Letters to the Editor
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Not So, Anonymous
I have never heard of a female athlete bullying smaller kids and generally acting like a stereotype of a dumb, popular jock. For that matter, I have never actually witnessed a male athlete doing this outside of characters in movies. I DO know that female college athletes tend to be good students. Remember, they, like most male college athletes, have little hopes of cashing in on their talent beyond a scholarship. Leave your issues about athletes out of this and be angry on behalf of these very young women who excel at their sport and got called whores because of it.
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Dedication?
Stringer used the press conference as an opportunity to tell three different anecdotes about herself and her own suffering, including a barely coherent story about her trying out for her high school cheerleading squad. If she were truly dedicated to her team, she would have put the focus on them and not herself.
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bullying
If Nona really believes that bullying behavior by college athletes is something one only sees in movies, she is quite naive.
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Why are we so reluctant to use the team's name in these stories?
Virtually all the stories about this unfortunate incident refer euphemistically to "The Rutgers Women's Basketball Team."
It took a lot of "digging" on my part, both in my Chicago Tribune and the Salon article, to discover that they are called...The Scarlet Knights!"
Could it be that perhaps an "alternative" name for this team is...yikes..."The Scarlet Ladies?"
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Two separate issues here
Something I haven't heard in anything is the fact that NO ONE seems to be in any kind of an uproar about the fact that these athletes were called whores, for no other crime than being woman. The actual exchange had Imus's guest calling them "Ho's", followed by Imus's elaboration. And the uproar about the guest is where? The racial slur was disgusting and in my opinion deserves the condemnation of public opinion, but the fact that you can call young women whores and hardly anyone bats an eye is very very sad - at least the racial slur shocked people.
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Some responses
Some thoughts in response to various posts:
1. Rutgers certainly does nothing to hide the nickname, so you should blame the reporters. In fact, the women's basketball team was called the "Lady Knights" before C. Vivian Stringer came to Rutgers, and apparently she thought was silly, so they went back to the regular school nickname. (For those who want real nickname trivia, Rutgers once was the Chanticleers, which would be even more unusual for a women's team. On the other hand, Delaware's teams, male and female, are called the Blue Hens.)
2. I'm glad someone highlighted the gender issue, in part because I think that bothered the team and the coach much more than has been reported. For instance, during the press conference Kia Vaughn, the starting center, talked about how she wasn't a ho unless the definition had changed.
3. Women's college basketball players are much more like regular college students than most people think. Essence Carson, for instance, is carrying a double major in music and psychology, neither of which is exactly easy(and Rutgers has one of the better performing arts programs - she had to audition to get into it). Women's basketball players have a much higher graduation rate than men's basketball players or football players, and a surprising number of them graduate early. Characterizing them as "genetic freaks, pumped up on steroids" is about as unfair (and ill-informed) as what Imus said. In fact, compare what Carson, Vaughn, Ajavon and Zurich said during the press conference to what you hear every day from male athletes, and the difference is apparent.
4. Finally, it's moments like these that create the cracks in the wall of racism and sexism. Yes, you need to work constantly against them, but specific events crystallize attitudes, and this one opened (or closed, whichever direction you think represents progress) the door just a little bit more.