UNIVERSITY OF Connecticut senior Carolyn Luby wrote an open letter that appeared at the Feminist Wire on April 24 to the university’s first female president, Susan Herbst, to address the university’s recent logo change.

The letter came days after UConn announced its mascot was to be changed from a smiling husky dog to a logo, designed with Nike’s influence, featuring an aggressive, almost wolf-like dog. Luby quoted women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma’s comments on the design change: “It is looking right through you and saying, ‘Do not mess with me.’ This is a streamlined, fighting dog, and I cannot wait for it to be on our uniforms and court.”

Why does the University of Connecticut, Luby asks, need a more frightening logo, when women are intimidated, attacked and harassed by UConn athletes with alarming regularity? She cites some, though certainly not all, of the attacks and violent behavior displayed by UConn athletes:

On October 6, 2012, Lyle McCombs is arrested on charges of second-degree breach of peace for a domestic violence dispute in which he was, “yelling, pushing and spitting at his girlfriend” during an argument outside a residence hall.

On February 11, 2013, Enosch Wolf is arrested on charges of third-degree burglary, first-degree criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct when he “refused to leave” a female student’s apartment, “grabbed the hair of the victim and pushed her head” and “knocked the glasses off the victim’s face with his hand.”

On March 21, 2013, Tyler Olander is arrested for trespassing in a structure or conveyance while on spring break in Panama City, Florida.”

Luby implored Herbst to start addressing the violence against women occurring on campus, rather than concentrating on the university’s corporate partnership with Nike:

Instead of communicating a zero-tolerance atmosphere for this kind of behavior, increasing or vocalizing support to violence against women prevention efforts on campus in the face of such events, or increasing support to student-run programs that seek to work with athletes on issues of violence as well as academic issues, it would appear that your administration is more interested in fostering consumerism and corporatization than education and community.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

FOR SIMPLY asking the question, “Does UConn really need a more aggressive mascot and sports culture when violence against women is happening on a startling basis here already?” Luby was harassed and threatened—both with rape and death. The threats came from fellow students on campus all the way to Rush Limbaugh, who is perpetually looking for another Sandra Fluke to target.

Barstool Sports, an online sports blog, printed a reader e-mail mocking Luby, calling her a bitch, and claiming that she is arguing that the new mascot is the cause of rape.

Luby reported her on-campus harassment to the UConn police, whose response, according to the student newspaper, was that Luby wear a hat and keep a low profile.

The response from the university and President Herbst? Absolute silence. According to an article in the Hartford Courant, Herbst has released a statement citing campus policy on the right of students to express their opinions without being degraded, but didn’t mention Luby.

In an era of Sheryl Sandberg-esque feminism, in which we’re taught to believe that the problem is there aren’t enough women in the corner office or at the head of a boardroom table, this incident is a case in point. The current head of the University of Connecticut is indeed a woman, and Luby appealed to her to further the interests of women on campus, as many current students and alumnae hoped she would.

However, under Herbst’s administration, students have only seen further tuition hikes and the prioritization of the athletic programs over student needs. The example at UConn speaks to the need for confronting the idea that we simply need to equalize the gender balance of the ruling class in order to effect equality for women.

This is 3 years old, but I didn’t pick up on it at the time. Talk about adding insult to injury. Not only did British colonists engage in a genocide against the Native American population, including members of the Iroquois, but then over three hundred years after those first colonist arrived, the British government won’t even recognize the sovereign right of Iroquois descendants to travel freely in order to engage in an international lacrosse tournament.

Oh yeah, and it’s just pure coincidence that this decision by the British government meant that the Iroquois team was forced to forfeit to its would-be competitor … the British lacrosse team. Womp womp.

Never trust the white man and his tricks.

===

WESTBURY, N.Y. — The 23 players on the Iroquois national lacrosse team expected to spend this week vying for a world championship.

Instead, they spent Friday night divvying up their gear in the driveway outside a Hilton hotel here, having officially declared defeat in their weeklong dispute with the British government over whether they should be allowed to travel using their tribal passports.

“I felt it was coming, but I didn’t want to believe it until I actually heard it,” said Ron Cogan, 31, who played defense for the team.

The team, known as the Nationals, forfeited its first game Thursday night against England. Unless the team departed for the tournament by Friday evening, it would have had no choice but to forfeit its next game, scheduled for Saturday afternoon against Japan.

“You can’t go into a world competition and ask a team to tie one hand behind its back,” said Chief Oren Lyons of the Onondaga Nation, one of the six nations that make up the Iroquois Confederacy.

