And it's OK to spit your sunflower seed hulls on the floor. I've always considered the real hurdle of all this to be players' perception of me, not suppressing my thoughts. Friends at Bible study ask if the players are mean to me. I mean, because if you sell out the coach, you never get to talk to them again, so I don't want to sell out the coach. I was nervous the first time I entered the Rangers locker room, about seven years ago. think men are going to tend to turn and look and want to say something If they're usually not allowed in, I wouldn't expect the teams to apologize for enforcing normal rules. Theres a press area for that express purpose. And theres going to be cameras. Ines Sainz: NFL Investigates Jets I began experiencing panic attacks and became practically addicted to the antianxiety drug Xanax, buying it from bartenders and acquaintances when my prescriptions ran dry. One of the most famous all-male gentlemen's clubs in London was the Reform Club with the fictional Phineas Fogg started and ended his trip around the world in 80 days. What does it really matter if the rest of the world knows? She was previously a sports columnist for the New York Daily News, and the first female sports columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald, where she covered rugby union, Australian rules football, cricket and rugby league. The biggest cultural difference between reporting on sport in the UK and across the pond is that everyone here is allowed into the locker-room. [6] Sullivan observed Olson and determined that she was acting professionally, interviewing Maurice Hurst, but took no other action. All-Star Game in Montreal. I feel like because we get paid so much money, and were such macho dudes that everybody is like, fuck em.. Am I right? So you've got all these big-haired babes who think the electoral college is a beauty school, ready to hoist their miniskirts for the first athlete who comes along. In an interview on the March 11, 2011 edition of Bill Simmons' podcast, "The B.S. We drove to a mall in Santa Fe, and there were the boxes, taped, freshly shipped, in the front of the store. That did it; now they were ready to call the police. The rumor was bogus, but it planted an idea. Long before I was allowed to eat fish with bones, could go all night without peeing in my bed, or understood Gilligan's Island wasn't real, I loved baseball. The players didn't know I'd grown up with games or that my best friends had usually been crude guys or that I could open a beer bottle with my incisors or that I liked to fish as much as they did. Well, Reggie Jackson was my first. The guys screamed at me and demanded to know if I was "on the rag" when I was surly; yet they could scream and be surly at me all they wanted. The immediate response is curiosity: Do I get to go in the locker room? But then Donna likes the men she meets at Baja. About 1987, I got crossways with the sports editor. first female sports columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald, where she covered rugby union, Australian rules football, cricket and rugby league. Why the fuck can yall walk in, and we are half-naked? 2023 Vimeo.com, Inc. All rights reserved. But its the same answers to the same questions.. Even in the relatively overlooked NHL, the New York Islanders draw about 30 journalists a game. It's just before batting practice, about 4:30 p.m. "May I talk to you?" Franchises are increasingly fielding their own media teams to produce game stories and video interviewsmeaning more softball questionsjust as metro newspapers are cutting back. Thats the life of a kicker.. teams to allow her and other women reporters access to athletes in the postgame locker room when, unexpectedly, the two coaches at the 1975 N.H.L. Fear of the unknown tends to do that to you. He said he was 16. I wonder how these female reporters and staff would feel showering and changing with men in their locker room? And what if someone saw me in this state of trepidation? Its all weve ever known, right wing Josh Bailey, wearing a blue Islanders shirt, skin-tight compression shorts, and knee-high athletic socks, told me after a practice last week. [4], On April 25, 1991, Olson filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts state court against the Patriots, Kiam, Sullivan, Oldham, and the three players (Mowatt, Timpson, and Perryman), alleging violations of her civil rights, sexual harassment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and intentional damage to her professional reputation. Once, after they'd let me try my hand at writing for a year or so, editors told me I'd never make a writer. Pleasure to have you. Locker room access gives reporters at least some insight into team dynamics. Reporters do not need to be in the locker room. Answer (1 of 4): After reading Carrie Rickey's answer, I have to say that no one ever gets this story right. Her work has been featured in the anthology, "The Best American