After Atalanta

Yesterday's NYT had an article about whether gay people were planning on "boycotting" the Sochi Olympics by not watching the games when they begin next week. Some of those interviewed, who noted that they were indeed fans of the Olympics, said they didn't feel right watching feeling that doing so would be a sign of support for Russia's anti-gay policies and sentiments. But, as Hilary Rosen of CNN and others have noted, not watching the Olympics will not have a direct effect on Russia. Russia will feel the effects, however, if fewer people attend the events and spend money in the country, as has been predicted . Russia has the games. Despite calls from different sectors to take the games away from Russia (rather unrealistic but at least someone said it), they will occur in the country. The goal, going forward, should be to make sure that such a problematic choice does not happen again. How to go about this? Well if we boycott Olympic sponsors like McDonalds an...

At the NCAA conference this past week in San Antonio some interesting new data was revealed. It appears that student-athletes don't trust their coaches a whole lot. And apparently the coaches of women's basketball are the worst--according to their players. Only 39 percent of respondents said they trusted their coaches. The same percentage said their coaches "defined success by not only winning, but winning fairly." Just over a third said they wanted to spend less time with their coaches. This is compared to 21 percent of female student-athletes in other sports. The Women's Basketball Coaches Association is responding to the findings by establishing an ethics committee that will examine the compliance rules around coaches' behaviors and players' experiences. Isn't this kind of exactly what female physical educators and administrators were worrying about in the 70s and 80s when women's sports were being brought into the NCAA model? Not an especially ...