What are your thoughts on the CU football sex scandal?

[coloradodem2005]

This is a real mess. I am ashamed of my alma mater for all of these goings on. I have read the Top Ten Conservative idiots bit with Barnett talking about Katie Hnida. He definitely deserved to be suspended. That was a terrible thing to say. I am just trying to take the pulse here, even though I think you will say what I have been thinking.

[donco6]

1. CU Got Caught

But there are so many, many others that need to. Nebraska for one. Oklahoma another. They're all doing the same things, and they all need to be slapped down. I'm sick of this stupid way we worship these players. God, in the Denver Post we have a full page of letters to the editor every day - nothing but CU football. As if there's nothing else going on in the world, and certainly nothing that would make someone write a letter to the editor but football. So sad.

[coloradodem2005]

5. To your post I will say,

It is interesting that this stuff is going on all over the United States but the big revalations about it in recent times have been in Colorado. Mainly this and Air Force.

[donco6]

8. That is interesting.

Why here? Celestial confluence?

[BR_Parkway]

2. I thought he got suspended because she did make a police report

but didn't press charges. In her report, she stated that she'd gone to the coach and basically got told that he would support his player over her and that she wouldn't be believed. If I understood that accurately and he actually did it - screw suspension, they should fire him.

[coloradodem2005]

3. No.

He got suspended because of what he said about Hnida. The president even said so in a press conference. I think he should leave. Personally because he either was clueless or tried to ignore what went on.

[lolly]

4. Separate Case

That was another woman who worked with the program--a trainer or something.

She went to Coach with her complaint, and he told her his allegiance was to his player . . .

[FizzFuzz]

14. women aren't really people

I think its one more example of deep misogyny, and its everywhere.
This colorado case, the kobe bryant case, where media refers to him by first name, as if he was their buddy ("Kobe to face court") or its referred to as a sex scandal, rather than RAPE. Bryant is talked about glowingly on sports shows where he is still held up as a man to be respected.

California ignores and the media pays only brief attention to the fact that Arnold ATTACKS women.

Timberlake's participation in the choreographed SuperBowl event is as a RAPIST, but a shocked nation and media focus on JJackson.

Look at the limited vision mass media holds of women: bimbos. (Please don't counter with "but look at all the female characters now who are lawyers, doctors, rocket scientists" They're still shown dressing for work in single's bar attire.)

Take a look at MTV. MTV specifically markets to young male audiences, purposely presenting women as sexual objects. (see "The Marketing of Rebellion", a video which explores MTV's market research methods, clearly defining their efforts as being focused on pulling in the male 18-30's demographic. Girls are described as "midriffs" (there was no discussion in the film of young women as a group to be courted in their own right). But I think that's cleaned up language for the sake of the production. What they were really showing was strictly titsandass. There was alot of woman hating song lyrics featured too.

Read "Our Boys", the story of a group of high school athletes who raped a retarded young woman and got away with the lightest of slaps. The book examines in depth the misogynistic that holds up male athleticism and priveledge, and vilifies women and victims. It tells a story that occured in the 80's but not much has changed.

Read "Fraternity Gang Rape", a study of rape culture and the minimization of male woman-hating in colleges and universities.

Statistics show athletes acused of rape usually walk. (USA today report)

I also read somewhere that on college campuses, athletes and frat members were more often involved in rape than other college men, but I can't remember the source.

[coloradodem2005]

15. Great post.

I agree that there is this issue too. It is terrible. You would think that after all these years we would move beyond this but then again, we get a president like chimp in office. O.J. Simpson would be a pretty good example of these problems too.

[Iris]

18. Check out Clear Channel CEO's statement:

"Clear Channel drew a line in the sand today with regard to protecting our listeners from indecent content and Howard Stern's show blew right through it," John Hogan, president and CEO of Clear Channel Radio, said in a news release. "It was vulgar, offensive, and insulting, not just to women and African Americans but to anyone with a sense of common decency."

In other words, enough is enough when the white men in power say it is enough (or when their pocketbooks are in jeopardy). Who cares if you insult minorities and women? It only really matters when something is insulting to the common decency (of white men).


Here's the link where I got the quote.
http://www.salon.com/ent/wire/2004/02/26/stern/index.html


FizzFuzz, I'd say you're post is right on th emoney.

[smirkymonkey]

23. Welcome to DU!

and I completely agree with your post, and I am usually so dismayed by the reality of the situation that I have a hard time discussing it or even facing it. I think a lot of women do. Thanks for your input!

