After Atalanta

According the Title IX Blog, the University of Iowa athletic department is in trouble --again. Several years ago there was Pierre Pierce incident in which the star basketball player was accused of sexual assault against a female student-athlete. His coach, Steve Alford, came to his defense long before any evidence was in. Turns out the evidence did not quite exonerate Pierce who, regardless, got off lightly--to put it mildly. Not too long afterwards he was involved in another criminal offense and this time he was out. Now a couple of members of the football team have been accused of assault and harassment of a female student-athlete who was told not to come forward with her allegations because it would handled from within. Except that it wasn't, of course. The harassment continued despite assurances from football coach Kirk Ferentz and AD Gary Barta that things would be taken care of. I mentioned this case to someone not as familiar with athletic department culture who was incredul...

...apple pie and baseball. Good thing, too, for the members of the De Anza Community College baseball team in California who are being charged with absolutely nothing after sexually assaulting a teenager (17 years old) at a house party. The ripple effects of the Duke lacrosse apparently have run all the way across the country because despite witnesses and a huge amount of local publicity, none of the eight men are being prosecuted because the DA claims there is not enough evidence. Twisty at I Blame the Patriarchy and Diane at The Dees Diversion have posted about the case so I won't go into just how ridiculous it is that once again the players and their supporters are crying "poor persecuted white men are we." That's been covered. I will say that it is quite saddening to find that, even as many of us yearn for more women in positions of power, that a woman actually in power were at the center of the decision not to prosecute: the DA Dolores Carr. I figured out long a...

UNC and Maryland. The rematch of last year's championship game. Soldout crowd on the Terps home turf. UNC ended up getting their revenge, winning 81-74. In a game many see as exemplifying just how far women's basketball has come, a few moments remind us just how different the "rules" are in women athletics. Some say the game was marked by bad officiating. [Here I should own up to the fact that although I appreciate women's basketball and follow it occasionally, I know very little about the actual game and so cannot really discern the efficacy of the refereeing.] UMD coach Brenda Frese certainly thought so. She was assessed a technical during the first half when she came four feet or so onto the court to scream at the refs. The commentators (I forget who it was doing the game coverage) noted that the refs were letting Frese know that that kind of behavior was not acceptable in women's basketball. That sideline decorum in the women's game is a must. Would th...