigenous athletes, these players, and I’m really glad that story’s out and we need to amplify it. Burn.

Group: Burn. 

Jessica: Alright, I’m gonna go next. I just made fun a little bit of Shireen having a lot to say, but I actually have a lot to say this week! So bear with me. This week I learned about James McClean, he’s a soccer player from Derry/Londonderry in Northern Ireland. He plays for the Republic of Ireland’s national team and for Stoke City FC, a professional football club in England. What I learned this week, which probably will not be new to plenty of our listeners, is that because McClean is from Northern Ireland he receives a shit ton of abuse. So the latest, and the reason I’m talking about this today, is that last week McClean received a ‘happy anniversary’ letter about Bloody Sunday, the infamous massacre of 13 unarmed civilians in Derry, McClean’s hometown, by British soldiers on January 30th 1972. People were out on the streets, they were protesting for their civil rights. It did take decades but an official report from the British government found that there was no threat to the soldiers who fired and no justification for the shooting. David Cameron when he was prime minister of Britain said that the Bloody Sunday killings were “unjustified and unjustifiable.” The letter that McClean received listed the date, January 30th 1972, and then said “Army 13 – IRA,” which is the Irish Republican Army, “IRA zero.” And then the words, “bloody good laugh, happy anniversary, enjoy the day.” It was signed, “Yours with hate” from someone claiming to be part of the UDA, the Ulster Defense Association, which is a loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland.

Okay, so that kind of hate mail itself deserves a burn, because sports is always political, as we like to say here, but I was reading up on McClean, I had to do the research. He regularly faces what newspapers in the UK call “sectarian abuse.” He played for Northern Ireland’s u-21 team and then left for the Republic of Ireland’s national team because he said, quote, “I didn’t feel part of the squad, and I think any Catholic player if they said they did, I’d probably call them a liar. It’s probably strong words to say, but I felt that we weren’t wanted. As a Catholic as well it’s hard to stand for that national anthem and see all the flags, the sectarian flags, and the chants as well. You don’t feel part of that, especially me from where I grew up.” Except he says it in this really lovely accent. McClean has also refused to wear the red poppy that commemorates soldiers who died in the war, he does not wear it because “it stands for all the conflicts that Britain has been involved in. Because of the history I come from in Derry I cannot wear something that represents that.” For these reasons he receives hate mail, suspicious packages, death threats, he faces abuse from spectators when he’s on the pitch. An op-ed in a Stoke paper from earlier this year was titled, quote, “James McClean is a footballer not a terrorist and weekly abuse has to end.” That was the op-ed title!

The English FA launched its first investigation into sectarian abuse because of McClean. This is all wrapped up in a long, complicated and violent history, and the thing is that things are very much on the surface right now because of Brexit being in motion and it’s unclear what’s going to happen to the soft border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. By the time you all hear this we’ll know the results, but as of this morning we only have exit polling to go on that suggests that left-leaning political party Sinn Féin, which until 2018 was headed by a reported top member of the West Belfast IRA and so has longstanding ties to them, is surging, and the latest Republic of Ireland general exit polls, and it might be a part of the country’s next coalition government, it’s a huge deal. The leaders of other parties have said they’re not gonna work with Sinn Féin because of their past ties to the IRA.

All of that is up in the air, and on top of it right now there is a background of increased violence in Northern Ireland. In April 2019 a journalist, Lyra McKee, was shot and killed while covering a night of unrest in Creggan, the part of Derry where McClean is from, the neighborhood he’s from. In September 2018 and September last year a report found that paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland killed three people and injured 81. The letters and the hate that McClean is getting are rooted in very real circumstances happening on the ground right now in Northern Ireland. I definitely want to burn the letter he received but also the continued abuse he receives, as well as the longstanding violence that is the reason for it, and the uncertain future of Northern Ireland. [loud exhale] I wanna burn all of that this week. Burn.

Group: Burn.

Jessica: Whew. Alright, Lindsay, what’s on your burn pile?

