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Griner's punch: The rise of bad behavior in women's sports? 3/9/10 Standing 6-foot-8, Baylor University's Brittney Griner gets a lot of attention from opposing players on the basketball court. After Wednesday night's game, she is sure to attract a lot more.
The 19-year-old freshman, who is one of only two players to dunk twice in a women's college basketball game, punched Texas Tech University's Jordan Barncastle in the face after the two jostled for position beneath the basket. Following the game Kim Mulkey, Baylor's head coach, announced that she would bench Griner for another game in addition to the National Collegiate Athletic Association's standard one-game suspension for a physical altercation. SEE THE VIDEO: Baylor's Brittney Griner and Texas Tech's Jordan Barncastle A similarly unsavory incident occurred at another women's basketball game, albeit on a much smaller stage, a few weeks earlier. Following a loss to Blinn College, the head coach and a player from Trinity Valley Community College were arrested for assaulting police officers who tried to prevent them accosting the game's referees, who were on their way to the locker room. Coach Bill Damuth and Lesha Dunn, a freshman, are awaiting punishment from the college and the National Junior College Athletic Association. These two instances of unsportsmanlike behavior have followers of women's sports and gender studies scholars talking. These kinds of outbursts are not new to women's sports, but they often generate a markedly different media response than similar actions by male athletes. Last year, for instance, a University of New Mexico soccer player was featured on websites across the Internet and sports clips television shows for violently dragging an opposing player to the ground by her ponytail. Though Elizabeth Lambert was not ejected from the conference semifinal game in question, she was later banned indefinitely from competition, following public outcry.
NCAA officials were quick to note that these incidents are not indicative of a trend of increasing violence. "There is no place in any NCAA sports contests for violent conduct," wrote Joni Comstock, NCAA vice president for championships, in a statement to Inside Higher Ed. "Women's sports have continued to make strides in skill, ability and overall quality of play, and for that we are all pleased. Consider the thousands of intercollegiate athletics events that occur each year, these are isolated cases. However, there is no tolerance for inappropriate and overly aggressive behavior that endangers the well-being of another student-athlete. Good sportsmanship continues to be a pillar of intercollegiate athletics in the NCAA." Officials from the two-year college world of athletics also denied that there has been any such uptick. "We track non-violent and violent ejections in the NJCAA and our data does not point to an increase of these types of incidents in women's athletics," wrote Mark Krug, NJCAA spokesman, in an e-mail. "However, any incident of this type is very unfortunate and takes the attention away from those student-athletes that play the game correctly and strive to represent themselves and their schools with sportsmanship and class." Krug noted that during the 2008-9 academic year, there were 101 total ejections in all of NJCAA women's sports and that only 37 of those were considered "violent ejections." That is relatively low, compared to the figures for men: that during the same academic year, Krug said, there were 648 total ejections in men's games, 177 of which were "violent." Numbers for the current seasons are not available yet. Advocates for women's athletics had varying responses to the recent high-profile incidents. Most noted that too much pressure is being put on all athletes, whether male orfemale. "It seems that we are moving on a line that equates female athletes with male athletes in the both behavior and performance ... that if they can't dunk or pitch a perfect game or run the perfect race, problems arise," wrote Pam Noakes, executive director of the National Association for Girls and Women in Sport. "NAGWS has long been an advocate of Title IX and gender equity, but that does not mean that female athletes should act like male athletes. It seems that these behavior blips on the sports screen for women (Griner's punch and the soccer ponytail incident) are warning signs for us that we should all be more vocal in setting standards of behavior that are appropriate and enforcing good decision-making in our athletes." Noakes's colleague, Shawn Ladda, president of NAGWS and a professor of physical education and human performance at Manhattan College, had a similar response. However, as a former women's soccer coach at Columbia University, she said last fall's ponytail incident struck her close to home. "I saw that clip, and I talked about it a lot with the students in my class and on our soccer team," Ladda said. "It's important that, as a coach, we are role models to teach sportsmanship. When I was a coach, I didn't care who you were, even if you were my best player, you would have been benched for behavior like that." Still, she noted that social expectations make incidents like this more of a media sensation when they occur between female athletes. "There is a double standard out there," Ladda said. "When we see incidents occur in men's athletics, we don't think it's a big deal. It's almost expected. But, when it happens in women's athletics, people are somehow alarmed. Honestly, I find it appalling in any athletics. Still, there is less sportsmanlike behavior in women's sports than there used to be, and I think that's from the increasing demands to win."