Also, love your sig line!! :hi:

[DenverDem]

7. You are correct in your understanding of the situation.

Then, when all this blows up in his face, he has a press conference where he was super confrontational and his main point was that she was an awful kicker. Only then does he get suspended.

After his suspension he attempted to blame the media for taking it out of context, that he was really expressing his support for Katie, but that was cynical revisionist bull shit.

I'm sure that abuse of women by division one athletes goes on at every school, but the number of charges that are surfacing now indicates a climate of extreme abuse and ongoing cover ups and pressure on the victims to keep quiet. Barnett needs to go immediately, along with the AD and the SID. Betsy Hoffman, the president, should probably get the ax as well for her gross mishandling of the PR side of the problem. Bottom line for CU, they have years of image rebuilding to get over this one.

This is endemic to big time sports, however. Athletes are brought up to think that they can get away with murder, (literally, ref. Ray Lewis of the Ravens) from the time they start in junior high. Once they are pros, they don't blink twice about raping someone (ref. Coby Bryant) because there are plenty of apologists and blame the victim denialists that will support their flawed heroes, as long as they are winning.

[Gman]

6. The coach dug the hole for CU

and no one there seems to understand why there's a problem.

[coloradodem2005]

9. I think it is a symptom of a larger issue.

At CU Boulder, I know from experience, you are a number. On a larger scale there everybody is exploited for money and beyond that they don't care. So they do not understand why there is an issue. It is a huge problem. It is one that they need to work out.

FYI I did enjoy many times there but I am just being honest about how I see things.

[blondeatlast]

10. Symptoms of a nasty epidemic disease.

The big college sports are rife with corruption. The players are neither scholars not amateurs, the coaches are outrageously overpaid, and the truth of the matter is that the big sports DO NOT pay their own way.

Seriously, let's just cut out the sham that is big college sports and set up farm systems. The precious few athletes who are actually true scholars will have to make tough decisions, granted. But they are so incredibly underrepresented that it's nearly moot anyway.

No recruiting for athletics--you go where YOU wanna go, period. Don't make it? Go somewhere else.

Granted, I'm a femme, but I LOVE basketball, especially college level. But it makes me sick to hear athletes representing their colleges and universities barely able to speak English 101. It tells me that they are being used (how many of them will make it in the NBA? Precious few. Europe is barely better than amateur, and most can't make it there, either).

I tutored some in my college days and it hurt to know that some of them would be left with nothing after their sham graduations. Of course, most couldn't care less anyway, but there were a few who tried, really tried, but just weren't college material.

Big dreams die hard, and they all had big dreams. Truly sad.

Edit: pardon the reactionary typos; this hits a bit close to home for me!

[Sandpiper]

12. Men's college football needs to be

Divorced from higher education all together. College football needs to be turned into an official farm systerm for the NFL, rather than an unofficial one that it now is. That way, it would be stripped of the illusion of being an amateur endeavor and the players could be compensated for the millions of dollars that they generate for the universities.

[blondeatlast]

13. Precisely. nt

[jor_mama]

11. Local radio guy calls it what everyone knows but NCAA won't acknowledge

and that is "professional college football."

[BigBigBear]

16. I got pretty well flamed for my posts on the subject

last week, so I'll refrain and just say, it is entirely possible to enjoy a quarter century of living in Boulder (as I have) without a single meaningful tie to the University, without having attended a single football game, and without caring what happens to their program, their coach or their president.

The nicest thing I can say about CU is that plenty of downtown parking opens up around the second or third week of May.

[donco6]

22. You got flamed? Why?

This whole situation seems so obviously whacked, I can't imagine what basis anyone is even arguing from. The whole lot of them should be canned. Frankly, if we got rid of the whole sport, I wouldn't miss it.

[cinci]

17. There's

2 sides to every story and I haven't heard the player(s) side yet.

[blondeatlast]

19. It isn't about the effing player. It's about the COACH.

Welcome to DU?

:toast:

[cinci]

21. Thanks

The coach is a liar, he lied to the players at Northwest. Everyone is bashing him on allegations, not facts though, that's why I want to hear what the players have to say.

[PVnRT]

20. Fuck Barnett, and fuck any other coach who lets this go on

I've been hearing arguments, that I am sick of, about how "Coaches can't be babysitters" and "These people are young adults" and so on. Bullshit. That coach is supposed to be molding them into good young men, and allowing them to have sex parties and to rape whoever the hell they want does not advance that goal.

If this means that some Hall of Fame coaches get tarnished, so be it. This culture of sports-worship in this country needs to end, and this will go a long way towards doing that.

[smirkymonkey]

24. Here here!!

You said it all!