Lindsay: Mine’s gonna be very quick. On last Monday Oregon beat Connecticut in women’s basketball in Connecticut, and Oregon beat the Huskies 74-56, they killed them, they completely trounced them. So ESPN actually did great coverage of this game, and they had a little segment, a little documentary Outside the Lines thing about the Oregon women, it was short. It was featured over the weekend, which was cool. After the segment they had a panel in which three people that don’t really follow women’s basketball were then analyzing it…

Jessica: Yay…

Lindsay: And Will Cain, who I think we’ve mentioned on the show before, another one of our hot take experts, mentioned that UConn not being dominant anymore was bad for women’s basketball. And if your memory can go back to like, 2018, two full years ago, when UConn was winning everything, that was bad for women’s basketball! So I would just like to burn people who have an opinion on what is good and what is not good for women’s basketball, who don’t watch or engage with the game in any meaningful way. If you don’t like it, if you don’t watch it, if you don’t care about it DON’T FUCKING COMMENT ON IT. I don’t give a shit what you think! [laughing] Burn.

Group: Burn.

Jessica: Golly. Okay, Brenda, what do you wanna torch? 

Brenda: Someone else whose opinion I don’t give a shit about. I would like to torch the idiocy of Gianni Infantino who is a FIFA president and I don’t even have details on this – it’s from Rob Harris, he’s a good journalist, and I’m just trusting him right now. Infantino said this week, in an event apparently in Hungary, that women have been playing soccer/football for 50 years. Which means he’s like 8 times more accurate than if it would’ve been the president of the Brazilian federation or something like that. So that’s not even the worst. Why’s it important? I mean, lots of people hate history, lots of people are really bad at history, as a historian I accept that because I’m bad at a lot of things that other people are good at…But it matters because history is used to justify denying women resources, history is used to neglect women’s teams by saying “oh, you haven’t been playing that long, just be patient, just be patient, be patient.” You know? For no reason. So when you’re really bad at history and you’re using it it’s especially aggravating to me.

Chilean women at the very least I know, and in South America, women have been playing for at least 120 years. 50 years ago when Infantino starts his origin story is when they had the women’s world championship in Estadio Azteca in 1971, and in Italy in 1970. There was 100,000 people to see the final in 1971 in Mexico. That’s a fact that he should know because he has a book in the place he works where I have visited that is dedicated to that, in fact it’s on the shelf that is featured, that shows that the women’s world championship was there. In fact I happen to know in Zurich where he happens to work there are many many many many books written by people like me, like Jean Williams, like many historians that he’s surrounded by that tell him when women’s football started. And you have to be some kind of massive sexist or just…ugh, idiot, to ignore those books that are surrounding you all the time. I would just like to burn all that. I wanna burn all that.

Group: Burn.

Jessica: After all that burning it’s time to celebrate some remarkable women in sports this week with our badass woman of the week segment. First up, our honorable mentions. Congratulations to The Guardian’s football writer Suzy Wrack for being awarded the ‘Best Colour Piece’ for her article on the abuse suffered by the players of Afghanistan Women’s National Team. Suzy dedicated the award to the five survivors who spoke with her. 

We’re so excited for Jennifer King, who is set to join the Washington NFL team as an offensive assistant, which will make her the first Black female full-time assistant coach in the NFL.

Cailey Maya Lujan of Haskell Indian Nations University was selected as the 2019 Tribal College National Player of the Year for volleyball.

Jillian Dempsey, the captain of the Boston Pride, became the first player in the history of the National Women’s Hockey League to reach 100 points.

Sabrina Ionescu, who lives here in the badass women of the week segment, Sabrina Ionescu of the University of Oregon Ducks got her 24th college career triple-double. This is now the most in D1 basketball history for men or women.

Last week we mentioned Sofia Kenin’s singles championship at the Australian Open. But we also want to shout out Timea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic, who won their third Grand Slam championship as a duo in Australia.

In the Girls’ division in Australia, Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva won the singles title and so became the first player from Andorra to win a grand slam title of any kind. Alexandra Eala from the Phillipines and Priska Madelyn Nugroho of Indonesia won the Girls’ Doubles championship.

