Episode 3: Boo Kevin Pillar, Yay Beth Mowins, Boo Ched Evans
In Episode 3 of Burn It All Down, Julie DiCaro, Jessica Luther, Brenda Elsey, Shireen Ahmed, and Lindsay Gibbs discuss Kevin Pillar’s suspension, Beth Mowins becoming the first woman to do play-by-play for an NFL game, and Ched Evans’ recent comments. Plus you’ll hear The Burn Pile and Badass Woman of the Week!
Toronto Blue Jay’s Kevin Pillar’s suspension for a homophobic slur (9:00) Beth Mowins’ will be the first woman (ever!) to do play-by-play on national television for an NFL game (15:15) Ched Evans decides to give women advice on how to avoid being raped (22:22) The hysterically funny troll comments on our iTunes/Apple Podcasts page (26:29) Julie won a Peabody! (27:11) Burn Pile – hosts set metaphorical fire to the idea that sexual assault allegations ruin men’s lives (29:14) Ryan Getzlaf of the Anaheim Ducks for his use of a homophobic slur and his fans for paying his fine for the use of the slur (30:36) Baylor for, well, everything (31:47) the Spanish newspaper La Razón for defamation (32:49) the NCAA, Notre Dame, and Boston College for their (lack of) diversity hiring (34:24) Badass Woman of the Week – Bibiana Steinhaus who is the first female referee in the German men’s professional soccer league, Bundesliga (35:19) Honorable mentions – National Women’s Soccer League players have started a Player’s Association and on their way toward unionization (36:23) Tracey Griesbaum on her winning case against Iowa (37:00).
Links
Stacey May Fowles on Pillar and the problem of homophobia in baseball: http://torontoist.com/2017/05/the-blue-jays-have-a-homophobia-problem-how-do-we-fix-it
Beth Mowins: https://www.si.com/tech-media/2017/05/14/media-circus-beth-mowins and https://thinkprogress.org/for-the-first-time-in-nfl-history-a-woman-will-call-play-by-play-on-national-television-6b28810ee6fe
Ched Evans’ comments: http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/football-league/ched-evans-case-sheffield-united-chesterfield-a7742041.html
Julie’s Peabody:https://www.si.com/tech-media/2017/05/07/peabody-awards-more-than-mean-sarah-spain-julie-dicaro and https://twitter.com/JulieDiCaro/status/866089667439054849
Zach Lowe on Brandon Austin, who faced sexual assault allegations, being able to try out for NBA teams: http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/19413923/brandon-austin-previously-faced-sexual-assault-allegations-works-philadelphia-76ers
Ryan Getzlaf’s non-apology apology: http://www.outsports.com/2017/5/21/15672026/ryan-getzlaf-gay-slur-apology
Getzlaf’s fans crowdfunding to pay for his fine for using a homophobic slur: http://www.outsports.com/2017/5/21/15672490/ryan-getzlaf-anaheim-ducks-homophobic-slur-go-fund-me
The NCAA’s diversity hiring pledge that Notre Dame and Boston College won’t sign: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2017/05/15/the-ncaa-put-out-a-diversity-hiring-pledge-notre-dame-and-boston-college-wont-sign/?utm_term=.bc9ec48f2228
Bibiana Steinhaus: http://www.tsn.ca/referee-steinhaus-promoted-as-1st-women-in-bundesliga-1.756390
National Women’s Soccer League Player’s Association: https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/nwsl-players-have-unionized
Tracey Griesbaum: http://whotv.com/2017/05/22/tracey-griesbaum-on-u-of-i-lawsuit/
Transcript
Julie: Hey, it's Julie. Thanks for downloading Burn It All Down. If you enjoy the podcast and want to help us out, the best way to do so is to subscribe and leave a rating and review on iTunes or Stitcher. Subscriptions, ratings, and reviews help us reach more listeners, and you'll have our undying appreciation. You can also subscribe at TuneIn. Thanks so much, and enjoy the show.
Welcome in to this week's episode of Burn It All Down. It may not be the feminism in sports podcast you want, but it's the feminism and sports podcast you need. We've got a pretty full house again today. Joining us are Shireen Ahmed, freelance sportswriter, you can read her work at places like The Shadow League, Vice sports and the Guardian, just to name a few places; Jessica Luther, author of Unsportsmanlike Conduct; Brenda Elsey, associate professor at Hofstra University who focuses on sports, politics and gender; Lindsay Gibbs, who covers sports and social justice for ThinkProgress. And me, I'm Julie DiCaro. I am a radio host at 670 The Score here in Chicago, and I'm also a freelance sports writer. Welcome to everyone today.
