SAGAL: Michele Tafoya, we're delighted to have you with us. Man, did I ever realize how my attitude and courage level had changed. All most know how to do is bitch about the Cowboys and Mavericks and Rangersabout their (a) record, (b) salaries, (c) coach or managerand praise the "kick-butt" barbecue they make before watching 18 hours of football on Sundays. TAFOYA: Well, you have to maneuver around that. But by then I had gotten to know the sportswriters and broadcasters, and the Star-Telegram offered me a jobin sportstyping in scores and answering the phone. For instance, there are things I might say to a friend or even a casual coworker that I wouldn't think a thing about, but I stop short of saying such things to the players. Maybe I didn't belong here. SAGAL: And is this something you always wanted to do? Whoops! I had started wandering longingly over to the sports department, just to talk about baseball. Mike called me into his office and told me he was now "into it" for passing on the piece. We won some awards, and I gained some confidence and perspective. ")[5] Later, on February 4, 1991, at a male-only sports banquet in Stamford, Connecticut, Kiam told the attendees a crude joke about the incident. Once I stopped and they looked up, so I started spinning around in circles. [6], After Olson complained, describing the experience as a "mind rape",[4] team owner Victor Kiam allegedly described her as a "classic bitch." Except she. Jane Gross was cracking basketballs barrier while covering the Long Island Nets. They said they weren't selling those yet because they hadn't been tagged. On this day in 1977, Melissa Ludtke was barred from reporting the World Series from the teams' locker rooms. All of my male media brethren went cruising into this sacred place, and then, there was only methe lone female reporter covering a USC football gamewaiting outside. Its my fault, Walsh said, his eyes still glistening. The NFL also sent a memo to all 32 teams in the league Thursday reminding them of its equal access and conduct policy toward the media. But back in 1975, Robin Herman, a 23-year old reporter for the New York Times, had been trying to get NHL teams to allow her access to locker rooms for a year, with no success. "He just doesn't" was suddenly sufficient and I knew a grown-up secret, like writing checks, making babies, or reading words. Herman, who is now assistant dean for research communications at Harvards School of Public Health, has written about that night many times, including a first-person article in the Times a few weeks later. He remembered me. Do you go into the locker room? It was very business-like. And you know, they all say that word so well. Ines Sainz, a reporter for the Mexican network TV Azteca, gestures while working on the sideline during the second quarter of an NFL football between the New York Jets and the Baltimore Ravens at . KURTIS: She did great because she got two right. I was ready once again to be the greatest sportswriter who ever lived. Up until then, my assignments had been small-time: high school games and features on father-daughter doubles teams and Hacky Sack demonstrations. I went into the girls' locker room by mistake, and considering it was a room with open showers in one area, I was in for a real surprise. We still booted women took off the nfl reporter locker room in female reporter paola boivin felt a sports reporters are uncommon, adult . So why are they going to think the reporter is any different at first? I concluded my sports hiatus last year with a stint on a special projects news team, collaborating with another reporter on a series about Fort Worth's high infant-mortality rate. We were a middle-class family of four with one kid just a few years from college and another a few years from kindergarten. I'm sure he's been naked in the room where I was at some time. OK, pre-game festivities concluded, I went back up to the press box to start writing some pre-game sidebar. SAGAL: OK. The misconceptions about the atmosphere are overrated. So you've been in the Mavericks locker room? Specific. A collage on the walls above them shows newspaper headlines and media coverage of famous victories, ringing the small dressing room like a halo. Michele Tafoya, welcome to WAIT WAITDON'T TELL ME! [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. Will Saturday be the last game for Jason Kelce at Lincoln Financial Field? SAGAL: But I want to know how you got from there. In no other workplace in America are you expected to be putting your clothes on, and somebodys going to talk to you. According to the Chicago Tribune, Briggs stands behind his comments. But I learned to do news as well. I was so happy I was almost crying, but I was trying to sound very nonchalant while Glenn was giving me the particulars. It seems in those years I was the only writer who could converse with Julio Franco and Brian Downing. The latter are supposed to be more humorous than the former, though adulthood has taught me different. He said I was loitering. I was down there to see the guy turn off the lights for the last day game. They see how (or if) players interact; get some idea as to who's happy, who's not, and maybe find out why or why not. It's the way we measure all people, the Homo sapiens equivalent of sniffing butts by the fire hydrant. He was home and reading stuff on the wire, as we called it at the time. At the same time, my marriage began taking ugly, unspeakable turns. All rights reserved. Yeah, my ode to the old stadium won it all. 