Cheers to Paige Beuckers, the number one high school basketball player in the country and a UConn commit, for being the new cover star on SLAM magazine.

Congrats to former guest Tracie Leost, the formidable Indigenous runner and activist who was inducted into the Order of Gabriel Dumont Bronze Medal, one of the Métis Nation's highest civilian honors.

And cheers to Yashmin Harun, sports activist for BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic) women was named The Spirit of Britain by The British Muslim Awards.

Now, can I get I drumroll please?

[loud off-beat banging sound]

Shireen: What the hell was that!?

Lindsay: We’re getting so much better.

Jessica: Years of practice has really paid off. 

Shireen: How many episodes until we get a drumroll?

Jessica: I love it. It’s wonderful. Our badass woman of the week is flamethrower Candice Lee who has been named the interim vice chancellor for athletics and university affairs and interim athletic director at Vanderbilt University. She is Vanderbilt’s first female athletic director and the first African American woman to head an SEC athletics program. We all know Candice because she was part of the team that brought us to Nashville last year for our live shows. We are so happy for you, Candice. Good luck.

Alright, what’s good y’all? Shireen, what’s good with you?

Shireen: I wish everybody could see this script we have this script list we have of what’s good, I have a paragraph of what’s good! Anyways, let’s get started friends. Serge Ibaka in scarves, let’s be honest, we all know Tim Duncan is the man for me, but Serge is seducing me with scarves. It’s a real thing. Around Toronto everyone’s got big blanket scarves, also because it’s freezing. Also, love that energy. I did a Hot Docs for schools, Hot Docs is a really cool documentary festival, and I did it with schools, and I did a Q&A with Life Without Basketball, Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir’s film. It was wonderful and the students were amazing, that was really great. I did see as part of the Hot Docs festival a beautiful film called Beyond Moving about Siphe November, a South African ballet dancer with the national ballet of Canada. It was an absolutely gorgeous, gorgeous film. I’m gonna go see Caroline, Or Change, a musical that is being shown as a dedication to the arts community and to Black History Month, I’m very excited to go with my friend Mel.

I did want to say this: there’s a lot of teacher’s action with the unions in Ontario and full solidarity with those teachers. A lot of kids are off these days, and thinking about the families that are affected by this, but also predominantly teachers who don’t wanna be walking the picket lines, they wanna be in the classrooms with the kids, and I’m just thinking about that. I’m also gonna throw out a lot of solidarity and support to the Wet'suwet'en activists protesting pipeline construction and disrupting transit and train lines on their own land to protest the takeover, the continuous takeover, of their lands. So if you’re on a train and you’re being disrupted because of these rightful protests, just relax. You’re a settler, so calm the fuck down. Anyway, solidarity with them.

Jessica: Lovely. My what’s good is that Aaron is once again doing his School of Rock performance today and I just really enjoy watching Aaron play the guitar. Then Aaron and I are actually taking a trip in March, we’re going to Toronto–

Shireen: Yay!!!

Jessica: We’re excited. Aaron has a deep love of Pearl Jam, a deep love, and like a month ago he came home and he said Jessica, have you heard the big news? And he’s never on social media and never knows news that I don’t know, and I’m like, what could this be? What could this be? What happened, what is going on? I was like, I did not hear the news, and he said “Pearl Jam is going on tour.” So he’s part of the fan club and he gets these amazing seats every time we go. They’re not coming to Texas so we have to somewhere, so we’re actually gonna go to the opener in Toronto in March and I’ll get to see Shireen and hopefully meet her kids, #1 on my list. 

Shireen: Blocked out the whole week. 

Jessica: Awesome. And then I just wanted to mention something that made me incredibly happy this week. I listened to this adorable young adult romance by Sandhya Menon, it’s called There’s Something About Sweetie. The protagonists are both second generation Indian American high school students and the heroine, her name is Sweetie, as the title suggests, she’s a fat brown high school track star, and I just loved her so much. It’s just a deeply sweet novel called There’s Something About Sweetie. If you’re a fan of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before then this book is for you, it gives you the same kind of happy feelings inside. I checked it out from my local library, so everyone should go do that right now. Okay, Lindsay, what’s good with you?