Shireen: Hello!
Brenda: Hi, great to be here.
Julie: Okay. We've got a lot to talk about today. First topic we're going to talk about is Kevin Pillar being suspended by the Toronto Blue Jays for a homophobic slur. So, I guess I'll take this one right out of the box. If you haven't been following: Kevin Pillar, baseball player for the Toronto Blue Jays. It's a real shame Stacey isn't here tonight because Stacey May Fowles wrote a piece about Kevin Pillar and she's a Blue Jays fan and covers the Blue Jays, so I would have loved to get her take on this. But Kevin Pillar, out of frustration the other night, called Braves pitcher Jason Motte a homophobic slur. Ugly incident. He came out with sort of a non-apology apology afterwards. It was one of those, “Hey, I'm really sorry, but I was frustrated and it was in the heat of the moment” kind of thing.
And the next day, clearly after Major League Baseball got their hands on him, he came out with a much better apology. But it seems like we keep hearing this thing over and over again, whether it's Andrew Shaw in Chicago…It looked like Matt Albers actually screamed a homophobic slur at someone the other day, although he never caught any heat for it, because it was hard to tell exactly what it was he was saying. And at what point do we get to the point where “I'm sorry, I was frustrated and it was in the heat of the moment” isn't good enough anymore?
Lindsay: How about now? [laughs] I would like it to be now. I think that this is…It’s 2017. This has been in our consciousness, LGBT rights have. It's time. You know, the learning curve is curved all the way around. We just need to be more inclusive to LGBT fans, LGBT athletes, LGBT coaches and owners, because they're out there. And we just can't keep allowing this on sports. We can't keep letting them get away with a slap on the wrist, and we can't keep letting “I didn't mean it” suffice.
Julie: I mean, I'm just sick of hearing these big dumb athletes…And I know I'm going to get hell for calling them dumb. I mean, what kind of person thinks that it's appropriate to scream that language at someone – whether in private or in public – and who thinks that we're all gonna buy “I'm sorry, it was just the heat of the moment”? I mean, if it gets away from you in the heat of the moment, it's something you've said before. And I feel like Major League Baseball should've gotten involved here. I thought a two day suspension, which is what he wound up with, was a little short. I hate the idea of making an example out of someone because it tends to lead to unequal penalties, but I'm just so tired of hearing these stories. Jessica?
Jessica: Yeah. Well, I mean, you kind of answered the question I was going to ask, which is like, what should the punishment look like at this point? You know, I'll just admit, I'm not a big baseball person, so I don't follow the sport that closely. But I am wondering, what do you think would actually make this stop? What are your guys' ideas on that?
Shireen: Just before getting to Jess’s question, I'm very, very new to baseball because I've been influenced heavily, being in Toronto…I just quickly wanted to add something about the apology itself. Like, I'm really exhausted by hearing apologies that contain “please don't let this reflect who I am” or “this isn't me” in the wording of the apology. That's exactly who you are, because it's what happened. So that's sort of a…I hate to digress, but that's just something I wanted to throw in about the actual apologies. And we can talk about worst non-apologies after, for people making homophobic comments and transphobic comments. But I just wanted to add that. I was really disappointed. I just saw Kevin Pillar totally nail it last week at a game in Toronto, and I was so excited because I'm really new to this. And then to have that happen...The coverage in Toronto was, I mean, communities here are loyal fans, and for him to do that was so disappointing for so many people. And so hurtful.
Brenda: It’s a terrible tradition in Mexican soccer to yell a homophobic slur as soon as they're taking any penalty kick, the opposing team. And what they've done recently that's been really successful is, first of all, they fine the team as a whole. And so they have to take collective responsibility for one another, rather than, you know, saying this is a problem with one particular person. It's a collective culture they've created. It’s fans, even, not even the players, but the players have to take responsibility. And that seems to have worked.
Also, they have a really great PR campaign with Chicharito, who's Javier Hernández. He's a third generation soccer player – his dad, his grandfather. So he's really like an institution in Mexico. And for him to come out and do these really well done promotional videos, I think has changed the culture and made people really embarrassed that there are still fans doing that. So, both those things, I think: allies within the team, and also being able to fine the team as a whole and force them to take collective responsibility.
