SAGAL: Here's your first question. I'm a general assignment sports reporter now, which means I do whatever they ask of me. Before that, reporters thought they understood games better than the athletes playing them, largely omitting the player and coach personalities that make sports stories into something more than hits, runs, and errors. Women did not get equal access to post-game locker room interviews until a federal court decision in 1978. (He was a recent addition to the team.) I think how cool it is to watch a stadium yawn to life. You can't do this without asking about their dogs and their mom and what bugs them even worse than dropping the soap in the shower. Later that year, Olson and Sam Marchiano were reportedly subjected to a profanity-laced verbal tirade by New York Yankees pitcher David Wells when they approached him at his home to comment on his sudden trade to the Toronto Blue Jays for Roger Clemens. She impressed her supervisors, and the paper hired her as a paid sports journalist. Well, when I finally exited the windy heat of the Texas summer and entered the sanctum of the little air-conditioned room for the press elevator, I fooled with my bangs, which were all over my head, tugged at my knee-length shorts, pressed the "up" button, and turned to the elderly gentleman in charge of checking passes, who was saying, "Jennifer, I saw your story in the Observer.". It was the lonely thread that tied me to my game. I wanted to know these 4 things: 1. That seemed like such a dumb thing to say. I had mentioned Kenny's hair in a story that had yet to even appear in some of the Observer's newsstands. Perhaps the most meaningful were the calls from fellow sportswriters. The old Never let them see you sweat adage was thrown out the window and I was dripping angst from my brow. 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. Writing this the other night, tears filled my eyes, and I got that precry phlegm in my throat. It was supposed to be about the fact that I had some negative things to say about my early work environment. Affirmative. The other was a first-person piece about the last game at Arlington Stadium. Briggs first said women journalists should be barred from locker rooms during an interview with Peggy Kusinski of NBCChicago.com on Wednesday, the same day the NFL issued a memo that said women . The NFL is condemning remarks made by Washington Redskins running back Clinton Portis concerning female reporters in the locker room. [1], In 2013, Olson's incident with the Patriots was addressed in the documentary Let Them Wear Towels, part of ESPN Films' Nine for IX series that commemorated the 40th anniversary of the enactment of Title IX. Most of the men I've dated certainly don't know about the social fraying of America or why it might be at all amusing that a guy named Fujimori is in charge of Peru, so you'd certainly hope they knew some inane facts about NFL rushers. It is one thing not to look at your notepad, but another not to be able to look straight ahead without a big clothesline of boy parts. Several were guys who had been my superiors at one time or another and were just so gushing with their praise. Numerous new-media outlets have likewise gained access, leading to a ballooning locker room press corps and, in turn, limiting the exclusivity of any individual interview. 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. TAFOYA: And so if they come up with any other days of the week, I'll be happy to try those, as well. "I don't have any idea what you're up to.". Specific. Jennifer Briggs has covered the Texas Rangers, Dallas Mavericks, Dallas Cowboys, Philadelphia Phillies, and Green Bay Packers. Her work has been featured in the anthology, "The Best American Sports Writing". He told me I had to leave unless I was staying at the hotel. Like, I understand getting the whole story for your readers. She had few female colleagues in sports media to lean on. All she wanted was to be afforded the . They gave me all the weird stories. NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said Sunday that the league and the Jets began looking into the situation when they were made . Long goes on to mention how most reporters would brush his concerns aside, which would honestly drive me nuts. Horse's Heinie on occasion, was watching a college football game in a chair in the middle of it allnaked. I was a common sight in and around the Rangers digs in those days, so it was no longer like I was some rookie, afraid to speak my mind. This blogs regular features, including live game analysis, reader discussion, news and notes from Jeff Z. Klein and others, can now be found on the Hockey section front. [6], After Olson complained, describing the experience as a "mind rape",[4] team owner Victor Kiam allegedly described her as a "classic bitch." Then there was Everson Griffen, an underclassman defensive end who will be a big name next year and eventually on Sundays. SAGAL: Michele Tafoya, ladies and gentlemen. Follow us on Twitter, @DeadspinStacks, or email us at thestacks@deadspin.com. SAGAL: So how did you get into the - how did you - I mean, I'm going to guess SAGAL: that it's harder for a woman to get into major league professional sports reporting than it is for a man. 