Dominican Republic Sports & Education Academy

I have seen the genitals of some of the world’s most famous athletes.  Let me put that into context before anyone gets the wrong idea.  As a former sports writer and frequent post-game visitor to locker rooms, I have seen football, baseball and basketball stars coming out of the shower and/or giving interviews in their birthday suits.

In many instances there were female reporters asking questions to a naked man, which in all honestly made me uncomfortable.  I remember thinking, “My mother would not approve,” and if she didn’t approve of something, then it was probably inappropriate.

Ines Sainz

Women in the locker room took a new turn recently when Ines Sainz, a reporter for a Mexican network, said she felt uncomfortable in the New York Jet’s locker room after players, including some who were naked, made suggestive comments as she waited to do an interview.  She also said that an assistant coach seemed to deliberately toss a football to players near where Sainz was standing on the sideline during practice.

Sainz is a very attractive woman, and bills herself as “the hottest sports reporter in Mexico,” but that certainly does not give anyone license to harass her, assuming her accusations are true.  And you can’t simply dismiss it to boys being boys as athletes have a responsibility to act in a professional manner when they are in their workplace, be it the field or the locker room.

Sainz said she has no plans to press the issue, but the National Football League is investigating the incident after the Association for Women in Sports Media complained, saying it is committed to creating and maintaining a work environment free of harassment and hostility.

Incidents similar to this have happened in the past, some milder, some decidedly raunchy and offensive, but I think this is one of those minefields with no simple solution.  Keith Lee, a former NFL player and a DRSEA board member, says that when his locker room was first opened to female reporters, his wife demanded he wear a robe.  He added, “As a former pro football player, I felt I was sexually harassed by the presence of female reporters in my workplace.  According to law, it made me feel ‘uncomfortable’.  Harassment doesn’t have to be in the form of words.”

But other players will tell you that the locker room is their sanctuary and if female reporters enter than they have to deal with the environment, naked men and all.

Some teams have experimented with a separate interview room; problem is that the locker room interview immediately following the game usually produces the best quotes.  The longer the time between the end of a game and an interview, the staler the answers to questions, so women reporters want access to those fresh locker room interviews.

I think there is a fine line between sexual harassment and boyish antics, but how and when that line is crossed is blurry.  Complimenting one woman on what she is wearing could be offensive to another.

I am taken aback sometimes here in the Dominican Republic because I see women routinely subjected to stares and comments, many of them very specific, but it seems to be socially accepted.  I tell men that if they made such comments in the United States, they would be accused of sexual harassment.  Their response: “Well, we are not in the United States.”

And the NFL locker room is not a common workplace environment to be sure.  Question is, how do you maintain this male domain – which it clearly is – while at the same time providing equal access for women reporters to do their job in what certainly can be an uncomfortable climate for some?

Howard University Sports Information Director Edward Hill Jr.

One of my favorite people in this world is Edward Hill, Jr., the sports information director at Howard University in Washington, D.C.  He serves as the primary contact for the Bison men’s basketball and football teams, but produces information and statistics on all sports at the university.

I have known Eddie for more than 20 years now, having first worked with him on a conference I produced annually at Howard for a number of years, but I really got to know him when his kindness and generosity helped me get through a tough period of my life.

I had been working out of my house and was going crazy within the confines of the dwelling and what was swirling in my life at the time.  I asked Eddie if he could provide me with a desk in his office, a place that I could at least escape the boredom.  He readily agreed and even assigned me an extension I could use to receive calls.

Within a few weeks, he began asking me to review copy for his media guides, edit them for typos and grammar.  I was only to happy to oblige. And, within a month or so, he actually persuaded the university to compensate me for my assistance; this was at a time when I was unemployed and struggling to make ends meet by freelance writing.  I not only had a place to go every day, I had a job that was important and interesting for someone who loves sports.  And I got to know Eddie well; as we discussed all issues under the sun, we became friends.

Eddie is also an adjunct professor at Howard, teaching a sports and media course every spring and I often am a speaker in his class.  He is also active in the D.C. community where he serves as head coach and co-founder of the DC Warriors basketball program and as a counselor for the National Youth Sports Program.

Oh, and Eddie is a devout Muslim.

I say that because I thought of Eddie recently due to all the anti-Muslim sentiment that seems to be sweeping the United States in the form of protests over a proposed mosque near Ground Zero and a threatened burning of the Koran.  And all I can think of is Eddie Hill, who is a prince among men, in part because of the teachings of his faith.

The basic principles of Islam are principles to live by, including the ways of peace, reverence for education and intellectual pursuit, charity, morality, and the basic equality of mankind.  Eddie practices this every day, as do those who truly follow the Koran, the teachings of the prophet Muhammad, and the divine word of Allah.