Julie: That's a really interesting idea, Brenda. I actually like that kind of collective fining. I did read a piece today about Kevin Pillar talking about what he's going to do going forward to try to make this right. And to his credit, you know, he says he's going to do all the right things. He wants to speak to students. He's going to reach out to the LGBTQI community. You know, all these steps he's going to take to try to make this right. And I admire that. But you know that that is going to fall by the wayside as far as it being covered in the media. There are so many young men and women out there that look up to these players, and for them to see the slur but then not see what comes after it, I think, is hugely dissatisfying. And I don't know that his apology has the same effect that hearing the slur does in the first place. Shireen?
Shireen: Just quickly to get back to what Jess was saying about what do we do to make change, I mean, one of the things I really appreciated about Stacey May's piece was talking about integration of local communities and LGBTQI communities. They used to have a pride day, and they don't anymore, and I think that's really important to talk about. How you move forward with the community? Grassroots organizations can actually help this and break down those barriers. And pride is such a huge deal in Toronto. It's a huge deal here. And I think that would be very sensible and the right thing to do to go forward, and for the organization to look at this and say this is where we can start to make the change, by bringing all this together to reshape baseball culture. And I'm so new to this, I'm no authority. But just as someone coming into the circle, this is sort of a way to go.
Julie: Lindsay?
Lindsay: I agree. We're coming up on pride month, and I think that you see a lot of teams make actions at during this month, make statements, have nights out for the LGBT community. But I think that this is something that has to be happening all year around, a lot of the ideas that you guys have brought up. But I just want to say how important it is that places like the MLB, or whatever sporting organization you have, that they step up and then they make consistent efforts to fine, suspend, punish these players in some way when this has happened.
This week also in the NHL, you had…What gets lost is that Ryan Getzlaf also had said a homophobic slur in the playoffs. The NHL did not suspend him, and only, I think, fined him $10,000 – which was actually a step backwards from last year, when Andrew Shaw said a homophobic slur and was suspended $5,000 and a game. So, a lot of LGBT activists…I know Athlete Ally said that, “This sets a dangerous precedent, and this is a signal to the players and fans that playoff hockey is more important than punishing homophobic behavior.”
And I think you really do see that a lot of people are really upset with the NHL because it's really pushing us under the rug and really trying not to make a big deal of this. After they used the Shaw incident, they've got a lot of positive press for the steps they took for the Shaw incident last year. “Incident” is the wrong word. He said abusive, homophobic language. I need to be more exact when saying that. So, I was really disappointed in the NHL, and I think that all these leagues need to not just make this lip service. They need to really commit to saying this is not acceptable.
Julie: Okay. Let's move on to topic number two. This week, ESPN’s Beth Mowins is going to do something that hasn't been done by a woman for quite some time, and has never been done nationally. Jessica, you want to tell us about that?
Jessica: Yeah. I feel like I'm the lucky one this week, because I got the good topic! The happy one! Yeah. Veteran sportscaster Beth Mowins, she's going to call this September 11th, Monday night football game, which is so exciting. She's actually not even doing the color commentary. Beth Mowins is going to do play by play on Monday night football. She's doing the Chargers and Broncos game in Denver. She'll be joined by Rex Ryan, the former Bills and Jets head coach. He'll be doing the color commentary. She is the first woman ever, EVER, do this on a national broadcast scale. Gayle Sierens – she gets named a lot in this conversation – she called one game back in, I'm not kidding, 1987. That was just shown in select regions. So, Mowins will be the first nationally, September 11th, Monday night football. I'm just really excited! Are you guys excited with me?
Shireen: Woo!
Julie: I’m super excited.
Brenda: Hell yes.
Lindsay: I am so excited, and I just have a little mini rant here, to this woman on Twitter. I know this is going to be me preaching to the choir a little bit, but I got a little…“Why is it worth even pointing out her gender?” You know, I got a little bit of that. I wrote about this for ThinkProgress this week. And I just want to say that Beth has said how much seeing Gayle Sierens do this – now, what, 30 years ago? How much that has impacted her and made her feel like this was a job she could go after. And she went into play by play as a career when she started getting into announcing. And it's because she heard another woman in this job. And it just shows the power of representation and the power of recognizing these achievements. I mean, by all means, we should still hold her to a high standard. By all means, we should still want her to do a good job. Nothing should be sugarcoated. But this is a big deal, and it's exciting. Any female voice that can be added to the mix in sports is an exciting moment.
