[5], On September 17, 1990, Olson was interviewing players in the Patriots locker room on a practice day. He said this about three times. So is it awkward for you? 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. 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 . 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. Ludtke said she constantly reminded people that she never demanded to go in a locker room. Locker rooms are overrated. Or at least made me feel that way. Bill, who's Michele Tafoya playing for? When you've got dirt on them, all the condescending good-ol'-boy stuff goes out the window. the frigid steppes of Russia and beyond, like, say, Phoenix. Now almost everyone had stopped watching football and was watching me and Reggie. [6] The general manager of the team was fired. TAFOYA: Oh, gosh. A female reporter conducts post-game interviews with members of a men's soccer team in the locker room. Oh sure, little stuff happened, like the time one of the Oakland A's made a big point of standing next to me naked in the middle of the clubhouse or one of the Los Angeles Raiders chucked a set of shoulder pads at my butt. I got in the car. [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. The NFL launched an investigation into the incident after Sainz, a veteran reporter, claimed footballs were thrown in her direction by a Jets coach during a practice - seemingly deliberately - and players later called out to her in the team's locker room. SAGAL: OK. Specific. Sometimes I will request an interview at someone's house, and my peers act as though it's weird. I said, "Raffy says you want to see me." He remembered my chatting him up at lunch on Media Day, when I sat next to him and Brian Cushing and asked why the punt coverage was so porous with players not staying in their lanes, and how he was going to improve his turn over margin. The players dont care, I dont care, heynobody cares! Although Olson settled a civil suit, fans of the football team made threats on Olson's life in the aftermath. It's the way we measure all people, the Homo sapiens equivalent of sniffing butts by the fire hydrant. The next year, I was booted because I couldn't do back flips. Near the field, I can see it is Al Newman and somebody. Im at work! SAGAL: B, according to the club rules, quote, "at the point in their menstrual cycle when they are least likely to attract bears," unquote. I mean, because if you sell out the coach, you never get to talk to them again, so I don't want to sell out the coach. I asked forand receiveda transfer back to sports. You can listen to the whole thing here. That was the stunned reaction of journalist Joey Chandler after she, along with two other female journalists, was reportedly barred from entering the Jacksonville Jaguars locker room on Sunday night. So I stepped down the tunnel from the dugout to the clubhouse and peered around the open door. And in no mood to take shit anymore. Fear of the unknown tends to do that to you. The other was a first-person piece about the last game at Arlington Stadium. The Downing part of it, as the guys who would later be a part of The Ticket said, was because, "He wouldn't hit a girl, so we'll go in behind you. I was so pissed over that (excessive celebration).. I said, "Listen, I have been covering this game since I was about two years older than you are so you can just shut it right now.". I had been officially baptized, and it was no big deal. Its also awkward for all parties involved. I was creative and funny, but I just couldn't write, they'd concluded. He said I was loitering. . She was previously a sports columnist for the New York Daily News, and the He had leis, candles, and the whole altar thing going on in his locker. 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. But the point is that you don't even think much about people being naked after a while, and unless you have some peculiar reason for remembering, you don't know who you have seen naked because they all kind of waltz in and out of the shower naked, just one wet butt covered with soap film after another. Then Kevin Brown left the team and that whole bunch became as nice as could be. He kept muttering. Couldn't you tell? 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. [4], On April 25, 1991, Olson filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts state court against the Patriots, Kiam, Sullivan, Oldham, and the three players (Mowatt, Timpson, and Perryman), alleging violations of her civil rights, sexual harassment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and intentional damage to her professional reputation. Alrighty then, time to search out the first player I wanted to talk toUSC quarterback Mark Sanchez. I felt like a cancer victim who was finally ready to give up the fight because it meant giving up the pain and humiliation. But I learned to do news as well. On this day in 1977, Melissa Ludtke was barred from reporting the World Series from the teams' locker rooms. I mean, seeing another adults peen by mistake isnt as bad as, I dont know, stealing someones cooking show, but I digress. Now Chicago Bears defensive tackle Tommie Harris and linebacker Lance Briggs are the latest to chime-in. We were a middle-class family of four with one kid just a few years from college and another a few years from kindergarten. The dirty little secret I've discovered is how little men know about sports, since this is what men are supposed to know more about than women. All I remember is green and light and the security of my daddy's arms. But there are still places out there where they believe in cooties, so Tafoya will answer three questions about men's-only clubs. A, on Women's Day which is a holiday named after a magazine. Should they be banned from locker rooms? During the 1977 World Series, the MLB commissioners 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. I'll always remember that no one else laughed, for whatever reason, and that made me feel good. I was surprised to realize that some of the wounds still hurt. Theres a press area for that express purpose. Host virtual town halls, onboard and train employees, collaborate efficiently. 