When men gather at bars and golf courses and any of the other traditional salt licks for male bonding, do they ask the gynecologist what Mrs. Holcombe's hooters look like? In fact, after 10 minutes in a locker room, you dont notice anyone naked. I talk to the coaches at halftime as they walk in or out of the locker room, and that's always a load of fun especially the losing coach. A female reporter conducts post-game interviews with members of a men's soccer team in the locker room. SALIE: Men, that was all men, that was all men, sister. SAGAL: Here's your first question. teams to grant her access and not all agreed quickly. You're the person they throw down to as SAGAL: And you've got the reports in the sideline, well, this guy's injured, well, this guy feels this way. And this was so long ago that the guy who opened the door said lady in the locker room. It is funny. Whats more, players are increasingly media empires in and of themselves, lessening their incentive to cooperate with journalists. I was unknowingly standing next to the shower exit and of course, two linemen cruised by me with nothing on. Industrial-size hampers, home to growing mounds of moist practice jerseys, sit on each side of the cramped chamber in its Syosset, New York, training facility. I always won the big awards in elementary school, went to football games, and performed in talent shows. And I gained 40 pounds. As usual, several radio guys lined up behind me. I was in some pretty heavy company. I dont really think about it. A collage on the walls above them shows newspaper headlines and media coverage of famous victories, ringing the small dressing room like a halo. [Reporters] obviously need you to say some stuff so they can write their articles, said Islanders alternate captain Kyle Okposo, wiping his forehead with an already-drenched shirt. I tried to explain that it is probably a lot like being a male gynecologist: the daily procession of personal parts becomes so routine that it ceases to be of anything but professional interest. For a gender that keeps complaining about equality and respect, they certainly dont seem to think men should get either of those. You get a really honest reaction, and thats what makes stories good., Some of the best locker room reporting comes when the unthinkable happens, reminding us that these gods between the lines are just men and women outside of them. Even in the relatively overlooked NHL, the New York Islanders draw about 30 journalists a game. Or like Brandon Grahams locker is next to mine, and he has 40 reporters around him, and someone is bumping into my naked ass. [2][3], In 2013, the Association for Women in Sports Media, at its 25th convention, awarded Olson its Mary Garber Pioneer Award. Ms. Olson was reporting on the New England Patriots in 1990 when she was sexually harassed in the locker room. After five years as a sports reporter, she moved on to write about science and health, leaving the rest of the battle to others. He meant on the bed. Except she and St. Cyr We're sitting around the salon one day making bets on when the rest of the country will catch on that Ross Perot is a weasel when someone says he finished ahead of Bush and Clinton in another poll. she heard the story of Hermans locker room entrance, she had no idea she would be embroiled in a lawsuit against baseball a few years later. Sometimes I'm kind of quiet in a group interview, and I have this feeling other reporters will think it's because I'm a dumb ol' girl. But one thing kept me in sports: I got a Rangers media pass every year. If I never went in a locker room, it would have been fine with me, Ludtke said. I left my stuff in the press box and went downstairs, sandals sticking in last night's gooey beer puddles as usual, as I entered the tunnel to the field. 1950) is an American sportscaster who worked for ESPN and NBC Sports beginning in 1987 until 1993. No one seems to know when the first female Equipment . Video marketing. So what? ")[5] Later, on February 4, 1991, at a male-only sports banquet in Stamford, Connecticut, Kiam told the attendees a crude joke about the incident. Someone has come out early for batting practice. I had to think as much about how to handle the next unwanted advance or suggestive quip as I did trying to figure the Mavericks' averages. But she still gets recognized as "the girl" who went in the. [1][3], After her graduation from college, she moved to the East Coast to attend graduate school, but she decided to pursue a career in sportswriting. This Is Why Female Sportswriters Can Go in Men's Locker Rooms Melissa Ludtke, a writer for Sports Illustrated, is shown on the job in her office in New York, Jan. 23, 1978, when she was. During this phase of courtship, most men would be reassuring Lassie that her role as a dog star doesn't matter that they just like her nice, shiny coat. A female reporter conducts post-game interviews with members of a men's soccer team in the locker room. She is currently involved in a court case to allow women reporters in sports locker rooms. They picked threeCindy, because she was a perky cheerleader at the University of Texas at Arlington; Jamie, because she had modeling experience; and me, because I was a pest. God, I can't believe someone didn't warn me, I thought. I immediately got a call from Gayle Reaves, a founder of the Association for Women Journalists. Copyright 2013 NPR. SAGAL: Michele Tafoya, we're delighted to have you with us. The issue at hand was equal access to the players in the locker room for all reporters, regardless of their gender. We lived in Arlington, about five miles from the ball park. from Oh sure, they may actually think I'm an idiot. Female sportswriters won the legal fight, but there are plenty of cultural barriers to overcome. If my mom made us go to Wyatt's for supper, my father would wear his primitive Walkman through the serving line, once scaring the meat lady by hollering, "Dadgum Toby Harrah!" Three female reporters were denied access to a NFL locker room this weekend, because of their gender. You take a right turn before you have to walk straight into the naked men and the soap. We never wanted for anything we really needed, but my parents, raised in the Depression, were cautious about spending. He was thrilled to get an interview, and was so polite and warm, I didnt realize he was wearing practically nothing while I spoke with him. For a minute, before I start to work, I smell the bubble gum in the breeze and look at the kids leaning over the dugout and the boys of summer in it. The more we try to know about our sporting heroes, the less they tell us. The rumor was bogus, but it planted an idea. would be given the same access as men. TV Azteca reporter Ines Sainz says she was the subject of sexually suggestive remarks by New York Jets players. The interview format is believed to have