Sports Writing". We went to a bench just outside the door and began to look through it. So I remain cautious, probably overly cautious, about appearances. Female sports reporters reveal the dark side to sport locker rooms FEMALE sports reporters reveal the dark side of reporting on male-dominated sports. Had all that I'd put up with just been for nothing? And blocked by virtue of being a woman Melissa Ludtke's landmark. The Ludtke case did NOT result in merely an order to allow equal access for female reporters to the Yankees locker room, but it ALSO ordered the Yankees to provide privacy for players whil. Some readers had similar problems accepting a woman. For most of the guys who hang around for more than three dates, my job suddenly becomes a problem. So everyone's kind of shuffling around. Oh no, I was not having that. That sort of collegiality isnt obsolete in locker rooms, but real-time publishing certainly ups the danger of such humor being viewed out of context. Why? I asked him if he hoped to play in the majors one day. Can the slump be permanent?". I've never been on any campaign to debunk the myth that testicles are somehow inherent to a full understanding of balls. No less than two or three times a home stand, the feeling hits againalmost always as I walk down that tunnel from the upper deck that spits you out in back of home plate. Jerseys are on the floor, not on the playersno jerseys, no name tags, just toweled dudes walking around. During the 1977 World Series, the MLB commissioners office banned then-Sports Illustrated reporter Melissa Ludtke from both teams locker rooms, overriding the New York Yankees blessing and a majority vote in the Los Angeles Dodgers clubhouse. He remembered my chatting him up at lunch on Media Day, when I sat next to him and Brian Cushing and asked why the punt coverage was so porous with players not staying in their lanes, and how he was going to improve his turn over margin. After several female sports reporters discussed the level of sexual harassment that they faced in the sports industry with Sports Illustrated in 2015, SI revisits the topic in 2017. She faced off against the MLB commissioner and won access a year later, but the . What kind of a goob would they take me for if they knew? Olson worked as a sports columnist for the Daily News for ten years. It was like a club that I wasnt invited to, and unless I whispered the secret code word correctly, I would never gain entrance. The Mavericks pose an entirely different set of problems. My daddy and I saw our first major-league game together on Opening Night here in 1972. SAGAL: So you are and have been for how long now, the sideline on-field reporter for NBC's "Sunday Night Football"? I was one of the guys. We shagged foul balls, but in retrospect, I guess we were more decorative than functional. They were reporters and looked young enough to remind me of my old daysexcept they weren't wearing white flats. Its a bizarre world that weve come to live in. When a guy is naked, hes probably more honest than not. TAFOYA: I adored football growing up. I began bicycling and training for a marathon. essentially logistical problem that could easily have been solved by a few big towels.. I dont think you need to be in there when the athletes are down to their skivvies. Specific. I asked Reggie, as everyone watched and listened. I dropped my plans to go to the University of Texas and study broadcasting. Hopefully we can ditch this weird practices permanently in 2022. It was the lonely thread that tied me to my game. [4] Robert Perryman did the same while her back was turned. Mowatt walked up to her while he was nude and fondled his genitals as she was interviewing a teammate. Girls in locker rooms are overrated. Actually, I tell them, one of the most peculiar side effects of my job is that it seems to run off men in personal relationships. But I learned to do news as well. Of course, Rader would have spat corn at anybody. But back in 1975, Robin Herman, a 23-year old reporter for the New York Times, had been trying to get NHL teams to allow her access to locker rooms for a year, with no success. The Downing part of it, as the guys who would later be a part of The Ticket said, was because, "He wouldn't hit a girl, so we'll go in behind you. Absolutely. I'd heard the stories: the tales of women who felt forced to make a stand at the clubhouse door; of the way you're supposed to never look down at your notepad, or a player might think you're snagging a glimpse at his crotch; about how you've always got to be prepared with a one-liner, even if it means worrying more about snappy comebacks than snappy stories. Steam Food Of Industry. The best advice I ever got was go get a job somewhere. We won some awards, and I gained some confidence and perspective. Several of the writers said, "I wonder what's up with that.". TAFOYA: I'm entering my third season for "Sunday Night Football. / CBS News. Someone has come