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Image result for serena williams crying us open(Image from Youtube.com)

Women in sports are often seen as a second tier when compared to men’s sports. I have seen this to be true since I was in high school. I played on the boys varsity soccer team and watched how much more importance was put in the boys team than the girls team. Girls only made the school news for some examples of critical theory such as, a girl playing on an all boys football team. I am not sure how it resolved, but remember clearly that a girl had tried out and made the Woodlands Junior Varsity football team. This was news that was communicated throughout the school because it was so outside of the norm. Upon graduation from high school, I saw almost no difference in the college atmosphere. A female basketball player in my class at the University of Houston actually made the comment that women sports are not promoted nearly as much as the men’s sports in collegiate athletics. She stated how everyone knew that UH men’s basketball team lost in a buzzer beater in last year’s NCAA basketball tournament but nobody knew that the women’s team qualified to play in the Women’s National Invitational Tournament (WNIT) for the first time in seven years. Despite losing in the first round, this is a big feat. But as she told the class, almost nobody knew. I’ll be the first to say that I hadn’t heard of it either. This is actually what inspired me to start this blog. Women deserve to be acknowledged in the same way as men.

Coverage for professional sports is no different as men’s professional sports has significantly higher coverage than women’s professional sports. The U.S. Open is one of the more recent events that was nationally covered. A simple way of seeing that male dominance is assured is by typing “U.S. Open” on Google. The first result will show Novak Djokovic as the champion with an option to click on a tab to see who the women’s champion was. Even going to the official website http://www.usopen.org will give you the same result with men being on the front page and women being left as an option. Why is it like this? Men in professional sports are a cultural hegemony as they are the preferred media coverage in almost every sense. The only reason that Serena Williams is getting more coverage in this tournament is because of the comments she made during her match against Naomi Osaka in the U.S. Open Final. Williams made several remarks expressing her disapproval of sexism in the sport. On actual footage of the game Serena is heard saying, “You know how many other men do things that are much worse than that? There’s a lot of men out here who have said a lot of things but because they are men that doesn’t happen to them.” These comments were made after Williams was penalized for calling umpire Carlos Ramos a thief for taking a point away from her. The decision by Carlos Ramos is controversial as both the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and United States Tennis Association (USTA) have backed Williams’ claims of sexism. According to http://www.skysports.com, WTA CEO, Steve Simon, responded to the events that occurred in the U.S. Open Final by saying, “Yesterday also brought to the forefront the question of whether different standards are applied to men and women in the officiating of matches. The WTA believes that there should be no different in the standards of tolerance provided to the emotions expressed by men vs. women and is committed to working with the sport to ensure that all players are treated the same. We do not believe this was done last night.” I support this statement completely. The fact that a male CEO of a women’s association acknowledges a difference in the standards applied to each gender goes on to show that it truly is a problem. Women should not be treated differently than men and deserve the same coverage in all sports. Steps are being ensured to promote equality for women but the process is moving too slow. The National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL) was only recently founded in 2015. This was a great move for women in sports, however the difference is still there. Women in the NWHL average a $10,000 to $26,000 salary, according to http://www.theglobeandmail.com. In 2011, Men in the NHL averaged a salary of $2.4 million, according to work.chron.org. This is not acceptable.

Women deserve the same treatment as men. In order to accomplish this, the nation needs to stop promoting this biased coverage. It’s only reassuring men that their dominance isn’t threatened when in reality, it should be. Women work just as hard as men and therefore should be treated equally in terms of punishment, pay, and coverage.

The Story Behind Zach Smith’s Twitter Rant Against Tom Herman

Zach Smith was an assistant coach at Ohio State until allegations of domestic abuse over the summer caused him to be fired by the university. Smith has denied these allegations and continues to claim that they are false despite all signs pointing towards them being true. Smith’s recent behavior on Twitter has not done much to help his claims, but Brett McMurphy’s recent report accusing Smith of using a racial slur towards Trevon Grimes has given Smith newfound credibility that he hasn’t earned.

On Sunday Zach Smith got on Twitter and finally decided that it was time to show the world the type of people Tom Herman and his wife Michelle are. Smith threw out multiple accusations saying Tom had cheated on his wife with an Asian masseuse and an Iowa State recruiting girl. Smith made multiple tweets calling Herman a “snitch” and a “hypocrite” and then posted a lengthy text message tirade he sent to Herman where Tom’s only response was, “Ok. Cool Hook ‘Em!🤘🏼” Michelle Herman never responded to Smith directly, but did change her twitter bio to read, #OkCoolHookEm 🤘🏼 which shows her solidarity with her husband despite Smith’s tweets painting their relationship as rocky at best.

Smith’s Twitter outburst likely would have been a meme for a couple days and then mostly forgotten if Brett McMurphy hadn’t also resurfaced with his report that Smith called Trevon Grimes a racial slur. Smith of course denied the allegations, but this time he had far more support. Grimes, along with Ohio State administration and players also denied the allegations against Smith. McMurphy’s main source in the report was Trevon Grime’s father, LeBron Grimes, who Trevon claims he has not had contact with for the last two years. However, McMurphy stood by his reporting despite multiple players who witnessed the incident denying that a racial slur was used.

This report came just two days after Smith’s twitter tirade and immediately Zach Smith jumped into action calling McMurphy a “phony” and also calling McMurphy a liar. This time around people seemed to side with Smith, although the reactions of the Ohio State players certainly helped. Smith seemed to come away from this set of allegations without incident, but McMurphy’s credibility was definitely hurt by the backlash his report received.