Julie: Yeah. I also heard, Lindsay, some of the “Don't point out your gender if you don't want other people to notice.” Let me tell you something. I'm a woman in broadcasting. Being a woman is not something you can hide and it's something you’re reminded of all the time, no matter where you work. And I know dozens, maybe even hundreds of women in broadcasting, that have said the exact same thing. So, I really can't stand it when people come out with this, like, you know, “if you don't want people to notice your gender, stop talking about it.” I think that's really obnoxious.
And as a woman in the industry, I just have so much respect for Beth Mowins’ stamina. To last as long as she has lasted, to fight her way to the top…Because a lot of times it is a fight, and I know that's not a popular thing to say. But I can't even imagine what she probably has put up with in her career to be able to get to this spot. And so I just, you know, like I said, as a woman in broadcasting, I have ridiculous amounts of respect, not only for what she's about to take on – and you know there's going to be all the people out there complaining, like they do about Jessica Mendoza – but what she probably has gone through to get to this point. Jessica?
Jessica: Yeah. I always notice. I always notice when I hear a woman's voice on one of these broadcasts, like, it's just something that my ear picks up. When I hear Doris Burke, when I…I cannot remember her name and I apologize, but there is a woman who started doing broadcasting for college football games on ESPN, and I will never forget when I turned on the television and there was a woman's voice coming through. I just stopped in my tracks. It's a visceral memory for me. Last night I was watching ESPN and it was Sage Steele talking to Ramona Shelburne before a San Antonio Spurs game, and I just…That means something to me as a 30…How old am I, guys? 36 year old woman in the world. So I can't imagine what that means to younger women coming up behind me. And I just think it's thrilling. I love it.
Shireen: Yeah. I just want to reiterate what all y'all are saying about representation. I think that, particularly as a woman of color, to see that…It is so crucial, and hopefully, you know, the more that that happens, the more that the industry can diversify and encourage other folks. That’s so important. I feel like everything I say is representation matters. I feel like every rant also includes that piece.
Julie: Lindsay?
Lindsay: I just want to note that she called the Oakland Raiders preseason games a few years ago, and those broadcasts won an Emmy. So, for all the people who have also been emailing me saying this is a publicity stunt from ESPN, I would say that maybe the Rex Ryan part of this equation is the publicity stunt, [laughs] but Beth has very much earned her way to this spot. As I said, she's called play by play in college football. She's called play by play…I mean, you name it, she’s called play by play on it. It's just kind of this NFL barrier is one of her last ones to break. And it's a really big deal.
Look, we've seen some exciting things. Debbie Antonelli was an analyst for CBS during March Madness this year, for the men's tournament, and that was exciting to see. That was groundbreaking. I do love that we're seeing some of these barriers get broken, and I hope that we see them get broken not just by white women, but by women of all colors.
I do think that ESPN does do a pretty good job of…Or has done better recently of developing their women talent, and I say a lot of bad things about ESPN, so I do just want to give them a small amount of credit for that. But I also want to note that this is a one-off. This is just one game. ESPN has a standard Monday night football crew, but on the first week of every season they do two Monday night football games. And so this is just a one-off broadcast. So, look, we need to keep pushing for this so this is a regular and not just a one-off occasion. I mean, she's following Chris Berman as the play by play. And we all know that Chris Berman was probably the worst person to play by play, like, in the history of play by play.
Julie: On that note, let's move on to topic three tonight, which is not as happy and something that we're excited about as topics. Shireen and Brenda, you want to take us through this one?
Shireen: Yeah. Thank you, Julie. I’m going to offer a trigger warning out there, a content warning for the next topic. We're going to talk about Ched Evans. He is a footballer, soccer player for those in America, who was recently signed with Sheffield United – although he was found guilty of raping a 19 year old girl and sentenced to five years in prison. Now, the judgment was overturned in a retrial and, as I mentioned, he was signed pretty quickly to Sheffield. And like, what had happened was he has been picking up a lot of press lately because of the signing. I think the trade was about £500,000, if I'm not mistaken, to Chesterfield, where he was signed previously.
Ched Evans decided to give women out there a little bit of advice on how to avoid being raped because, you know, obviously the woman is responsible. And I'm just gonna take a little bit of his quote. I can read this without throwing my phone against the wall now. “A lot of work needs to be done in relation to consent, because I definitely think that the police have an agenda to find ways to charge people. And the easiest one is the drunk one.” So, this is what he told the Times: “I also think that women need to be made aware of the dangers they can put themselves in because there are genuine rapists out there who prey on girls who have been drinking.”