But the team was willing to try, at least until its second forfeit appeared inevitable. The team turned a guest room at the Comfort Inn near Kennedy Airport into a diplomatic command center of sorts, and team officials made a last-ditch effort to get the visas, traveling to the British consulate in Manhattan on Friday to make a final plea. The team dined at the Cheesecake Factory at the Mall at the Source here while awaiting word on their status Friday night.

“We’d rather be playing there than sitting here,” said the team’s captain, Gewas Schindler, 34, who plays attack. “It’s hard to talk about, really.”

Discussing their saga had been all the team had been able to do the past few days while it remained marooned, forbidden from flying to the tournament because British officials would not accept its tribal documents in lieu of American or Canadian passports because of security concerns. The Iroquois passports are partly handwritten and lack the holograms and other technological features that guard against forgeries.

The dispute has superseded lacrosse, prompting diplomatic tap-dancing abroad and reigniting in the United States a centuries-old debate over the sovereignty of American Indian nations. The Iroquois refused to accept United States passports, saying they did not want to travel to an international competition on what they consider to be a foreign nation’s passport.

Boyanka Angelova the Young Gymnast from Bulgaria!

Someone should tell this girl that this can’t be done

Infographic: Is Your State’s Highest-Paid Employee A Coach? (Probably)

Hmmm … this sports website has a whole bunch of features on various athletes’ “WAGs” (wives and  girlfriends) — including the “hottest” WAGs of college sports as well as  professional golf, tennis, etc.

Of course, there is no comparable “HABs” (husbands and boyfriends) section on this website, despite the fact that women athletes exist and compete at all levels of sports, from college to professional. Nor are there any lesbian couples featured in the WAGs section.

In other words, female spouses get treated like public sexual objects; male spouses, not so much. Inversely, male athletes gain in prestige according to the “hotness” of their “WAG”, who are displayed like a trophy. Female athletes, on the other hand, are themselves judged according to their own “hotness,” while that of their male spouse is deemed irrelevant.

Can you say, sexist?

===

NCAA wives and girlfriends have historically never received much attention in the media. However, it appears that has all changed with social media web sites, such as Twitter, taking over the internet.

Anytime a hot wife or girlfriend appears in the stands during their significant other’s collegiate game, it is instantly trending on the internet. Brent Musburger single-handedly made Katherine Webb a household name, and jumpstarted her career in the process. Now, it appears other hot WAGs want to be the next big thing to appear on television.

It was pretty clear no team was prepared for the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles in the earlier rounds of the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament. However, what no one was really ready for was Andy Enfield’s model wife to appear in the stands. If college basketball was not already the most watched sport in the month of March, Amanda Marcum shot it to the top of the list. March Madness will never be the same after this year. Hopefully, UCLA can make a solid run during the 2013-14 so that Marcum will get more television coverage. At least her image has been plastered in enough places to fill the time until she makes another appearance next season.

I hope you have a change of clothes handy, because your eyes are about to piss tears …

===

In his historic coming-out essay Monday, NBA veteran Jason Collins revealed to Sports Illustrated that he wore the number 98 in 38 games this season while playing for the Boston Celtics and Washington Wizards as an unspoken “sign of solidarity” with the gay community.

He said he did so as a nod to the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ suicide prevention foundation founded in August 1998, and also in memory of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old University of Wyoming student who was killed in October 1998 in one of the most infamous antigay hate crimes in history.

Shepard’s parents, Dennis and Judy, had never spoken to or met Collins before receiving an email from David Smith of the Human Rights Campaign with a link to the SI piece Monday morning, but it doesn’t make Collins’ expression of unity any less meaningful.

“It made me cry,” Judy Shepard told FOXSports.com during an interview Monday afternoon. “It was really quite a tribute, and I was very honored. And I know Matt would be thrilled.”

And the Shepards hope, someday, to be able to thank Collins personally for his bravery in opening himself up to the world and honoring their son’s name in the process.

“I would really love to speak to him, because I know Judy and I would just like to thank him,” Dennis Shepard said. “Because, No. 1, he had the courage to come out, period, and No. 2 that he wore 98 in honor of Matt, the year that he died.

“(Collins) couldn’t have been that old (when it happened), so it must have had a tremendous impact on him, the story behind Matt, for him to want to do that. And then to wear it all this time without telling people why until today, that’s incredible.”

 … “Hopefully this will start the conversation saying there’s no difference, as long as my team wins, who cares if they’re straight or gay?” Dennis Shepard said. “There have been a lot of athletes that played and were gay, and I have a feeling their teammates knew it and they just didn’t care.”