been popularized around mid-century by Dick Young, a New York Daily News sportswriter. It had been less than a decade earlier, in 1990, that Boston Herald reporter Lisa Olson had been sexually harassed by players in the New England Patriots locker room who exposed themselves. I don't like the double-standard we have with male-female divide. Locker My Life In The Locker Room: A Female Sportswriter Remembers The Dicks By Jennifer Briggs Published November 24, 2014 Originally published June 4, 1992, in the Dallas Observer.. If I did ever fall hopelessly head over heels for one of these men, it would not be because I had noticed a pterodactyl-size penis, but for the same reasons I'd fall for anyone else. The Star-Telegram phone began to ring. On cue, all the players in the Jets locker room got up and they all had the word Gitte written on their asses, he says. About 1986, there was a college football convention in Dallas. Its my fault, Walsh said, his eyes still glistening. All of my male media brethren went cruising into this sacred place, and then, there was only methe lone female reporter covering a USC football gamewaiting outside. When the day finally came that she would break down a huge professional barrier, Robin Herman did not have much time to prepare. In 2011, Northern Arizona University's School of Communication awarded Olson its Eunson Alumni Achievement Award. Before I could utter a word, he said, "Wait, let me rub it, it will get hard.". In the clubhouse, I was greeted by Rafael Palmeiro. In an interview on the March 11, 2011 edition of Bill Simmons' podcast, "The B.S. I used to write Dallas Cowboys columns in blue Crayola on a Big Chief tablet in the part of my sister's walk-in closet I had designated as the press box. Indeed, locker room access is built into players collective bargaining agreements with the four major North American sports leagues. I'd had enough. Hopefully we can ditch this weird practices permanently in 2022. I think I may have actually gained some respect in various journalism and sports circles. Acceptance will be given if you represent your profession in the highest degree. And then there's the guyalmost any guy in any bar in townwho subjects me to a sports-trivia quiz during the usual getting-acquainted foreplay. "Are you going to talk to me or not?" You know when the line has been crossed because you know about the culture that youve entered . I was certainly heartened when I heard about Robin, said Ludtke, who also now works at Harvard as editor of the Neiman Reports magazine. It was at height of the womens movement, Herman said. According to the Chicago Tribune, Briggs stands behind his comments. Except she. Mortified, I pondered my attire (a baggy smock top and pants). published October 19, 2015. During the 1977 World Series, the MLB commissioner's 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. A girl in the SAGAL: Or C, Benjamin Franklin became the first and only member thrown out because of his horrible morals? Then there was the time we had a story about an SWC coach paying players, and I appeared one morning at the school where he was an assistant. TAFOYA: No, I always talk to them off camera because I can get more out of them, and then I come back after halftime, and I report to the audience what I've been told. SAGAL: I was just thinking about with the NBA, it would be more difficult because you need to think about what would be at eye level in that situation. A, on Women's Day which is a holiday named after a magazine. I can't tell you the bizarre arguments I've had with a few of these creeps who keep suggesting I become a teacher. Tipped off to my presence, the coach broke into a near run when I headed toward him in the hall. Customers Modifications . TAFOYA: I adored football growing up. Get two questions right, and you win our prize. Gayle Gardner began working for ESPN in 1983 as a SportsCenter anchor, becoming one of the first women to regularly anchor a nightly network sports broadcast. I retreated back behind the door before anyone could see me. And there, not 1,000 days after I had emerged from the darkness of the womb, hundreds of bright light bulbs made me squint as I watched the first half-inning of my life, the last three outs of a Spurs game. If reporters are usually allowed into locker rooms, then this reaction makes sense. I never went near a bedroom with any of them, but I told him "a woman" because I didn't know how answering "18" to this loaded question would affect my precarious career. The realities of the corporate world and the attitudes of Texas high school and college coaches quickly clouded my idealistic vision of a quick ascent from 18-year-old ball-girl phenom to big-league ace baseball writer. For instance, there are things I might say to a friend or even a casual coworker that I wouldn't think a thing about, but I stop short of saying such things to the players. And I didn't want to go back to putting up full-time with condescending high school and college coaches and jerks guarding locker room doors. ", Next to the entry door, there was a large poster of a shirtless Ruben Sierra. And I know how smartass remarks work, too. I felt like a cancer victim who was finally ready to give up the fight because it meant giving up the pain and humiliation. I didn't want to be branded as some woman on a crusade. She was a travel writer and at the end of a marriage, and we were traipsing around the Four Corners area. 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. One day, she went unannounced to see an editor of the Boston Herald and asked for a job. But now it was late September, and my editor wanted me to interview Mr. October about what it was like not to make the playoffs. But the most moving were the ones who said something along the lines of, "Well, I just want you to know, if I ever had anything to do with any of that, I'm sorry. Were you a football fan growing up? It doesn't make me angry anymore; it just seems silly and absurd. I sat at some random desk to look busy for a while, which is what sportswriters do every week or three. Bill, how did Michele do on our quiz? Theres a press area for that express purpose. Ludtke said when And it had just started to become something that women could do, and I thought I can do this. They wouldn't let him in the club, so he finished his journey on the steps. As she wrote in a post on her own blog, I found myself forced to muster Supreme Court-worthy arguments for an inane, Calvin Russell. I had mentioned Kenny's hair in a story that had yet to even appear in some of the Observer's newsstands. "He just doesn't" was suddenly sufficient and I knew a grown-up secret, like writing checks, making babies, or reading words. Those memories dont come cheap, of course. Hey, this is pretty cool, I thought. 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