For me however, all of this happened way too close together to just be a coincidence. Smith takes to Twitter to accuse Tom Herman of cheating on his wife, and then two days later a report comes out which accuses Smith of using racial slurs against his players. It’s far too convenient that Smith decided that Sunday afternoon was the time to unleash the “truth” and expose Herman. Luckily for Smith no one who was actually there that day corroborated McMurphy’s report, but there’s a far bigger story behind this that just shows you the type of person Zach Smith is.

Smith had to have found out about these upcoming allegations, or maybe he knew that a new McMurphy report against him was coming. Whatever the case, we know McMurphy contacted Trevon Grimes before the report was published to get a statement from him, and it wouldn’t surprise me if word got around to Smith, or Grimes himself told him that McMurphy was making another report on him. Grimes after all was a wide receiver at Ohio State, and Smith was the receivers coach so they very likely had each other’s phone numbers, and at least a working relationship until Grimes transferred to Florida. Plus the grapevines between coaches and players run very deep in college football. For McMurphy to contact so many people for his report and not a word of it to make its way to Smith would be very unlikely.

The rest of this is entirely speculation, but I think it follows that Smith attempted to formulate some kind of plan to deal with this report. Whether Smith’s twitter outburst was planned by him and his lawyer, or all the product of Smith’s thinking is unknown, but to me the allegations against Herman were Smith’s way of creating smoke ahead of a new McMurphy report. After the report came out Smith realized that he wasn’t going to be attacked for these allegations, and backed down from the Hermans. Ever since the McMurphy report Smith hasn’t said anything about the allegations he made on Sunday and has instead focused all of his attention on McMurphy, along with his lawyer.

Obviously there is no way of knowing what Smith’s plan was, but to me it’s clear he wanted to use Tom and Michelle to deflect attention away from him and save face. He still has not been found guilty of any domestic abuse charges, but his actions are definitely not the actions of a man looking to prove his innocence. Zach Smith still views himself as a victim despite his ex-wife’s obvious torment through all of this. Smith is still attempting to manipulate people, but thanks to McMurphy’s report he has gained credibility despite the fact that none of McMurphy’s reports on Smith’s domestic abuse have been shown to be false. This whole situation has become a net positive for Smith, and unless some more information about his domestic abuse surfaces, he likely won’t face any repercussions for it.

Concussions in College Sports

Over the last decade we’ve become much more aware of the effects that concussions can have on a person, and how multiple concussions and repeated blows to the head can create long-term brain damage. We’ve all heard about how football leads to CTE and we’ve become very familiar with the many stories of NFL players suffering from the disease, but there’s one side of the story we haven’t heard yet.

In 2014 the NCAA released the results of a study based on self-reported concussion rates among student-athletes. The report showed the rates of self-reported concussions among men and women, as well as the odds of suffering a concussion in various sports, and one sport in particular stands out from the rest.

Concussion Rates NCAA

Women’s ice hockey has by far the highest rate of self-reported concussions in college athletics, despite having only 92 teams from all levels of NCAA competition. Even compared to the men’s game, women are 43% more likely to report having suffered from a concussion than men are.

Now obviously, being that these are self-reported there is a chance that players may not be truthful in their reporting. There has been a long tradition in men’s sports of “toughing it out” and not reporting injuries, including concussions, for fear of appearing weak. There’s also the chance that players may be exaggerating their claims of suffering from concussions. There was no medical study undertaken to examine the legitimacy of all reported concussions, so it’s possible that players are both under reporting and over reporting concussions.

Despite these flaws in the study, it’s still very obvious that women tend to suffer from concussions at a higher rate than men, and that’s with women reporting concussions at a lower rate than men.

Concussion Rates NCAA Men & Women

Even when comparing sports played by both genders like soccer, basketball, and ice hockey, the women have the higher odds of receiving a concussion.

Our next question has to be, why is this the case? The obvious first answer would be that women aren’t able to handle the physical contact of hockey like men are, but the study concludes that the risk factor for concussions was not significantly affected by the participant’s sex. In fact the study concludes that the sport a student-athlete was playing was the most important risk factor for players. It’s also important to point out that women’s ice hockey does not allow checking like the men’s game, so hard contact is not as likely although it does still happen.

Another significant factor in the rate of concussions would be the sample size of the athletes surveyed. There are only 92 women’s ice hockey teams at all levels of the NCAA compared to 149 men’s ice hockey teams. A smaller sample size would mean that one female athlete reporting a concussion would have a larger impact on the percentage than one male athlete would. This would help to explain the differences in the rates in sports like basketball, and soccer, but the rate of concussions in the women’s game is so much higher than the men’s game that it can’t just be explained away as a problem with sample size.

The study itself doesn’t offer any answers to the question either, and instead leaves the results open to interpretation. What we can say for sure is that there is a problem with women’s ice hockey and that something needs to be done to help lower the concussion rates in the sport. The problem is that, much like other women’s sports, there isn’t a large following, and most fans of the sport likely don’t even know about the high rate of concussions. Right now women’s ice hockey is in a similar position as the NFL and NCAA were in the 80s and 90s where concussion rates are high, but awareness of the problem is very low.

This is an issue that needs to be addressed, but it won’t be addressed if people don’t know about it. Now that you know it’s time to get the word out and let the NCAA know that we want player safety to be the focus of all sports, not just football.