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. SAGAL: I did. I somehow persuaded them to open it and sell the book to me. But now it was late September, and my editor wanted me to interview Mr. October about what it was like not to make the playoffs. teams to allow her and other women reporters access to athletes in the postgame locker room when, unexpectedly, the two coaches at the 1975 N.H.L. SAGAL: The club was famed for its beverage known as Fish House Punch, which according to legend was so potent, it knocked George Washington out of commission for three days. TAFOYA: I mean, you get to know every single coach and how he's going to respond to you in TAFOYA: that moment, and you just sort of brace for it. It was an area high school coach who routinely tried to get me to drop by his house when his wife was out of town; when I refused for the third time, he refused to provide any more than perfunctory answers to my story questions. I head down the steps, past the seats where I couldn't even afford to sit when I was a kid, open heaven's gate, and walk onto the field. Oh, Lord. The players dont care, I dont care, heynobody cares! Briggs first said women journalists should be barred from locker rooms during an interview with Peggy Kusinski of NBCChicago.com on Wednesday, the same day the NFL issued a memo that said women . It was when all the guys were inside doing interviews, and I was standing in the rain, makeup peeling, outside the high school locker room at Fort Worth's Farrington Field, waiting beneath the six-foot-long "No Women" sign for the players to come to the doorway. The following year, a federal judge struck down the MLB policy on 14th Amendment grounds. He was thrilled to get an interview, and was so polite and warm, I didnt realize he was wearing practically nothing while I spoke with him. One of the most famous all-male gentlemen's clubs in London was the Reform Club with the fictional Phineas Fogg started and ended his trip around the world in 80 days. Am I right? That's when a security guard came up to me to ask why I was there. I was trying to work and didn't feel I had the time for petty bullshit. And I got there, and she came out to stand next to me on the steps there, and she was wearing a very low-cut, and she was ginormous, and TAFOYA: and I couldn't even look at her eyebrows, I was too focused on TAFOYA: But I did offer to donate some yamakas. I should have told him how sad it was that he had to rub his own. [6] The general manager of the team was fired. [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. No one seems to know when the first female Equipment Manager was hired. Though there have been numerous instances of female reporters being harassed or discriminated against over the years, Ludtke says most players were surprisingly receptive to her presence afterward. They mostly acted like brats. After the game, he stood at the door of the locker room and told Visser, "There might be a naked boy in there, but I don't give a s___t." The best advice I ever got was go get a job somewhere. Thank you for visiting Slap Shot. I began to cry. Players mostly accept that strangers will see them au naturel. essentially logistical problem that could easily have been solved by a few big towels.. Good God, all I had wanted to do was cover sports. A large portion of a reporter's job is coverage of cultural aspects. I can't understand the idiots who call the sports department and want to talk to a man on the phone instead of meor some guy who goes out of his way to spit Niblets on me. Some readers had similar problems accepting a woman. But a little girl with blonde pin curls somehow slipped into the line of succession. [7][8], Eventually, NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue ordered an investigation under the aegis of former Watergate scandal prosecutor Philip Heymann;[5] the 60-page report concluded that Olson was "degraded and humiliated." Mowatt was fined $12,500, the other two players $5,000, and the team itself $50,000, since no management had intervened at the time or immediately following. If I did ever fall hopelessly head over heels for one of these men, it would not be because I had noticed a pterodactyl-size penis, but for the same reasons I'd fall for anyone else. Perfect. It is the sports leagues and teams that decided interviews were to be ", TAFOYA: I spent about eight seasons before that on "Monday Night Football.". She is currently involved in a court case to allow women reporters in sports locker rooms. Melissa Ludtke, then a writer for Sports Illustrated, is shown in her New York office in Januar 1978. Why? On Tuesday, Portis told 106.7 The Fan that both players and female reporters have wandering eyes when the sexes are mixed in a locker room setting. I know they don't know what they're talking about. What does it really matter if the rest of the world knows? It's not a place for socialising. In 1982, Visser was the first woman in Coach Bear Bryant's locker room. All the culprits are either long gone or have actually apologized, saying they just didn't know better at the time. I sat at some random desk to look busy for a while, which is what sportswriters do every week or three. If he's uneasy, it's time to get out of the stirrups. The bouncing, wide-eyed ball girl who wanted to write about baseball more than anything was gone, abandoned in increments on football fields, at locker room doors, in editors' offices, and on barstools. If female journalists are allowed into male locker rooms, then either male journalists should be allowed in female locker rooms or female journalists should not be allowed into male locker rooms. From a New York Times obit by Richard Sandomir headlined "Robin Herman, Who Pried Open Doors in the NHL, Dies at 70":. "May I talk to you?" She lives with three dogs in her happy bungalow in Texas. Customers Modifications . 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.". These arent your high school gym locker roomsmany are increasingly part of multi-room complexes including lounges and training rooms that media cant accessbut journalists would be hard pressed to find so many sources anywhere else. It was also the Bear's last season. Leaking testosterone and reeking of beer, a Jethro Bodin-esque character sidles up and asks what I do. TAFOYA: I'm entering my third season for "Sunday Night Football. NBA teams play 82 games a year, not including playoffs and preseason contests. It was mostly worn, ectoplasm-green indoor-outdoor carpetingand stares. Reporter Beth Ruyak stands holding a mircophone in front the NFC Locker Room before Super Bowl XXV with the New York Giants against the Buffalo Bills. And I know how smartass remarks work, too. TAFOYA: But you do that all the time, don't you? 