Added Judy Shepard: “It’s always more challenging in team sports to have the courage to (come out), and I think that once the doors open, the floodgates will literally open. And not just in pro sports, but college and all down the line. It’s just a remarkable step forward.”

===

I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay.

I didn’t set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. But since I am, I’m happy to start the conversation. I wish I wasn’t the kid in the classroom raising his hand and saying, “I’m different.” If I had my way, someone else would have already done this. Nobody has, which is why I’m raising my hand.

My journey of self-discovery and self-acknowledgement began in my hometown of Los Angeles and has taken me through two state high school championships, the NCAA Final Four and the Elite Eight, and nine playoffs in 12 NBA seasons.

The Times article “A Battered Dream for Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Then a Violent Path” is heartbreaking but also does a tremendous service by explaining - not excusing, but explaining – how he arrived at bombing the Boston Marathon on Patriot’s Day, killing three and injuring more than 200. People should read the article and I’m not going to rehash it. But I do want to explore its examination of how much immigrant aspiration Tsarnaev put into boxing and how the sports establishment in the post 9/11 era responded by pushing him away.

 … In most descriptions of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, he’s described as a “one-time boxer.” That doesn’t quite tell the story. Tsarnaev was a two-time New England Golden Gloves Heavyweight Champion. This was a flamboyant showman of a fighter wearing white leather, furs, and incorporating “showy gymnastics into his training and fighting, walking on his hands, falling into splits, tumbling into corners.” The religious ascetic would emerge later. At this point Tsarnaev was WWE flair with Donald Trump attitude. He was America as learned through a television screen. But also, like the America of his dreams, his ambitions were as large as his attitude.

A high school classmate in Cambridge, Luis Vasquez, said to The New York Times, “The view on him was that he was a boxer and you would not want to mess with him. He told me that he wanted to represent the U.S. in boxing. He wanted to do the Olympics and then turn pro.”

The next step was to compete in the National Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions. There was, however, one problem: the esteemed boxing organization had changed their rules for admittance. The Golden Gloves, at the height of Tsarnaev’s powers as a fighter, ceased its long-standing practice of allowing legally documented immigrants to take part in their Tournament of Champions. This broke with the history of a competition that was started in 1923 by sports editor Arch Ward in a hardscrabble town defined by immigration: the “stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders” otherwise known as Chicago. That meant Tsarnaev and three other New England champions – all immigrants - were not allowed to compete. It’s only at this point that he quit the sport. As The New York Times reported,

“Mr. Tsarnaev portrayed his quitting as a reflection of the sport’s incompatibility with his growing devotion to Islam. But as dozens of interviews with friends, acquaintances and relatives from Cambridge, Mass., to Dagestan showed, that devotion, and the suspected radicalization that accompanied it, was a path he followed most avidly only after his more secular dreams were dashed in 2010 and he was left adrift.”

Adrift meant eking out an existence on food stamps, and his wife’s $1,200 a month job. Adrift meant unemployment, as he was needed to stay home and watch their infant daughter. Adrift meant feeling a new sense of belonging in political and religious doctrine that spoke of war against United States. Adrift meant fury at the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq but no means to channel that anger in a way that didn’t reflect his despair. The New York Times article covers all of this in depth. I would add though that his feeling of being “adrift” might also have meant suffering brain damage as a result of years in the ring. The esteemed neurologist Dr. Robert Cantu has stated that any autopsy of Tsarnaev should include an examination for signs of the life-altering post-concussive syndromes Cantu has seen in numerous former boxers and NFL players.

 … There has been so much idiotic ink spilled about whether or not the Tsarnaev brothers “should be considered Americans.” What is certain is that the means by which people have historically felt a sense of having a stake in this country have been inexorably altered in the post-9/11 world. This is now a nation defined and scarred by the cruel anti-immigrant policies of both Presidents Bush and Obama. It’s now a nation defined and scarred by pushing people away from that historic safe-haven for immigrants otherwise known as competitive sports. It’s a nation that spawned the brothers Tsarnaev. It’s a nation that must change if future tragedies of violence are to be avoided. This won’t happen by accident. Movements and meetings against Islamaphobia and for the rights of immigrants are great a place to start. Sports may have been bestowed onto immigrants from the top down, but a shift away from fear and toward a more inclusive future will only come from the bottom up.

