After Atalanta

Here I am, two days in a row, writing about baseball though I care very little for it. And even though I don't feel the need to blog about major stories in mainstream sports, I try to address the ones that are relevant in ways that fall under the (somewhat abstract) purview of this blog. The mission of Sports Law Blog , from what I can discern from the title and description, is to write about issues that pertain to sport and law. Or as the authors put it "all things legal relating to the sports world..." This is what one finds when one does a search of the blog using the term "Mitchell." Seems reasonable. This is big news. The bloggers have some very strong opinions on it. They are adding to the growing discourse. It is certainly about sport and there are legal implications and analysis one can engage with. This is what one finds when one searches the blog using the term "Fresno." Don't bother scrolling all the way down; there's nothing there...

Title IX is always in the news (as you will see if you check over at The Title IX Blog ), but a few interesting things have happened this week: 1. Anson Dorrance, coach of the very successful women's soccer team at University of North Carolina, is heading to court in the spring of next year to answer charges of sexual harassment brought by a former player. This case began in 1998 and was initially dismissed before a Court of Appeals overturned the dismissal. Unless there's a settlement, a jury will hear all the stories of how Dorrance kicked soccer balls into the backsides of his players and other such egregious behaviors in April. 2. Down in Florida, former (now fired) assistant softball coach Gina Ramacci at Florida Gulf Coast University has filed a complaint with the university alleging Title IX and Title VII discrimination in her case. Ramacci was accused of having inappropriate relations with a student-athlete on her team. A sexual relationship was never proven and Ramacci...

I reached 10,000 hits on Tuesday thanks, in part, to Agnes Szavay. More on that later. But until this week it had been rather slow. Only a few people looking for those glitter headbands or Abby Wambach's sexuality. So some of these are old. 1. I heard Lindy Vivas, the former Fresno State volleyball coach who recently won a hefty settlement [UPDATE: Fresno State just filed a motion for a new trial but they won't release on what grounds yet], on the radio last month talking about gender discrimination. She mentioned that there is an obsessive interest in female coaches' sexuality. No kidding. There have been lots of searches for "(coach's name) gay." And of course there's interest in the sexuality of athletes. And lest we think this is just an American phenomenon, note that some people in Malaysia have found After Atalanta by searching for "Azalina lesbian." Azalina is the woman I wrote about a while ago because she won an award for advancing the c...

It has been a big summer for Title IX news. In addition to the 35th anniversary last month there have been a couple of prominent cases and/or investigations that the legislation has figured into. One I wrote about earlier this week. Former Fresno State volleyball coach Lindy Vivas won a hefty settlement against her former employer. The follow-up to that story is the interest California state legislators are now taking in gender equity in athletics. This story and accompanying video clip state that legislators plan on looking into the CSU system to see whether this is a bigger problem or if the Vivas incident was an isolated one. Save your time and money: it was not. The other two cases pending that involve former Fresno State female coaches suggests certainly that Fresno has a problem. But even beyond Fresno I think the lawmakers will be shocked to see the crap that female coaches and athletic administrators endure. Also in Title IX news, Florida Gulf Coast University just completed an...

Earlier this week Lindy Vivas, former volleyball coach at Fresno State was awarded $5.85 million by a jury that decided her former employer had discriminated against her. The Vivas trial is actually the first of three by former female coaches at Fresno State. The article linked AP story, also used by ESPN , paints the trial as addressing a single issue: that of retaliation. The suit contended that Vivas was fired despite her successful record because she complained about the lack of gender equity in the department. The other coaches have made like accusations. And from what I hear from California, the jurors certainly saw Fresno State's actions as retaliation against an individual who was trying to get Title IX enforced. But the article leaves out the claims made by Vivas that she was also released because of her perceived sexual orientation: the powers that be thought she was gay. Appalling stories of Ugly Women Athletes Day and of discourse around our team (heteros) and their te...