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. Other interviews are illuminating for the answers they dont elicit. Solutions . I wanted to cry each time he said that. TAFOYA: But still, tune in each Sunday night. It was I wonder how these female reporters and staff would feel showering and changing with men in their locker room? Your job is sort of provide on-field commentary. And his eyes got to be like the size of paper plates because what I didn't notice was that he was buck naked. Raffy, Kenny Rogers, Kevin Brown had their little clique on the far side of the clubhouse. 26 photos, First published on August 12, 2011 / 12:24 PM. "Jenn," my friend told me, "I guess you rate a towel now.". At first, I thought he meant on the job. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Like other working people, professional athletes want to leave the office when their shift ends, so they waste no time stripping down to hit the showers. 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 you won't believe this, and I swear it's true: the immediate response of three women who don't even like sports outside of bungee jumping at Baja is, "You've seen Ro Blackman naked?". But there are still places out there where they believe in cooties, so Tafoya will answer three questions about men's-only clubs. Well, when I finally exited the windy heat of the Texas summer and entered the sanctum of the little air-conditioned room for the press elevator, I fooled with my bangs, which were all over my head, tugged at my knee-length shorts, pressed the "up" button, and turned to the elderly gentleman in charge of checking passes, who was saying, "Jennifer, I saw your story in the Observer.". Referring to the United States military's use of Patriot missiles during the then-ongoing Gulf War, Kiam said to the audience: "What do the Iraqis have in common with Lisa Olson? Like, I understand getting the whole story for your readers. Long goes on to mention how most reporters would brush his concerns aside, which would honestly drive me nuts. Immediately, reporters started asking me, Are you going to do it? We both approached the front desk, where the clerk sided with the guard, saying I could remain for 10 more minutes, but only if I stayed out of the central lobby and remained "mobile." I kept saying, Im not the story; the game is the story,' Herman said, reflecting on the night. Point guards became my instant favorites for those early post-shower interviews. Fear of the unknown tends to do that to you. Before I could utter a word, he said, "Wait, let me rub it, it will get hard.". I walked away shaking his hand, wishing him luck and noticed my hand wasnt trembling anymore and I was oozing confidence. The immediate response is curiosity: Do I get to go in the locker room? At first glance, it wasnt bad. 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. I ended up covering minor events full time, even doing the dreaded office score-taking work again. On Sept. 25, 1978, a judge ruled that women should be allowed to enter 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 started out in the office, taking scores on the phone and taking heat from the guys. When a guy is naked, hes probably more honest than not.. But instead, the man who is an idol to thousands of children launched into a verbal tirade loudly insulting my intelligence and shouting for someone to remove me from the clubhouse. Other summer nights we sat on the back porch and listened to the Rangers on the radio. It might as well have been a water cooler. Me, the girl who has no fear, was nervous. And I have shared that with very few people. The reasoning behind this policy is that players are more likely to be relaxed and open with reporters after they have had a chance to cool down and take a shower. or "You haven't written any good stones in the last month. To begin, I want to point out that female reporters have every right to be in the locker room as male reporters do. I spun around and walked outpast the staring faces, through the red door, down the 10,000-year-old bat-guano tunneland emerged into the dugout and the light of the real world, where I was nothing but a kid reporter who didn't get the story. I don't like the double-standard we have with male-female divide. TAFOYA: I was too focused on his eyebrows. I said, "Well, you better get used to it now, because there are women all over clubhouses in the big leagues. Sports presenter Charlie Webster isn't surprised and explains what life is like for women who . About two yards down, I see legs behind the batting cage. I refused to leave. many of her friends were going through similar, if much less public, struggles in fields like advertising and law and medicine. The exchange between Newton and Rodrigue rightfully spurred a much needed discussion about women and sports journalism, so I decided to ask three former NFL players to speak candidly about their views on women reporters. I'd heard the stories: the tales of women who felt forced to make a stand at the clubhouse door; of the way you're supposed to never look down at your notepad, or a player might think you're snagging a glimpse at his crotch; about how you've always got to be prepared with a one-liner, even if it means worrying more about snappy comebacks than snappy stories. Pages at www.npr.org for further information permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information there see... Do every week or three law and medicine cooties, so I started in... Cry each time he said that ; s locker room Tribune, Briggs stands behind comments... 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