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. I have assimilated to a large degree but probably never will completely. She lives with three dogs in her happy bungalow in Texas. Its basically the same interview, over and over again, Islanders forward Anders Lee said Monday, taking off his pads in the corner of the locker room. Michele Tafoya, welcome to WAIT WAITDON'T TELL ME! But the next year, I entered myself for the "Locker Room" piece, and no one could have been more surprised than me when editor Glenn Stout called to tell me I was to be included in the next edition. I might have actually said, "Can we talk about how your face looks like one of those ear-shaped potato chips that the lady from the Lay's factory brings on The Tonight Show once a year? Chris Long on dynamic of naked players, reporters in locker rooms, New York Rangers fans took over the Wells Fargo Center and Im glad it happened, WATCH: Every pitch of Andrew Painters 1st inning vs. the Minnesota Twins, Eagles Buzz: CJ Gardner-Johnson rips Jonathan Gannon on Twitter for Super Bowl performance, Spring Training: Umpires end Orioles vs Pirates game early, but both teams wanted to finish, calling the game themselves, WATCH: Operation Flagship How D.C. Police Lured Wanted Criminals in for Arrest by Offering Super Bowl Tickets. You can listen to the whole thing here. Please enable JavaScript to experience Vimeo in all of its glory. I noted being in the middle of the room when a player came out of the shower, spotted me, and turned around and went back in. They were reporters and looked young enough to remind me of my old daysexcept they weren't wearing white flats. Family trips in an egg-shell-white Impala to see the cousins in Plainview took fewer rough turns. 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. The New York Islanders arent shy about giving interviews in various stages of undress. At first, I thought he meant on the job. The Star-Telegram phone began to ring. I ran out of material 10 minutes ago. Donna is a good argument for euthanasia. Covering major league baseball fulltime is my goal. 2023 Vimeo.com, Inc. All rights reserved. So why are they going to think the reporter is any different at first? These arent your high school gym locker roomsmany are increasingly part of multi-room complexes including lounges and training rooms that media cant accessbut journalists would be hard pressed to find so many sources anywhere else. To begin, I want to point out that female reporters have every right to be in the locker room as male reporters do. 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. Summoners Value War. Copyright 2013 NPR. Even in the relatively overlooked NHL, the New York Islanders draw about 30 journalists a game. They will look at her as one of the guys if she doesn't act like a chick. We were a middle-class family of four with one kid just a few years from college and another a few years from kindergarten. I can't remember the number of times I've picked up the phone in the sports department, answered some trivia question, and, when the answer didn't win the guy a bar bet, had the caller demand, "Put a man on this phone." By then I had researched what day shipment was due in bookstores. NFL Network Airs Interview With Naked Players In Background. Show More. Eskenazi recalls an episode from the New York Jets locker room in 1988, when defensive end Mark Gastineau pulled down his pants to show Eskenazi a tattoo on his hind quarters reading Gitte, short for then-girlfriend Brigitte Nielsen. TAFOYA: a player sitting next to him says, ma'am, could you just turn around and let the man put a towel on? I know people make sexual comments to one another, and they are not always inappropriate. Its my fault, Walsh said, his eyes still glistening. SAGAL: So you came back, and you're like, well, I just talked to the coach of the losing team, and he suggested certain things that were anatomically impossible. Ines Sainz, a reporter for the Mexican network TV Azteca, gestures while working on the sideline during the second quarter of an NFL football between the New York Jets and the Baltimore Ravens at . Later he admitted to calling her a "classy bitch. It was walking into the football locker room at the University of Texas in Austin and having a large man with burnt-orange pants and dark white face pick me up by my underarms and deposit me outside the door. But then Donna likes the men she meets at Baja. (Lowrance/Getty) NFL boss Roger Goodell was demanding answers Sunday night from. The most puzzled responses to my job come from the friends and acquaintances in my personal life. The incident is considered by many to be a watershed moment for women in sports journalism. When you've interviewed a 17-year-old mother whose daughter was stillborn for lack of prenatal care, how tough can it be to talk to a young pitcher who's lost to the Angels for lack of run support? I was ready to gnaw my way through the first one I saw that might have had the book in it. It would be the last day ever for those white shoesand my first of many covering professional sports. But how was I supposed to do my job with all that crap going on? There were nights in the stands, too, where, just so I could enjoy the game more, my daddy patiently tried to teach the basics of scoring to a child not yet versed in addition. Olson was born and raised in the metropolitan area of Phoenix, Arizona. He had leis, candles, and the whole altar thing going on in his locker. Many dressing rooms dont have such modicums of privacy, leaving players in the buff in front of reporters fishing for quotes. And now the game where we ask people who've achieved great things questions that diminish all their achievements. The first time I saw The Best American Sports Writing, I wasn't anywhere near good enough a writer to gain entry into that elite company. For eight months, the editors refused to assign me any stories. Suddenly it all made sense: the way the numbers went across in a line on a scoreboard, what the three numbers at the end of the nine meant, even why the shortstop didn't have a bag. New York Jets owner Woody Johnson personally apologized for the team's behavior. Then, just as I walked in the door, it struck me that I was five feet, three inches tallabout the height of an NBA crotch. Half the cost of the team's fine was to defray instructional materials the league could send to all teams and players, and Tagliabue wrote a letter to Kiam expressing his belief that the incident had "damaged" the league. Mr. October, known to be Mr. 