Column Archive

Five Fears About 42

I will watch 42 with an open mind. However, here in advance are five aspects of Jackie Robinson's tumultuous, politically complicated life story I fear won't make the film's final cut.

I Shattered My Leg At the NCAA Tournament & All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

There's been a river of ink already spilled over Louisville guard Kevin Ware's horrific leg injury during the Cardinals' Elite Eight victory over the Duke Blue Devils. Most, with some notable exceptions, have tested the bounds of hokey sentimentality: the classic story of an injured player inspiring his shaken team to victory. Now, however, we’ve reached the point where tragedy becomes farce

Pro Sports Can Help End Rape

Let's start with a goal: professional sports leagues should devote major financial resources toward educating young men about the need to stand up to rape and all manifestations of violence against women. The NFL, NHL, NBA and Major League Baseball—for starters—should see part of their mission as using the influence and power of sports to reshape a jock culture that treats women like they are the spoils of athletic supremacy. They should be appalled by the glaring connective tissue between sports and rape culture in Steubenville, Ohio, South Bend, Indiana, and now Torrington, Connecticut. They should be especially devastated that the hero worship of athletes meant that the alleged and convicted perpetrators of sexual violence are defended by many of their coaches and peers. They should recoil that survivors who accuse athletes of sexual violence are blamed and then become threatened with more violence for daring to step forward.

The Verdict: Steubenville Shows the Bond Between Jock Culture and Rape Culture

As a sportswriter, there is one part of the Steubenville High School rape trial that has kept rattling in my brain long after the defendants were found guilty. It was a text message sent by one of the now convicted rapists, team quarterback Trent Mays. Mays had texted a friend that he wasn't worried about the possibility of rape charges because his football coach, local legend Reno Saccoccia, "took care of it." In another text, Mays said of Coach Reno, "Like, he was joking about it so I'm not worried."In this exchange we see an aspect of the Steubenville case that should resonate in locker rooms and athletic departments across the country: the connective tissue between jock culture and rape culture.

Steubenville and Challenging Rape Culture in Sports

The fact is that rape culture—conversation, jokes and actions that normalize rape—are a part of sports. Far too many athletes feel far too empowered to see women as the spoils of jock culture. The young woman in Steubenville was carried like a piece of meat with the brutality documented like it was Spring Break in Daytona Beach. It was so normalized that dozens of people saw what was happening and did nothing.

Why Major League Baseball Owners Will Cheer the Death of Hugo Chavez

The death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez will mean unseemly celebration on the right and unending debate on the left. Less discussed will be that the passing of Hugo Chávez will also provoke unbridled joy in the corridors of power of Major League Baseball.

The Sports Interview Non–Sports Fans Have to Read: My Talk With NBA Player Royce White

Royce White is an NBA player with a cause. The first round draft pick of the Houston Rockets sat out the first half of the season in protest of the ways the team handled issues related to his mental health. Now he is back, playing for the team’s D-League team, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, but he hasn’t stopped speaking out about the NBA, mental health issues and the way capitalism impacts our world. Yes, you read that last part correctly. I interviewed Royce White for my radio show,Edge of Sports, on Sirius/XM. Read an edited version of our interview below. I’ve edited some of my questions for clarity purposes and cut some questions and answers for brevity’s sake but Mr. White’s answers below are verbatim exactly as given. People can hear the full audio of our interview at this link. Royce White considers himself a “humanist” and as you will see, his humanity shines through.

Citizen Mike: Michael Jordan at 50

When Michael Jeffrey Jordan turned 50 years old on Sunday, a series of articles were published about the basketball legend whose athletic greatness was surpassed only by his commercial prowess. From a distance, Jordan’s existence must resemble fantasy: the athlete who accumulated enough wealth to make the ultimate transition from NBA player to NBA owner. Yet there is little to admire about Michael Jordan at 50. If anything, the more you learn, the more you recoil. 

Oscar Pistorius and the Global System of Deadly Misogyny

A professional athlete; a home with an arsenal of firearms; a dead young woman involved in a long-term relationship with her killer. In November, her name was Kasanda Perkins and the man who shot her was Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher. Now her name is Reeva Steenkamp, killed by Olympic sprinter and double amputee Oscar “the Blade Runner” Pistorius. We don’t know whether Pistorius is guilty of murdering a woman he claims to have deeply loved or is guilty merely of being an unbelievably irresponsible gun owner, firing four bullets into the door of his bathroom in an effort to hit an imagined burglar. We do know that this is either an all-too-familiar story of a man and the woman he dated and then killed, or it’s the story of a man who thought a burglar had penetrated the electrified fence that surrounded his gated community to break into his house and use his toilet.

Florida Atlantic's Folly: Why GEO Group Should Not Have Naming Rights

Sometimes the sports world doesn’t just reflect the real world. It mocks our world with a vicious veracity. Recently, we learned that Florida Atlantic University had sold the naming rights to its football field. This isn’t unusual at all, but the company the school chose amongst many suitors certainly was. The stadium will be known as GEO Group Stadium.For those who have never heard about—or protested—GEO Group, it is a highly profitable private prison corporation. Governments across the world, from South Africa to the United Kingdom to Australia, pay the GEO Group to take over their jails and run them as privatized, for-profit enterprises.