Carrie L. Lukas, vice president for policy and economics for the Independent Women's Forum and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism, had another take. "This is part of a broader issue; we shouldn't be encouraging women to act like boys," Lukas said. "If anything, we should encourage men to act in toward the more feminine aesthetic. When we see sportsmanship eroding in girls, it should be a sign. We should say that there is still something of value in it. We should remind women, it's not weak to play fair or even be courteous or sportsmanlike. Young women are supposed to know better." She also argued that the media likes to sensationalize this type of bad behavior from female athletes. "This is part of a larger girls-gone-wild appreciation society has for girls doing bad things," Lukas said. "Girls are either a goody-two-shoes or a total bad-ass. We need to give them space to just be girls." Other critics, particularly those who advocate on behalf of Title IX issues, took a less gendered approach to their analysis. "Women's sports and women athletes by and large are the gold standard of exemplary conduct and extraordinary role models," wrote Karen Durkin, spokeswoman for the Women's Sports Foundation, a Title IX advocacy group, in an e-mail. "This (recent incident) is both unfortunate and an aberration. & This speaks first and foremost to sportsmanship and conduct, not to the gender of the athletes involved. Tough physical play and emotions running high in the heat of competition are inherent in sports but in no way excuse athletes from behaving appropriately. While isolated incidents like these may never cease completely, they do reinforce the need to continue to instill in all athletes that exemplary behavior is a key component of what it takes to be a successful athlete." Source: USA Today
2010 USSSA is offerings new and exciting opportunities this
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SCSU's Koski Named NSIC Player of the Week 3/2/10 Freshman first baseman Ally Koski (Savage) was named the
first 2010 Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference softball player of the week
after a solid debut weekend in a St. Cloud State uniform.
NJ judge who opened Little League to girls dies 2/23/10 Sylvia Pressler, a trailblazing judge whose 1973 ruling opened Little League baseball to girls, has died. She was 75. Pressler died Monday morning at the family's home in Sparta, according to her husband, David Pressler. She had been battling lymphoma and was scheduled to begin chemotherapy treatments Tuesday, he said. While serving as a hearing examiner with New Jersey's Division on Civil Rights, Pressler ruled that a 12-year-old northern New Jersey girl should have been allowed to play on a Little League team. "The institution of Little League is as American as the hot dog and apple pie," Pressler wrote in a sharply worded opinion. "There is no reason why that part of Americana should be withheld from girls." The ruling was decried by Little League as "conceived in vindictive and prejudicial fashion of the worst kind," but it was upheld on appeal, and New Jersey became the first state to bar sex discrimination in Little League. By the following year, Little League amended its charter to allow girls and also created a softball division. Pressler's own career took shape at a time when the legal profession was overwhelmingly male. She earned her law degree from Rutgers in 1960 and was one of the first women in the state to clerk for an Appellate Division judge. She was appointed to her first judgeship in 1973 and four years later became one of the first women to be assigned to the Appellate Division. In 1997, she became the first woman to be named the division's presiding judge, where she was responsible for keeping the judicial calendar and managing staff besides hearing cases. Beginning in the late 1960s, Pressler authored an annually updated book on the rules governing New Jersey courts that required her to review "every case, every day," her husband said. "She worked very hard at it," David Pressler said. "She brought great talent and great energy together." The Little League case reached Pressler in 1973. Maria Pepe, a 12-year-old Hoboken resident, had played three games for her Little League team the year before but stopped when Little League's national office threatened to revoke the league's charter. The National Organization for Women filed a lawsuit on her behalf. Pressler said his wife didn't consider the Little League case one of her more difficult decisions, despite its ramifications and the publicity surrounding it. "It was an important case because of its timing," he said. "But it was perfectly obvious to her that they were completely cockeyed in barring girls if they were physically able." Source: Google News Relationship between student and
teacher 2/23/10 One day last month, a female student sent Nature Coast Technical High School teacher and coach Ryan Wilson a text message. The message read, in effect, "I'm sorry for pursuing you," according to documents released Monday that summarize a subsequent school district investigation. Wilson, who teaches physical science and career development, did not respond. The next day, the student showed up to his classroom and delivered the same message face to face, records show. "That's when I told her I was an old man with kids and that I didn't know what she thought was going on," Wilson recalled later during a hearing with school officials. The text message exchanges had started in October. By the end of January, officials were investigating allegations of an inappropriate relationship between Wilson and the girl. Wilson, who also is head coach for the boys track team and assistant coach for the football team, denied such a relationship. Wilson, 29, was suspended with pay until the inquiry found no evidence of a sexual or romantic relationship. School officials, however, sent Wilson a letter of reprimand