Okay. I'm going to hand it over to Brenda, because I think I will throw something. I just…I can't read this without being angry. Like, he's just…This is so enraging that he's victim-blaming, and I just…Okay. I’m gonna hand it over.
Brenda: So, Ched Evans' case was overturned in a really rare circumstance where his fiance, her family hired a private investigator who brought in two other witnesses that had had sexual relationships with the victim, supposedly. And they allowed in the victim’s sexual history – which is something that's almost never, never, never done. It's under the special article 41 in British law. So we should say right off the bat that the overturning of Ched Evans is not…It’s not a normal situation, in legal terms, according to every lawyer who's been interviewed by the BBC on down. So, it's not us deciding this. This is a whole lot of experts that are saying this is out of the normal protocol.
And on top of it, there have been real violent threats to women who have spoken out against his signing, like Olympic track athlete Jessica Ennis-Hill, who has a statue in Sheffield's playing grounds. She called on Sheffield and said, “If you re-sign him, I want my statue out of there.” She subsequently received many, many rape threats. So this is a culture. It belongs to Sheffield's fans. It’s on their shoulders in terms of the way in which many of them have reacted. The legal system seems to have failed this victim miserably. Ched Evans wouldn't know consent if someone gave it to him. It’s unbelievable what has happened. And for the press to even pick up on his advice as if it was anything legitimate is completely out of this world. I don't know. Not reasonable.
Julie: I just want to say, first of all, it annoys me that his name is Ched, not Chad, but that is…And I also am relieved that it's not Chelsea fans doing something like this, for once, although I'm sure Chelsea will redeem themselves sooner or later and take back the crown for saying horrible things about people.
Jessica: Because we put an expletive warning on this podcast, I'm just going to say fuck this guy. I mean, this is garbage, what this man has said publicly, after everything that has happened. This is the last thing that he should be saying. The endless discussion of sexual violence and alcohol…And I think that there is a space for a good nuanced discussion about this. I just think our culture is really, really bad at it. And I think it's important to say, I don't often talk about this because the institutions that I write about, the universities, love to talk about it, and that makes me uncomfortable. How much they want to talk about alcohol as the underlying issue for sexual violence makes me nervous about it, because I don't trust these institutions. So, for this to be like his thing, this idea, it's just so gross. It hits on so many victim-blaming tropes that are horrific. After everything that has happened around this particular man, it is just so out of line. Ugh.
Shireen: I'm with Jess on this. Fuck it. And I really am so frustrated. I also wanted to mention that it was reported today that there are a group of men and women who are actually, despite a protective court order on the victim’s name, they are releasing her name and social media. And I believe that they were sued or they're going to be sued. Even though this is part of what is happening around the narrative of the story, is that the media is giving so much attention. And what's also super frustrating, like, why even ask this man about it? Like, I'm sorry, I'm just, I'm going to get angry again. I'm gonna pass this on.
Julie: Let’s go to Lindsay.
Lindsay: I just wanna say that the only reason you feel the need to tell women not to drink is because you obviously know that men are horrible rapists and that there are so many men just looking for opportunities to take advantage of women. And that's what this comes down to. That's what this always comes back to. It's just infuriating. My blood is actually boiling right now. So I don't trust myself to say anything else, except that this culture has to stop. This blaming has to stop.
Julie: Let’s let Brenda have the last word.
Brenda: I think the last word, if fuck it isn't the last word, is that it's just really painful. And I think that the expressions that we've had here of rage, our reaction to anyone who works in this medium, seeing it happen again and again, that they're just willing…Fans are willing to forgive them anything. And it's unfortunate that the teams use that, and then don't take any responsibility for signing, re-signing, who they've got on their roster.
Julie: I think that's such a good point that, you know, that the teams almost never get held responsible for this. And there's a whole faction of fans out there that like to say, you know, “we care about winning” and they're fine with that. Or they say, “I don't care what someone does off the field.” We’ve said this before on the show, but I think that comes from a place of such incredible privilege, because there is a huge faction of the population who have been touched by sexual assault, who have been touched by domestic violence. And I think that it's impossible for those people to watch sports when these guys are on the pitch or on the field or on the court, and disregard that, and be able to put that aside. If you've been raped or sexually assaulted, if someone in your family has, it's really hard to watch Ched Evans playing football. So, it's one of those things that I hope pressure starts to build on the teams as well as on the players.