Lindsay: I’ve had a pretty down few weeks so I’m trying to focus on the positive here, which is that my complete room makeover which I started after ThinkProgress shut down, I started working from home last fall. I realized my room was very ugly and not decorated at all! My desk was like 30” wide, it was just a horrible all around set up. I started to spend money, trying to find deals, and re-do. I did my last few things this week which was getting my computer monitor and keyboard and-

Jessica: That’ll change your life.

Lindsay: And I got some frames, little prints for right by my bed, all my wall space is properly decorated, and I just feel so much better. I love it, and it really is helping my mood, so that has been great. I’m going to see two women’s basketball games this week, because Maryland is home, the Maryland women, so I’m gonna go right now and see them play Rutgers, and then later this week I have another game so I’m excited about that. February’s gonna be better than January, is what’s happening.

Shireen: Linz, I have a question about your room. Do you feel it helps with your productivity and stuff?

Lindsay: Yeah, for sure. Basically what happens is I share an apartment with my roommate, but my room is fairly big and I have a TV in my room so I spend most of my time not in the living room but in my room, so my room is my bedroom, my sitting area, it’s my office, it’s everything, basically, in this one room. So especially the monitor and keyboard has helped me be more productive already, it really has. Right in front of my desk I’ve got framed photos of a lot of the stuff I’ve covered over the years and some women’s activism, female athlete activism, and that’s inspiring as I’m writing the book any everything to sit down and look up at Marsha Howard sitting down at the national anthem and look at Tierra Ruffin Pratt’s Black Lives Matter t-shirt, part of the media blackout for the WNBA, to look at some of the Nassar survivors and things like that, and these are all photos I’ve taken during my reporting. I think having that helps me stay focused on my work, too. It’s a visual reminder.

Jessica: I like that so much. Brenda, what’s good with you?

Brenda: I have something that’s counter-intuitive that’ll tell you a lot about me. What’s good in my world is that I got to rag on Bobby Knight this week. I wrote an article in which I describe Bobby Knight’s behavior at the 1979 Pan American Games where he racially abused a Puerto Rican police officer, he assaulted him, and he insulted the Brazilian women’s basketball team by calling them prostitutes and also racially abused them and whatever, and Coach K bailed him out, if anybody wants to know. He went to jail, I did a brief tweet on it, it got retweeted by Bomani Jones which meant that there’s tons of people telling me that I’m awful, and I just totally don’t care. I love it, when it comes to Bobby Knight, screw you all. He is the worst. I just love it. Normally I don’t, normally this is trolling and it’s terrible and it’s traumatizing, but when it comes to Bobby Knight I have no conflicting feelings, I wrote an academic article, you can all kiss my ass. He is the worst. 

Shireen: Amen.

Brenda: So somebody tweeted at me and said “What, woman? Are you perfect every day of the year?” and I just responded: I am. Every day. Every damn day. And it was so fun! Anyway, it’s never fun, it’s awful and it’s terrible to women and people of color, but this go-around with Bobby Knight, bring it. That’s my what’s good.

Jessica: I love that Brenda just changed her what’s good into a self-burn. That’s great. 

Shireen: Love it. She’s such a radical, I love it. 

Jessica: That’s it for this week’s episode, thank you all for joining us. You can find Burn It All Down on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. If you wanna subscribe to Burn It All Down you can do so on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play and TuneIn. For information about the show and links and transcripts for each episode check out our website, burnitalldownpod.com. You can also email us from the site to give us feedback, we love hearing from you all. If you enjoyed the show please share it with two people in your life whom you think would be interested in Burn It All Down. Also, please rate the show at whichever place you listen to it, the ratings really do help us reach new listeners who need this feminist sports podcast but don’t yet know it exists. If you’re interested in Burn It All Down merchandise, check out our Teespring store. One more thank you to our patrons, we literally couldn’t do this without you. You can sign up to be a monthly sustaining donor of Burn It All Down at patreon.com/burnitalldown. Alright, that’s it for Burn It All Down this week. Until next week: burn on, not out.

Shelby Weldon