and removed him as the girls weight lifting coach. He cannot coach girls sports during a probationary period that will end in the fall of 2011. Wilson should have reported the girl's behavior to an administrator and referred her to a counselor, officials said. At one point during a Feb. 1 hearing with Wilson, the school district's executive director of business services raised the specter of two former Nature Coast teachers, Timothy Brightbill and Jamie Joyner. Brightbill, the former band director, is serving prison time for a sexual relationship with a girl who was 17 at the time. Joyner, the former football coach, resigned amid an investigation he was having a romantic relationship with a student. "Given the circumstances of Brightbill and Joyner with female students, help me to understand why you wouldn't do something or report this to someone if a student is pursuing you," Heather Martin said to Wilson.
Wilson, who said he had "an open door policy" for students and tries to be a mentor, said he realized too late that he should have. "I sit here now and looking back, yes it was so obvious," Wilson responded. "But I didn't notice it at the time. Joyner was a good friend of mine. I said that was not going to happen to me." According to the investigation report, Wilson acknowledged that the first red flag came with his November cell phone bill. His provider had tacked on extra charges for a high number of text messages. Many of the messages came from the student. They decreased in December, he said. Efforts to retrieve the messages from Wilson's provider failed, according to the report, which includes Wilson's testimony and a letter from his lawyer, Frances Perrone of Tampa, that summarizes the events leading up to the investigation. In October, the girl had collided with another during Nature Coast's powder puff football game. The other player was injured, and there were rumors that the hurt player might file a lawsuit. Wilson, who was a referee during the game, said he sent the girl a text message advising her to be apologetic "and not take a harsh attitude as this could inflame the situation," according to the letter from Perrone. The girl joined the weight lifting team and began confiding in Wilson. She didn't want to play softball anymore, she told him. He recommended she talk to her parents and coach. The girl, who had a class with Wilson, started to visit his classroom during other times of the day. She left the weight lifting team a month after joining because of injury, but the text messages increased. Wilson said he often overheard the girl talking about sex to classmates and at one point warned her that such comments could affect her reputation. In early January, the girl made comments to other classmates about not wearing underwear that made Wilson uncomfortable. He asked for the student to be transferred to another classroom. School officials, during the hearing later, asked Wilson why he didn't refer the student to a counselor at that point. "That was me just trying to be proactive," he replied. On Jan. 20, the girl showed up to tell Wilson she was leaving the state that day and apologized for pursuing him. "She said, 'I don't care if you're 19 or 29. I like you,' " Wilson recalled during a conference with Nature Coast principal Toni-Ann Noyes the next day. Noyes told Wilson that the girl's mother suspected he was having an inappropriate relationship with her daughter, and that a couple of students and at least one staffer had the same suspicions. She asked him outright if he'd had a sexual relationship with the girl, and Wilson said no. Wilson, who is married and has children, was removed from student contact that day and suspended with pay on Jan. 25. A Sheriff's Office investigation determined that the allegations were unfounded. In a letter to the district, Wilson's attorney described the teacher as "devastated" by the events. The district investigation concluded, and Wilson returned to his job Feb. 8. In addition to the formal letter of reprimand and the loss of coaching assignments, Wilson must complete ethics training by September. "(Y)ou exercised poor judgment in your professional responsibilities," the reprimand letter from interim superintendent Sonya Jackson states. "Specifically, you failed to report inappropriate and troubling behavior of a student, you put yourself in a compromising position by being alone with this student, and engaged in inappropriate and extensive text messaging with the student." At the end of his hearing, Wilson said he was trying to offer the girl the same kind of guidance his coach provided to him when he was a student. "I didn't realize, but I know it was inappropriate and should have done something sooner, report it," he said. "I just didn't think it was going there." Source: TampaBay.com As Girls Become Women, Sports Pay Dividends 2/16/10 Almost four decades after the federal education law called Title IX opened the door for girls to participate in high school and college athletics, a crucial question has remained unanswered: Do sports make a long-term difference in a woman’s life? A large body of research shows that sports are associated with all sorts of benefits, like lower teenage pregnancy rates, better grades and higher self-esteem. But until now, no one has determined whether those improvements are a direct result of athletic participation. It may be that the type of girl who is attracted to sports already has the social, personal and physical qualities — like ambition, strength and supportive parents — that will help her succeed in life. Now, separate studies from two economists offer some answers, providing the strongest evidence yet that team sports can result in lifelong improvements to educational, work and health prospects. At a time when the first lady, Michelle Obama, has begun a nationwide campaign to improve schoolchildren’s health, the lessons from Title IX show that school-based fitness efforts can have lasting effects.