Last week I saw your typical feel good story on the news. Teddy Kremer, a 30 year old man with Down Syndrome served as honorary bat boy for the Cincinnatti Reds. The game was a blow out. the Reds won 11-1. What was of interest, the “heart warming” story, was Teddy Kremer’s request. He asked Todd Frazier to hit a home run. In archetypical baseball lore dating back to Babe Ruth Frazier came through. He hit a bomb to deep center field. No big deal given the game was well out of hand. What took place when he crossed home plate became the story. Teddy Kremer was thrilled. I recall watching the highlights and am not afraid to admit I got teary eyed. Talk about joy and love for the game! Teddy Kremer expressed such raw emotion it brought back vivid memories from my own childhood when I lived and died with each and every NY Mets win or loss in 1969. Baseball with all its ups and downs, heart breaks and joy filled my life at a time when I was morbidly sick and hospitalized. Oh the look on the face of Kremer and Frazier. Even the prerequisite umpire’s stony faced veneer cracked—he had a wide grin on his face as he watched Kramer. The crowd cheered louder for Teddy Kremer’s reaction than it did for Frazier’s home run. And this is exactly where I expected the story to end. A classic feel good moment in baseball. Numerous local television stations showed the video clip. See it for yourself:

I forgot about Teddy Kremer until yesterday when I read a great article by Paul Daugherty in Sports Illustrated entitled “Reds Batboy with Down Syndrome a Great Story, But it Shouldn’t End”. Link: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/mlb/news/20130423/teddy-kremer/ Daugherty acknowledges feel good stories are easy to write and an integral part of baseball lore. ESPN has taken interest in Kramer as has the Speaker of the House John Boehner. Kremer already had some familiarity with the Reds. He served as batboy in August 2012 (his parents won a silent auction at a fund raiser and paid $300). According to Daugherty, Kremer has been batboy twice. The publicity has been uniformly positive. Again, this is where 99% of stories end—especially in sport reporting. But not this time. Daugherty argues that “its time to do better. Kremer’s story can’t end here. Worse, it can’t continue the same as now, with Kremer the 30 year old man making cameos racking Reds bats, whenever the sentiment strikes. The mascoting of  Teddy has to end before it stops being wonderful and becomes something far less. These stories have to become more nuanced as our society has become more attuned with the lives of our citizens with disabilities. There is a subtle bend in the road, where good and right run head on into patronizing and exploitive. That curve hasn’t been reached. But its just up there in the near distance. The next time Kremer is at Great American Ball Park it should be as an employee of the team”. 

When I read the above I almost fell out out of my wheelchair. I read that passage again and again. Sports Illustrated bemoaning feel good stories? Sports Illustrated calling for a more nuanced understanding of disability? I am stunned. Reds chief operating officer  Phil Castellini is quoted as stating Kramer is “incredibly capable. He could do all kinds of stuff. I could put him in customer service any where in the building and he’d continue to put smiles on people’s faces”. Teddy Kremer’s mother notes that her son has worked a few part time jobs and employment with the Reds would be a huge boost to his self esteem. She also soberly notes he would need to learn how to use the mass transit system.

The above is a radical departure from your typical story about disability. I have been energized by the fact this story appeared in a staid publication such as Sports Illustrated. This is about as mainstream as one can get. Buzzed on too much tea this morning I started dreaming big. The Reds could hire Kramer and many other capable men and women who have Down Syndrome. They could foster a relationship with the Down Syndrome community and become not just an employer but powerful advocate for people with Down Syndrome. I can dream bigger! Major League Baseball could become the spearhead for a work program for people with a host of disabilities. MLB could encourage (require) all teams to hire people with a disability. One could even make the case that every team employ a certain percentage of people with a disability. This could be marketed as the next great social revolution in baseball history. The effort could be tied to Jackie Robinson’s legacy as the first black man to break the color line. Label this jobs program something catchy like “42’s Legacy” and build the infrastructure for a jobs program. Just think of the exposure. Tens of millions of people who attend baseball games would encounter people with disabilities who are employed. This could truly revolutionize people’s perception of disability. If Americans understand anything it is baseball and work. Wow, I am dreaming big today!

The Absence of Native American Power

Former San Francisco 49ers offensive tackle Kwame Harris confirmed that he is gay in an exclusive interview with CNN and said he wished he would have come out while he was still playing.

“I want people, whether gay athletes, athletes still in the closet, or youths who are not sure what their sexuality is to know those are common feelings,” Harris said. “Don’t feel alone in having them.”

Harris opened up about some of the challenges of being gay in the locker room and offered some support for future players who are unsure of their sexuality.