When I worked in his office, Eddie would disappear at a certain time of day to go pray, as is also part of his faith.  People looking for him at that time would often make crass remarks and jokes that I dismissed to ignorance.  But I am seeing that ignorance shared by those who would lump a group of extreme terrorists with the millions around the world like Eddie who adhere to the true values of Islam.

The world is complicated enough without holding an entire religion hostage for the actions of a few, no matter how horrid those actions are.  Maybe if those who want to condemn Islam knew Ed Hill, they would understand that.

As-Salaam Alaikum, Ed.

When President Barack Obama tossed out the ceremonial first pitch to open the 2010 baseball season, it marked the centennial of a presidential tradition started by President William Howard Taft.

I couldn’t help but reflect that when Taft started the tradition, the national pastime had an unwritten rule preventing African Americans from playing in the majors.   Poet Walt Whitman was shortsighted when he said “I see great things in baseball.  It’s our game – the American game,” because not all Americans were included.

A hundred years later the world is included in the game – and the man tossing out the first pitch is African American.  Now I see great things in baseball; as my Dominican friends would say, “Es nuestro juego también.”

Richard Lapchick is, by definition, an agitator, though Merriam-Webster stops short of posting his photo next to the entry: one that agitates: as a : one who stirs up public feeling on controversial issues.

In the 25 years I have known Rich, he has stirred more things than Betty Crocker in his quest to use sports to combat racial, gender and social inequities in society; many have dubbed him the “social conscience of sports.”

And, as another college basketball season winds down, Lapchick once again is creating controversy with his annual college basketball study that reports the graduation rates of teams that make the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.  This time, however, the study has drawn the attention of  U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan who is proposing that colleges with poor graduation rates be banned from postseason competition.  While I would hate to see government intervention in college sports, Duncan is correct to call a foul.

According to Lapchick’s analysis, one out of five men’s teams who made the NCAA tournament graduated less than 40 percent of their players over the last six years.

Arne Duncan

Duncan asks the question, “If you can’t manage to graduate two out of five players, how serious are the institutions and the coach about their players’ academic success? How are you preparing student athletes for life?”

More troubling are the dismal graduation rates of African-American ballplayers on some of the tournament teams; five graduated 20 percent or less of their black players and two – Maryland and California – failed to graduate a single black player who started school from 1999 through 2002.

In comparison, the Lapchick report includes seven universities that graduated 100 percent of their basketball players, black and white, and another five with over 80 percent graduation success.  But in contrast, nine teams show a discrepancy of 60 percentage points or more in graduation rates between their white and black players.  “You cannot tell me that discrepancies that large are unrelated to a program’s practices and an institution’s priorities, “ Duncan said.

I couldn’t agree more.  Coaches like Maryland’s Gary Williams argue that programs like his lose players to the NBA and to transfers, but I have to call a tech on Williams; the NCAA factors in those equations in determining accurate graduation rates, so Coach, zero percent graduation is your final score –  you lose.

Gary Williams

But ultimately, you can’t fault Williams, who is in the business of winning basketball games.  I have a riddle:  What do you call a basketball coach with a 100 percent graduation rate and three straight losing seasons?  Answer: Unemployed.

But you can fault Maryland and California, and the 12 universities with men’s teams that have graduation rates below 40 percent, as do three universities’ women’s teams who made that tournament.  These are institutions of higher education; their business is education and they are getting poor to failing grades and need to be held accountable.

Duncan calls his proposal to ban postseason play for teams that fall below the 40 percent graduation rate a “low bar,” that should be increased over time, but it provides a starting line and makes universities accountable for doing their jobs, for providing an education, for keeping score.

As Lapchick concludes,  “As always, there are schools that win big enough to be here in March and graduate their student athletes.”  Secretary Duncan hears him and maybe the NCAA should do something before Duncan does.

I first listened to Rich in the mid 1980s when he walked into the office of the newspaper where I worked, persistent in wanting to meet with me.  I didn’t know him but was familiar with his father, Joe, who, as coach of the New York Knicks, signed Nate “Sweetwater” Clifton, the NBA’s first African American player in 1950.

Rich had started the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University in 1984 to address racial equality in sports and to promote and ensure the education of athletes.

Richard Lapchick

As someone who wrote about college sports, and had already seen the inequities that existed there and throughout the sports industry – including the paper where I worked – I felt an immediate kinship with Lapchick.

In 1989, I joined him at the Center, where I worked as special projects coordinator, specifically with a federally funded program that teamed with colleges to improve support for student athletes.  It was an interesting two years; Rich and I often bumped heads on procedures, but we never wavered from our dedication to improving the landscape for athletes, particularly athletes of color.

I used to laugh because when he first started, people would literally run from Lapchick; he agitated that much, putting the entire sports industry on the carpet, bringing attention to problems the industry was – and to a certain extent remains – reluctant to address.

Our paths continue to cross on a frequent basis; he inspires me and says I do the same for him.   We both believe we can make a difference, that we can use sports as a catalyst for change.  Time will tell.