Alright. Before we move on to the burn pile, we have a special request of our listeners today. So, we launched on iTunes, and we've had some hysterical comments. There's been somewhat of a systemic, collective effort to tank our iTunes ratings, which I guess we should have suspected. But some of these, I just want to read a couple of these, because they're just absolutely hysterical. It seems like all our reviews are either five star reviews or one star reviews. We're really, really grateful for everyone who gave us five star reviews and good ratings to try to help us bring our rating back up. It's sort of sliding back down again. So, some of these I think are so funny, and I just want to read a couple of them.
So, Matt from Framingham, one star review, says, “Julie is a bully and an outrage for profit artist. I decided to give this a chance and hope she proved me wrong. I enjoy honest conversation. Julie is not capable of that. 1/5 stars. Don't waste your time.”
New Day Co-op says, “One star review. If you're able to make it through more than 25 minutes of this in one sitting, you've either fallen asleep or have died. Assuming the level of intelligence displayed of this podcast is indicative of where we are as a society, you will likely prefer the latter of the two. Are you a fan of ironclad segues such as ‘how does the Adam Jones racism controversy remind us of the never filed again allegations of rape against Patrick Kane?’ then this is the show for you. Do you unwind at night by watching sports on TV, closely monitoring for any innocuous event which you can utilize to send yourself into a spiral of faux-outrage, which you then cast over various social media networks like a virtual blanket of self-righteousness? Subscribe now!
When you saw that MLB was celebrating Mother's Day with pink hats and other pink gear, did you think, oh, cool, and then move on with life rather than assuming it was intended as a complete affront to any woman who has ever watched an inning of baseball? Then I've got some bad news: this isn't the place for you. Come for the awkward silences when topics are being discussed, stay for the breakdown of ‘toxic masculinity’ and it's impact on sports. If sports are a hobby and something you spend your time on for enjoyment, then give this a listen to find out how incredibly misguided your life has been.” Wow!
Lindsay: I just want to say that I am honored. That is a long review. I think it's longer than a lot of my ThinkProgress articles, and I feel a little bit wowed that someone would spend that much time on a review. So, you know what? I’m gonna take that all as a compliment.
Julie: Yeah, and you know what, it's actually very well-written. I appreciate that. There are 41 or 42 ratings that are one stars that go on and on like that. Obviously we are all for constructive feedback, but if you're willing to help us get our rating back up, we really appreciate it if you would subscribe and leave a rating on our podcast. We work really hard at it, even if you don't like the content. [laughs] That’s all I have to say about it. Anyone else want to add anything?
Brenda: I would just like to give a shoutout to Gilliam123, who points out that there's no locker room talk, which, you can go to the president of the United States for, I suppose. Or “no, Jimbos.” No Jimbos! Maybe we need to have like a guest visit from a Jimbo. Some of these are really intriguing to me.
Julie: What’s a Jimbo?
Brenda: Yeah, what’s a Jimbo? Right? No Jimbos. I think it's like, little Jims. I have no idea, but it's really opening new doors for me personally. I'm looking forward to discovering what a Jimbo is, now that I'm in this, you know, sphere. And one other thing, it says, “Chucks will love it.” So, no Jimbos are here, but another review implies that Chucks will love this show. I don't know. I'm just throwing out there that we have a really diverse set of comments. And even if they're rough on us, we can appreciate them.
Shireen: Well, I demanded my four children to go to iTunes and build up our ratings and ask all their friends to. [laughter] So, hopefully my hyper-procreation skills will help us get our ratings up. [laughs]
Julie: I tweeted out my favorite one that says, “I'm sure this will fail like everything else Julie has touched. At least she was able to raise enough money rattling her cyber cup to be able to buy her award and address. Good job by you.”
Lindsay: I just think this is a really good time to point out that our very own Julie won a Peabody award. [cheers, clapping]
Brenda: Perfect time!
Julie: Thanks guys.
Shireen: And just a natural segue for the amazing project she was part of, #MoreThanMean, which was so important and has shown…I’ve used it in many presentations, and I will also name drop, “Hey, Julie DiCaro is a friend of mine.” JD, what up! So, we're very very proud of you.
