Sexual Assault in Sports: Cool Those Jets, Boys
Sports and the Lack of Personal Discipline
The beauty of competition. Fire. Emotion. The spirit of the challenge. The home run. Touchdown catch. The strikeout. The diving tackle. Strong, gifted athletes displaying their athletic prowess on a field of play. Baseball. Football. Every sport has its own interior logic, movement and strategy. But each sport demands a passionate commitment from its athletes. Their intensity. Their dedication. Until their aggression spills off the field, a woman is assaulted, harassed, and the player and the league have a problem. All because the player displayed no personal discipline.
Aggression—assault in another context—matched with the desire to win is the hallmark of an outstanding athlete. On the field of play. Without such passion, athletes cannot play professional sports. But what every sport encourages on the playing field within the rules of the sport is legal. But when Kareem Hunt tossed a young girl around like she was a tackling dummy, disregarding the consequences, even going so far as to kick her when she was down, that went beyond the pale of proper behavior because he was in a hotel lobby, not on a practice field in Kansas City.
Or Aroldis Chapman who gripped his girlfriend’s throat like the seams of a baseball he was about to hurl 100 plus mile per hour, before squeezing the trigger on a revolver, firing off bullets that terrorized her. And what about the Mets’ GM Steve Phillips? Or Harold Reynolds who was allegedly fired from ESPN for sexual harassment in 2006, according to the New York Post and the Associated Press. Of course, Reynolds is now a featured analyst on MLB.com.
These are the actions of angry, emotionally unstable individuals who might be champions in another context, but in this context have committed questionable, even criminal actions. Ultimately, it’s about a lack of personal discipline.
Actions that can ruin a career, a team’s championship season and cause mayhem for those selling the moral purity of the game. The NFL Commissioner. The MLB Commissioner. All these men who make millions of dollars policing the morality of the game, when, in fact, they’re making their money finding band-aids to patch the constant fractures that tarnish their image. Anything to paper over this transgression or that, rather than implement a consistent, responsible policy to address the lack of personal discipline that defines the sexual predators in their midst.
And it’s not just the NFL or MLB that’s at issue. It’s many men in many walks of life. From the recent travails of Leslie Moonves, the President of CBS, to Neil deGrasse Tyson, the astrophysicist, recently charged with sexual assault and harassment. Shocking me. I didn’t expect to find physicists on this list. But if Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein and Charlie Rose can sexually assault women, why not deGrasse Tyson? Or Kareem Hunt and Reuben Foster? Or Aroldis Chapman? Even if Bret Boone thinks it’s hilarious.
Time to Punt? Had Enough?
The men who run these businesses worry about loss of revenue. Loss of prestige. What can happen when their world turns upside down, revenues diminish, and sponsors run for a safer, sexier sell. And all because of one or two bad apples who can’t cool their jets. These past few weeks, football has borne the brunt of the assault and harassment spotlight. Who’s next?
The current sporting paradox. An athletically gifted man assaulting a woman—wives, girlfriends and even women they don’t know. And then trying to rely on their MOM and apple pie to weasel their way out of the predicament. Just listen to Kareem Hunt’s limp excuse. If he played football like that, he’d be selling shoes in Hicksville. But once there’s a video, or a conviction, ownership has no choice but to jettison the player—even if he’s a star.
See, we acted, Kansas City might say. When their action is a thin bandage over a gaping wound. Not an actionable plan.
Apparently, the Kansas City Chiefs knew of the Kareem Hunt incident for quite a while and would have papered it over had not the video gone viral on the internet, forcing Kansas City to act. Reluctantly releasing Hunt. Undoubtedly a painful choice.
Now the question is, how much time will lapse before one of the other NFL teams, needing a top-notch running back, signs Kareem Hunt to a contract? In the NFL, it’s only a matter of time before someone breaks the rules. On the field, they’re penalized. Off the field, there’s grumbling. On the field, the only ones with a comprehensive plan are the offensive and defensive coordinators who have to ready their team for the coming opponent. Off the field, there is no plan. No one with a stomach to tackle the problem squarely—stop it for a loss behind the line of scrimmage.
So, from the standpoint of civil society, Hunt and Reuben Foster (arrested by the Tampa Bay Police on charges of misdemeanor domestic violence against his girlfriend) have become public menaces. Were Mr. Hunt to become a convicted criminal, he would be stripped of some of his rights as an American citizen. No laughing matter.
But the Washington Redskins ignored the negative press associated with Reuben Foster, after the San Francisco 49ers released him last week, and signed him to a contract. Annoying their good friends around the NFL who wanted to see Foster languish on the unemployment rolls. Reports say Foster won’t play again this season, but Washington will play him (and pay his salary the rest of this season and) next season now that they’ve retrieved him off the scrap heap. He might even be a real bargain.
But Washington and the NFL will have to face the music every time Foster’s name is called and domestic violence is alluded to. And the music will play often. They can’t always punt.
The More Serious Concern
The NFL or MLB or any other sport or business has yet to take a tough stand against domestic violence and sexual assault. Exactly why is unclear. Since sexual assault and harassment are such odious behaviors to take a stand against. For a league that trumpets itself as tough, strong and masculine, the NFL reaction has been weak, soft and very un-NFL-like.
Even MLB said very little when the New York Yankees pounced on Aroldis Chapman after his proposed swap to the Dodgers was canceled in 2015. The announcement that Chapman had assaulted his girlfriend hit Cincinnati hard. And desperate to rid themselves of his contract, they accepted discounted goods from the Yankees, who were glad to pay 50 cents on the dollar. As for the Yankees, their PR was that they had acquired a great pitcher and were glad to have him.
Domestic abuser, well, as long as he can throw strikes …
Now, three years later, Chapman’s no longer front-page news, but he’s still an abuser. The question is, has he learned his lesson?
A Broader Social Problem Without a Champion
And while professional sports is clearly at fault for not restraining its teams and players from accepting blatantly criminal behavior, this issue bespeaks a broader social problem bedeviling other professions where being macho is important. Police. Construction. The Military. Even television news.
Would Matt Lauer have thought twice about abusing the young women he did were he confronted beforehand by NBC and explicitly told that, if he or any man in the news/entertainment division was accused of sexual harassment, they would be suspended or fired immediately? True, it was easy to replace Lauer. Poof. But who’s to say the next emotionally unstable man drunk on power is not waiting in the wings at NBC right now? And what has NBC done to forestall his inappropriate actions? Or CBS? Or ESPN?
More than likely, Mr. Hunt and Mr. Foster are athletically gifted enough to work as wrestlers or some other athletic pursuits, but for nowhere near the money they could earn as football players. Perhaps they might be able to appreciate the reasons for behavioral restraint around women if they had been more aware of the economic costs of their actions, forgetting the potential criminality of their acts for the moment. Of course, if the NFL had acted decisively, had pancaked them for a painful economic loss, then other players might think twice when it’s their turn.
At least each major sporting league should make it clear to its players how it stands regarding sexual assault and harassment so the player understands he risks his career if he acts in this manner. Instead of wishy-washy policies that provide room for cover-ups and denials before the league or team has to admit that a player committed a criminal action. It seems this is the minimum these leagues should do, since they have a chance to correct a disturbing trend, safeguard the lives of the women who associate with their employees, and encourage a broader audience by showing the public they will not accept criminal behavior in their business any longer. But who will take the first step? Where is the champion?