out early for batting practice. That was the stunned reaction of journalist Joey Chandler after she, along with two other female journalists, was reportedly barred from entering the Jacksonville Jaguars locker room on Sunday night. Affirmative. He might not understand that I meant its thickness and shine were enviable. [6], After Olson complained, describing the experience as a "mind rape",[4] team owner Victor Kiam allegedly described her as a "classic bitch." That's something he'd say to anyone, I realized. She has covered sports stories in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Japan, China, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. A few minutes later he came back out wearing a towel. Mortified, I pondered my attire (a baggy smock top and pants). I mean, we know a guy is probably happy to be a number-one draft choice, but what makes him real is how he is like or unlike us. Point guards became my instant favorites for those early post-shower interviews. It was an area high school coach who routinely tried to get me to drop by his house when his wife was out of town; when I refused for the third time, he refused to provide any more than perfunctory answers to my story questions. SAGAL: B, George Washington himself went on a three-day bender there. I went into the girls' locker room by mistake, and considering it was a room with open showers in one area, I was in for a real surprise. But of course that wasnt the case. Female sportswriters won the legal fight, but there are plenty of cultural barriers to overcome. Jane Gross was cracking basketballs barrier while covering the Long Island Nets. . A collage on the walls above them shows newspaper headlines and media coverage of famous victories, ringing the small dressing room like a halo. Tell Me When It's Over is an interview series in which we ask former athletes about the moment they. to persuade N.H.L. And I know how smartass remarks work, too. I had become a sweating mass of raw nerve endings. Robin Herman, a gender barrier-breaking reporter for The New York Times who was the first female journalist to interview players in the locker room after an NHL game, has died. After a long game, while standing in the middle of the clubhouse waiting for someone to appear, I sometimes gaze off in one direction, the way you stare when you're bored and become transfixed on an object until your eyes cross and you snap back into the reality of car payments and cellulite. It's been 46 years since the first women entered a professional locker room when two female reporters were allowed to conduct after-game interviews in the locker rooms at the 1975 N.H.L. She was 70. After five years as a sports reporter, she moved on to write about science and health, leaving the rest of the battle to others. As one of the first female reporters to be allowed inside the NFL locker room, she has been a pioneer in her field. SAGAL: All right. During the incident, Ms. Olson said a group of naked players crowded around her to. Michele Tafoya is the Emmy award-winning reporter for NBC's Sunday Night Football, but she's spent time on basketball courts, softball diamonds, gymnastics mats and now public radio quiz show game grids. Players tear off equipment at wooden cubbies bearing their names and numbers, laughing about how Mel Gibson got ribbed at the Golden Globes. Perfect. Forty years ago today, "Sports Illustrated" and its reporter Melissa Ludtke took on Major League Baseball and won. The access is great, but it does create some very. My dad was a buyer for Better Monkey Grip Rubber Company, and I'm not complaining. The Mavericks were a delight to be around even when pissed off. One night in the stands, I had my Helen-Keller-at-the-well experience. Its a mind-numbing thing to experiencegetting complete wrapped up in a job and not noticing the other stuff around you. The misconceptions about the atmosphere are overrated. TAFOYA: a player sitting next to him says, ma'am, could you just turn around and let the man put a towel on? People were calling from all over about the piece. Or the periodic outbursts by Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook. Sept. 8, 1985 12 AM PT United Press International Sportswriter Donna Balancia had two team officials block her from the New York Giants' locker room after a recent preseason game. It was when all the guys were inside doing interviews, and I was standing in the rain, makeup peeling, outside the high school locker room at Fort Worth's Farrington Field, waiting beneath the six-foot-long "No Women" sign for the players to come to the doorway. As she wrote in a post on her own blog, I found myself forced to muster Supreme Court-worthy arguments for an inane, They knew full understanding of balls staff would feel showering and changing men... And rugby league became my instant favorites for those early post-shower interviews where covered. 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