Julie: That’s so nice. Thank you. You guys, the best part of my night was when I attacked Ava DuVernay, about two seconds before she went on the stage. And I have to say, if I had been her, I probably would've slugged me, but she was absolutely lovely about it. So, big shoutout to her. Okay. Now that we're done with our topics, it is time for this week's burn pile, where we burn things that we hate that happened this week, or even in the past, in the world of sports. This week we're going to start with Jessica.
Jessica: Yeah. So I'm going to go back to the Ched Evans case a little bit. So, I want to burn this week the idea that allegations of sexual assault ruin a man's life. Ched Evans is a good example of this, having just signed at Sheffield after getting out of jail. But I specifically want to talk about Brandon Austin. He's a basketball player. Zach Lowe at ESPN wrote an article this week. Brandon Austin worked out with the Philadelphia 76ers last week. His name is familiar to me because he played ball at Providence College and then left there after a woman accused him of sexual assault. He went to the University of Oregon. He also left Oregon after he was accused there as part of a gang rape. There were never charges pressed in either case.
He then went on to play at Northwest Florida State. He also then went on to play for the Orangeville A's of the National Basketball League of Canada. And now, he is getting a workout with the Philadelphia 76ers. He actually got one last year, too. And at that time, there was a philly.com article and the title was, quote, “Brandon Austin shines in Sixers workout.” And the first sentence of the piece read, quote, “Brandon Austin has denied the two separate sexual assault accusations, and he was not charged with a crime in either case.” That is literally how his workout article for the 76ers last year started!
I mean, just the idea that allegations automatically ruin someone's life is not true! And Brandon Austin, more than most cases, shows how real that is, how he continues to bounce back, because he is really good at a sport, right? And Ched Evans matches that too. And so this week, I'm throwing it…I could do this every damn day of my life. I could throw this into the burn pile, this week, the idea that the sexual assault allegations ruin lives. I just want to get rid of it. We should never say it, ever again.
Julie: Burn it.
Brenda: Burn.
Shireen: Burn.
Julie: Okay, Shireen's going to go next.
Shireen: When I stop feeling like I want to vomit and punch things, which will probably be never. God. I'm going to burn, torch…I want this to disintegrate, Ryan Getzlaf – and I know we've talked about this already on the show in the beginning, talked about homophobic slurs and how they're dealt with. Ryan Getzlaf of the Anaheim Ducks was fined, we've talked about this, $10,000. According to a CBC article, he actually makes over $9 million. And his fans, Anaheim Ducks fans, felt it was their duty to raise money to pay for his fine because they might've felt, I don't know, he was inconvenienced by having to be accountable by his hateful words? So, I'm furious.
I also was even more enraged, particularly…Brock McGillis is a former NHLer, and he's an out man, and he came out to talk about how harmful the whole thing was. Now, if we're trying to talk about accountability, this whole situation around Ryan Getzlaf and the Anaheim Ducks and fans trying to pick up and advocate for his horrible behavior, I need to torch it. I need to light it up. I'm so embarrassed for them, and these fans are basically associating themselves with a homophobe, and they're stamping that onto themselves. So, if you're an Anaheim Ducks fan, come and collect your people, because this is horrible.
Julie: Okay, I’ll go next. This is in line with what we talked about last week for needing to have an eternal flame for FIFA. This week's eternal flame – and maybe we should have one every week – goes out to Baylor University. This week, there was a new federal lawsuit filed against Baylor, and the allegations in this one are just absolutely horrific. There were allegations of more gang rapes, of gang rapes being used to haze freshmen, of gang rapes being used as “bonding experiences for the team,” of dog fighting, of burglary – just about every bad thing you can think of is in this complaint, which is meticulously documented and sourced.
So, obviously this is a complaint, this is not evidence. But it falls in line with much of what we've heard about Baylor so far in the other lawsuits that have been filed. And it's just one of those things that every time I see someone on Twitter arguing that Art Briles deserves a second chance or so-and-so deserves a second chance, the more horrific these cases get. So, Baylor University, you are awarded an eternal flame on the burn pile, for your inability to get control of your athletes, to treat victims the way they should be treated, and a multitude of other sins that I probably cannot even enumerate at this point. So, Baylor University, welcome to the club. Okay, Brenda?