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 required schools and colleges receiving federal money to provide the same opportunities for girls as they did for boys. Relatively few students, male or female, participate in intercollegiate sports. But the effects in high school were remarkable. Just six years after the enactment of Title IX, the percentage of girls playing team sports had jumped sixfold, to 25 percent from about 4 percent. Most research on Title IX has looked at national trends in girls’ sports. Betsey Stevenson, an economist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, has taken it a step further, focusing on state-by-state variations. “I looked to see what it means to add sports to girls’ lives,” she said. “How does it change things for them?” States with large boys’ sports programs had to make bigger changes to achieve parity than states with smaller programs. Looking at the state-by-state statistics allowed Dr. Stevenson to narrow her focus, comparing differences in sports participation with differences in women’s educational and work achievement. So her study untangles the effects of sports participation from other confounding factors — school size, climate, social and personal differences among athletes — and comes far closer to determining a cause and effect relationship between high school sports participation and achievement later in life. Using a complex analysis, Dr. Stevenson showed that increasing girls’ sports participation had a direct effect on women’s education and employment. She found that the changes set in motion by Title IX explained about 20 percent of the increase in women’s education and about 40 percent of the rise in employment for 25-to-34-year-old women. “It’s not just that the people who are going to do well in life play sports, but that sports help people do better in life,” she said, adding, “While I only show this for girls, it’s reasonable to believe it’s true for boys as well.”
Another question is whether Title IX has made a difference in women’s long-term health. In a carefully conducted study, Robert Kaestner, an economics professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, compared rates of obesity and physical activity of women who had been in high school in the 1970s — as Title IX was taking effect — with similar women from earlier years. Controlling the results for other influences, like age and changing diets, Dr. Kaestner was able to tease out the effects Title IX had on women’s health. He found that the increase in girls’ athletic participation caused by Title IX was associated with a 7 percent lower risk of obesity 20 to 25 years later, when women were in their late 30s and early 40s. His article was published this month in the journal Evaluation Review. Dr. Kaestner notes that while a 7 percent decline in obesity is modest, no other public health program can claim similar success. And other studies have shown that even a small drop in weight can lower risk for diabetes and other health problems. There is still room for improvement. Today about 1 in 3 high school girls play sports, compared with about half of all boys. And participation varies widely by state, according to Dr. Stevenson’s research. Southern states like Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee still have big gender gaps, while Northern states like Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Vermont are closer to parity. “While we have more girls than ever before, we still have far more boys playing sports than girls,” said Nicole M. LaVoi, associate director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport at the University of Minnesota. “The research clearly states that when anybody, boys and girls, are physically active, they can reap developmental and health benefits. But we haven’t reached equality yet.” Source: NY Times Youth sports leagues find fewer suburban kids are signing up to play 2/15/10 Suburban youth baseball and softball coaches can expect to find fewer players on the ball fields this summer, according to many league directors. And while the finger can be pointed at everything from the recession to competition from other sports, experts increasingly are blaming children's habitual video game playing as a key reason why droves are ignoring America's No. 1 pastime.