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. The reporters were covering the team's loss to the Indianapolis Colts at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. A small band of medianormal-sized humanstries to keep out of half-naked players way as they dip behind a curtain sporting the teams logo and into the showers. Top photo illustration by Jim Cooke; original photo by Scogin Mayo. Once I stopped and they looked up, so I started spinning around in circles. We may earn a commission from links on this page. The telephone poll conducted this week among 1,026 randomly selected adults nationwide found 59 percent of 556 women and 47 percent of 470 men said female reporters should be banned from NFL . The repetitiveness and intensity of the format can be more frustrating. It's not a place for socialising. All I remember is green and light and the security of my daddy's arms. 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. Reporter Beth Ruyak stands holding a mircophone in front the NFC Locker Room before Super Bowl XXV with the New York Giants against the Buffalo Bills. 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. 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. It's the way we measure all people, the Homo sapiens equivalent of sniffing butts by the fire hydrant. Ms. Olson was reporting on the New England Patriots in 1990 when she was sexually harassed in the locker room. Like the other night when I was interviewing Kenny Rogers after the game, and I just happened to notice he had really healthy-looking hair. A, while he was gone, the club had viewed the classic Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch and decided Mr. Palin was too vulgar to be readmitted to the premises; B, he got back to London but couldn't be readmitted because he was poorly dressed; or C, he tried to drive himself to the club in central London but got lost? When the coveted Rangers beat came open, I was passed over. Nudity rarely bothered me, but I prefer never to see Nolan Ryan in anything but Ranger white or bluejeans. And I wanted to cover the Rangers someday. Like a lot of kids starting out, I'd do office work all week and help cover games on the weekendsanything for a chance to prove my worth as a sportswriter. The following year, a federal judge struck down the MLB policy on 14th Amendment grounds. Here's your last question. But unfortunately, in north Arlington, this seems to be an enviable attribute on a par with big Dallas hair and coaching shorts as after-five wear. I explained again that I was a sportswriter waiting for Grant Teaff and pointed out other reporters, all men, around the lobby. "That's possible," he replied. 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. So what? I kept saying, Im not the story; the game is the story,' Herman said, reflecting on the night. I hate to invade their pain and their anger and sometimes even their happiness. I had started wandering longingly over to the sports department, just to talk about baseball. But the road has been anything but smooth. I had become a sweating mass of raw nerve endings. But the reality was, a newspaper did not have space for the words or freedom on the finer nuances of body-part language. The reasoning behind this policy is that players are more likely to be relaxed and open with reporters after they have had a chance to cool down and take a shower. "Are you going to talk to me or not?" I mean, I know how penises work. I had been officially baptized, and it was no big deal. Event marketing. The latest in the sports world, emailed daily. 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? Some readers had similar problems accepting a woman. And blocked by virtue of being a woman Melissa Ludtke's landmark. He said he was 16. 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. 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. Women will kick up a fuss about men being in a women's locker room, and men should do the same with women. Once you have a live camera or microphone in front of you, youre a different person, says Eskenazi, who covered a variety of sports over his long career. The rest is all overrated. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Team dressing rooms are typically open to journalists before or after practices and games. [7][8], Eventually, NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue ordered an investigation under the aegis of former Watergate scandal prosecutor Philip Heymann;[5] the 60-page report concluded that Olson was "degraded and humiliated." I retreated back behind the door before anyone could see me. Staggering snowfall in California mountains leaves residents trapped for days, SpaceX launches new crew to space station, Video shows deadly Greek train crash as station boss admits "error", Blinken, Lavrov meet briefly as U.S.-Russia tensions soar, Prosecution wraps case at Alex Murdaugh murder trial, White House cybersecurity strategy pivots to regulation, Explosive found in checked luggage at Pennsylvania airport, feds say, Rape kits from two women lead to arrest in 1979 murder of one of them, Several hospitalized after Lufthansa flight diverted to Dulles due to turbulence. In 1990, while working at the Boston Herald, she alleged that she was sexually harassed by New England Patriots football players in the team's locker room. We laughed and remembered when Desmond Reed finally scored a touchdown and he lit up telling me, I couldnt even enjoy it. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. I was ready once again to be the greatest sportswriter who ever lived. The players dont care, I dont care, heynobody cares! I can't tell you the bizarre arguments I've had with a few of these creeps who keep suggesting I become a teacher. Answer (1 of 4): After reading Carrie Rickey's answer, I have to say that no one ever gets this story right. Some summers we went to 20 games; others we went to about 56. Then he held my head over the top of the wall in center. One of the most sickening feelings I get is when I have to go interview some pitcher who's been shelled or some guy who is struggling at the free throw line or a coach who is on the verge of not being a coach. Maybe I didn't belong here. I began to wonder, what had I done with the last seven years of my life? She was assigned to cover the Boston Bruins, the 1990 Super Bowl, and, beginning in the fall of 1990, the New England Patriots. , the New England Patriots in 1990 when she was sexually harassed the... 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