Brenda: For those out there that think we don't love white males enough, I am going to burn someone in defense of Lionel Messi. La Razón, the Spanish paper, which in Madrid made fun of Lionel Messi’s growth hormone deficiency he suffered from as a child, has now been damned by the court for doing so and has to pay up. Now, it's not a huge amount of money – the settlement is €70,000, all of which Lionel Messi will donate to Doctors Without Borders. And though it's not a lot of money, it's a great precedent for the Spanish media, which has gotten away with making fun of differences, whether they be problems with health, mental health, all kinds of differences, gender non-conforming, et cetera. So, it's wonderful to see Messi win, and I'd like to throw to the burn pile the ironically named La Razón, which means reason, for being absolutely unreasonable.
Julie: [laughs] Lindsay, take us home.
Lindsay: For the burn pile this week, I want to add the NCAA, Notre Dame, and Boston College. All three of them can just go on in. Last September, the NCAA started circulating a presidential pledge that was intended to add diversity to hiring practices. This was a pretty weak pledge. It was 147 words. It was not binding. It included no punishments. But it was a symbolic statement to say that, hey, we realize there is a problem here. We realize that most of our athletes are Black and most of our coaches are white, and we need to do better. However, according to this Washington Post article that I need to shout out, 30% of the NCAA schools haven't signed it yet.
And while it does seem like for many of them it could be an oversight, Notre Dame and Boston College – two very prominent NCAA schools – have said that they purposefully did not sign this non-binding pledge. Boston College said that this pledge just wasn't “tough enough” for them. This is the same Boston College that all of their coaches are white. 23 coaches in the athletic department are all white. So, I think that while, yes, the NCAA should obviously make much tougher steps towards getting diversity, whether it's the Rooney rule like the NFL has done, or some other rules and regulations to increase diversity in hiring, the fact that some of these schools can't even take a symbolic step is depressing and needs to be burned.
Julie: Burn it.
Shireen: Burn it.
Julie: Okay. It's that time of the week when we rise from the ashes to talk about our badass women of the week. This week, Shireen has her. Go, Shireen.
Shireen: Thank you. This week's badass woman of the week is going to referee Bibiana Steinhaus, who has been promoted to the Bundesliga, which is the German national football league, for the next season. And she is the first woman working in Germany's top division. This is very exciting. She will also actually be refereeing the UEFA Women's Champs League final in the first week of June, and we're really excited that this is happening. She is not specifically refereeing only women's matches, she's refereeing everyone’s. And I think this is really, really important and, yeah, a first in Germany. So, yay for Bibiana.
All: [cheering]
Lindsay: As an honorable mention, I just wanted to shout out the National Women's Soccer League Players Association, which founded this week. This is a players association for the non-allocated US women's national team players. So that means the players who are not in the women's national team union. This is not an official union yet, but it is a big step towards a union, and a big step for the National Women's Soccer League as a whole, as the players keep fighting for better pay, better medical treatment, and better field conditions and training conditions.
On Sunday, I attended the North Carolina Courage vs Chicago Red Stars game in Cary, North Carolina to see the new team, and I was very impressed. And I talked to a couple players, Lynn Williams and Christen Press, who are both national team players, and both were incredibly excited about the formation of this player's association and feel like it is a really big step for women who are fighting for the future and solidarity of this league.
Julie: Awesome. Shireen?
Shireen: Yes, I have one. This is pretty great news and a follow up to Jane Meyer’s case at the University of Iowa. Field hockey coach Tracy Griesbaum was actually awarded $1.5 million in the settlement, and her case was similar to Jane Meyer’s, and they were inextricably linked about having to do a Title IX and having to deal with sexual harassment at their workplace. So, I mean, these women have fought. They're survivors of all types of harassment. And I'm really happy to know that the establishment and the university is paying the cash money. They will pay it! And I'm really excited about this.
Julie: That's great news.
Brenda: From all of us, happy Ramadan this week!
Julie: And on that note, this has been episode three of Burn It All Down. Thanks to everyone who joined us and is downloading and subscribing and listening. We appreciate each and every one of you. Burn It All Down is produced by Brian Dusek, and you can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, and TuneIn. Again, we always appreciate subscribing, rating and reviewing us if you're so inclined. On social media, you can follow us on Twitter @burnitdownpod or on Facebook at Burn It All Down. Our email is burnitalldownpod@gmail.com, and we always love to hear from our listeners. So, feel free to shoot us an email. For the entire cast of Burn It All Down – Jessica Luther, Lindsay Gibbs, Brenda Elsey and Shireen Ahmed – I’m Julie DiCaro, we'll talk to you next week.