And the better children get at video games and more used to the fast-paced action they get, the less likely they'll give them up to play the real game, experts say. "Instead of going out to play sandlot baseball, kids today are content to sit in front of a computer to play a video game," said Rich Honack, a professor at Kellogg School of Management. Studying generations, he says his data shows the computer is the reason for the decrease in kids playing competitive sports. And the numbers don't lie - fewer children are going to be outdoors on baseball and softball diamonds playing recreational ball this spring and summer, according to polls of leagues across the West and Northwest suburbs. Enrollment at Bartlett Little League is down 20 percent, said Phil Rizzo, district administrator for 17 area leagues. Player counts are down ranging from 3 percent to 20 percent in eight of his leagues, including Elgin, Streamwood and Woodstock. Warrenville softball enrollment is down nearly 20 percent from four years ago, and Cary reported a double digit decrease in youth baseball players so far this year. Lake Zurich Baseball and Softball Association, down 17 percent from two years ago and 26 percent from five years ago, launched a massive marketing campaign to get its numbers up. The campaign appears to have reduced the drop, with an expected dip of about 3 percent in the number of players from last year, compared to double digit decreases elsewhere. "We're seeing a fall off in older players," said Michael Sailor, chairman of the Warrenville Girls Softball Association. "I'm hearing from a lot of the leagues. Everyone has seen a bit of a drop off." Like many other communities, Warrenville sees growth in the younger players, but sharp drops in the 10-to-14 age level. "The older ones are the ones where we are competing with computer and video games for their time and attention," Sailor said. Some kids say they aren't good at baseball, but are successful at playing video games, so they pick the latter, said Dr. Donald Shifrin with the American Academy of Pediatrics. Sitting in front of a video game is more fun than sitting on the bench, the kids say. Supporting this theory, Shifrin points to a Kaiser study that shows young people are now spending nearly every waking minute - except for the time in school - using a smart phone, computer, TV or other electronic device. Youth ages 8 to 18 spend more than 7.5 hours a day with such devices, compared with less than 6.5 hours five years ago, the study reports. And because so many of them are multi-tasking - surfing the Internet while texting - they pack about 11 hours of media content into that 7.5 hours. Professor Honack says children under the age of 12 have grown up with the computer and the games that go with it. He says the constant action and instant gratification on the video game screen can't be matched on the baseball diamond when a child is learning a sport. "They find baseball boring, they find soccer boring and they find golf boring," Honack said. Economy's role Some coaches believe family budget cuts are to blame. "I think it's the economy. I don't see any less enthusiasm for the sport," said Scott Padjen, president of Cary Youth Baseball. Cary, like many other leagues, has a fund available for families that cannot afford the fees that typically range from $150 to $200. Payment plans also are available. But Cary hasn't seen big spikes in parents applying for economic hardship. And coaches in nearly every league say they will make it work. "If a kid wants to play," Padjen said, "we'll find a way to get them on the field." Constant action The lack of hardship cases leads Warrenville's Sailor to believe computers are the culprit. "We have seen a decline in participation over the past several years. We attribute that to video and computer games becoming the most common source of entertainment for children now-a-days," Sailor said. He believes video games teach children that they have to be "engaged" all the time. Rizzo agrees that video games are playing a part in the demise. "My concern is if kids aren't playing baseball," he said, "they're likely doing something that could get them in trouble." Doctors are concerned that children are less active. It's widely known that obesity rates in children are spiking. "We're seeing kids are becoming heavier," Dr. Shifrin said. He believes parents must take a more active role in assisting their children in finding physical activities. "Parents have to reassert control," said Shifrin, who serves on a council studying the impact media has on the health of children. "I'm concerned with any statistic that decreases a child's physical activity." If team enrollment figures are declining, he says, parents need to be aware. "It's a wake-up call." Team spirit And when kids are in front of the computer or texting for countless hours, there are other negative consequences. Children are failing to learn life lessons about achieving goals, building esteem, the commitment it takes to be on a team as well as how to interact with others. "Social skills are lacking in these kids," Honack says. Another fear is what will happen to sports teams at higher levels? "I'm hearing that this trend is already creeping into the high school level," Honack said. "The numbers are dropping everywhere. It has no boundaries." Source: Daily
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