“You want to escape the despair and turmoil and your mind goes to dark places,” Harris said of keeping his sexuality secret. “I’m happy today, and I’m glad they were just ideas and I didn’t act on any of them.”

“The cost was great (to) not speak candidly (and be) open about myself in complete manner,” he added. “If I could have done it differently, I would have hoped I found the strength (to come out).”

Days before the Super Bowl, Harris was publicly outed after he reportedly was in an altercation with his former boyfriend. The topic drew a wide range of opinion, including a negative reaction from current 49er cornerback Chris Culliver.

“I don’t do the gay guys man,” Culliver said. “I don’t do that. No, we don’t got no gay people on the team, they gotta get up out of here if they do. Can’t be with that sweet stuff. Nah…can’t be…in the locker room man. Nah.”

Culliver apologized for his comments and since has visited with a support organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth.

In recent years, where stadium naming rights could be sold, universities and professional sports teams have sold them — to airlines and banks and companies that sell beer, soda, doughnuts, cars, telecommunications, razors and baseball bats. This led to memorable examples like Enron Field, the KFC Yum! Center and the University of Phoenix Stadium.

On Tuesday, that trend took another strange turn when Florida Atlantic University, in Boca Raton, firmed a deal to rename its football building GEO Group Stadium. Perhaps that pushed stadium naming to its zenith, if only because the GEO Group is a private prison corporation.

For this partnership, there is no obvious precedent.

The university’s president described the deal as “wonderful” and the company as “well run” and by a notable alumnus. But it also left some unsettled, including those who study the business of sports and track the privatization of the prison industry. To those critics, this was a jarring case of the lengths colleges and teams will go to produce revenue, of the way that everything seems to be for sale now in sports — and to anyone with enough cash.

This week, the most famous NBA player yet to play in the NBA finally took the court. Royce White, rookie forward for the Houston Rockets, suited up for their D-League team, the esteemed Rio Grande Valley Vipers. In eighteen minutes, he had seven points, eight rebounds and four assists.  

But the bigger story was that White played at all. For months, the 21-year-old has been sitting out the season in protest: a rebel with a cause. White has been battling the Rockets over how they would deal with issues surrounding his mental health. The first-round draft-pick has an anxiety disorder that affects how he handles everything from flying to practices. He has made it clear amidst an avalanche of criticism that his mental health is more important that his contract or career. Throughout this difficult fall, White has become a crusader for change, calling out not just the NBA for disregarding mental illness and treating him like “a commodity” but also the fans that have sent him “hundreds” of violent and especially homophobic threats. White isn’t gay, but apparently, for some, caring about your mental health is the equivalent.

Until a recent interview however, it wasn’t clear just how politically thoughtful, serious and even revolutionary an athlete we have in Royce White. For White, this isn’t just about his struggle or changing how NBA teams treat mental illness. It’s about something far greater. In his interview on the ESPN spin-off site Grantland with journalist Chuck Klosterman, White said that the question we are scared to ask in the United States is, “How many people don’t have a mental illness?” Klosterman responded, “Why wouldn’t we want to talk about that?”

White’s reply is one for the ages:

Because that would mean the majority is mentally ill, and that we should base all our policies around the idea of supporting the mentally ill because they’re the majority of people. But if we keep thinking of them as a minority, we can say, “You stay over there and deal with your problems over there”.… [T]he problem is growing, and it’s growing because there’s a subtle war—in America, and in the world—between business and health. It’s no secret that 2 percent of the human population controls all the wealth and the resources, and the other 98 percent struggle their whole life to try and attain it. Right? And what ends up happening is that the 2 percent leave the 98 percent to struggle and struggle and struggle, and they eventually build up these stresses and conditions.*

As if this wasn’t enough for one interview, White also said that he wants to use basketball as a platform to fight for universal mental health coverage with clinics in every community. He claimed that he is willing to “die for this.”

IT’S AN awkward fact of life in Washington, D.C., that we are home to both the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and the Washington Redskins. One attempts to preserve the Native American cultures that weren’t eradicated by conquest; the other is both a symbol and result of the same eradication.

These two worlds collided this past week when the museum hosted a daylong symposium about Native American sports nicknames. In a packed auditorium, panelists and audience members took the local team to task, calling their name “ugly,” “offensive” and “a racist slur.”

Former Colorado Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, the only Native American senator in U.S. history, said from the stage, “If you want [your mascot] to be a savage, use your own picture.” Not one person either in the audience or the crowd defended the use of “Redskin,” because, as one fan of the team said to me, “it really is defending the indefensible.”