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. It was important to be bold. I helped cover the team for the Associated Press. I had enough natural talent, I felt certain, that with one high heel in the door, I could work my way into a writer's jobmaybe even someday cover baseball. [9] Instead of saying so-and-so is a good player, and heres a quote, I include some Vines and GIFs to show why hes so good, says Kevin Trahan, who writes for Vice and SB Nation. Melissa Ludtke was 26 years old when all this took place. He said he chose to run this piece in tandem with Roger Angell's piece because, all else aside, they were stories by a couple of kids who grew up loving baseball. I didn't want to be branded as some woman on a crusade. "I am done, but I don't want him to think I am leaving because of him.". SAGAL: Now, why is that because being a reporter seems like a hard job? Male reporters are allowed in locker rooms both before and after games. I was afraid of the unknown. He shook his head and said, "No, I didn't say that.". 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. You take a right turn before you have to walk straight into the naked men and the soap. I walked over to the corner where two guys from my hometown had their lockers. Jennifer Briggs has covered the Texas Rangers, Dallas Mavericks, Dallas Cowboys, Philadelphia Phillies, and Green Bay Packers. The incident is considered by many to be a watershed moment for women in sports journalism. I broke several stories, one of which won a national award for investigative sports reporting. [10], After the incident became public, Olson was subjected to harassment by fans of the Patriots. TAFOYA: I was too focused on his eyebrows. Customers Modifications . I walked over to the only Angel who didn't yet have on some form of clothing. Scoreboard: Caps Ovechkin Outdoes Pens Crosby and Malkin, Rangers First Pick Is One With Ties to the Islanders, Devils Work a Trade So They Can Select Brodeurs Son, Islanders Make Deal With Wild Before Selecting a Defenseman in the First Round. from NPR. TAFOYA: So I went to Charlotte, North Carolina, and I did five hours of sports talk radio every day, and that was my SAGAL: That is the hardest job in the world. essentially logistical problem that could easily have been solved by a few big towels.. I did not want to smell the entire ride home, so I decided to take a shower. I walked over to him and asked how old he was. or "You haven't written any good stones in the last month. Her family were fervent sports fans. would be given the same access as men. The only way a female reporter can do her job in a locker room is if the players dont look at her as a chick. Not about naked bodies or about crude remarks but about how they would think I feltand how I intended to respond with confidence, no matter what happened. She attended Apollo and Shadow Mountain high schools,[1] and graduated from Northern Arizona University's journalism program in 1987. When I interviewed players, I found I had a much more personal relationship with them if I could sit next to them at their locker, says Gerald Eskenazi, an occasional CJR contributor who spent more than 40 years writing for The New York Times. Well, Reggie Jackson was my first. That's before they tell me I don't have any business in the locker room. No sitting or leaning. Cripes, maybe I should just wait til they all get dressed before talking to them? Brock Nelson, a teammate sitting next to him, chimed in: They get mad at us for giving the same answers. Actually, I tell them, one of the most peculiar side effects of my job is that it seems to run off men in personal relationships. My understanding was the brat later had a good talkin'-to with the manager and the GM, and as far as I know, the closest he would ever get to the bigs was buying a ticket. Sometimes we'd just watch any game on the TV. There was no fallout at the paper. TAFOYA: There's another joke there, but (unintelligible). And he began reading. That first-person ode to Arlington Stadium was entered in a contest. 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. Herman was a hockey reporter covering the New York Islanders when she and another female reporter were allowed to interview players in the locker room as their male counterparts were commonly permitted to do . And while most nudity is off-camera and doesnt find its way to audiences, the shirtless, disheveled, or still-sweating sports star, facing an array of microphones in front of his cubby, has become an enduring image in sports coverage. Getting the killer quote? But there's a strange sort of comfort in feeling that if they think I'm an idiot, it's probably not because I'm a woman but because I'm just acting like an idiot. 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 have no idea why, except that Nolan Ryan and my daddy are my heroes, and I just have no need of seeing either one of their white heinies. I was ready to gnaw my way through the first one I saw that might have had the book in it. "The Texas APME awards are out," he said. The biggest cultural difference between reporting on sport in the UK and across the pond is that everyone here is allowed into the locker-room. I immediately got a call from Gayle Reaves, a founder of the Association for Women Journalists. 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? It was supposed to be about the fact that I had some negative things to say about my early work environment. [4] The Herald's then owner, News Corporation, offered to transfer her to Sydney, Australia, where she worked for The Daily Telegraph and the Sydney Morning Herald. The players didn't know I'd grown up with games or that my best friends had usually been crude guys or that I could open a beer bottle with my incisors or that I liked to fish as much as they did. If I never went in a locker room, it would have been fine with me, Ludtke said. 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