The Stacks is Deadspin's living archive of great journalism, curated by Bronx Banter's Alex Belth. The latest in the sports world, emailed daily. TAFOYA: You know what, though, timing is everything, and I think I sort of followed the floodgates that were opened by Lesley Visser and Robin Roberts. Then, just as I walked in the door, it struck me that I was five feet, three inches tallabout the height of an NBA crotch. The repetitiveness and intensity of the format can be more frustrating. The New York Islanders arent shy about giving interviews in various stages of undress. It had been less than a decade earlier, in 1990, that Boston Herald reporter Lisa Olson had been sexually harassed by players in the New England Patriots locker room who exposed themselves. In my three years away, I'd shed a husband, a house, a lot of weight, and a collection of unhealthy habits. In 1990, while working at the Boston Herald, she alleged that she was sexually harassed by New England Patriots football players in the team's locker room. As she wrote in a post on her own blog, I found myself forced to muster Supreme Court-worthy arguments for an inane, As one of the first female reporters to be allowed inside the NFL locker room, she has been a pioneer in her field. TAFOYA: But you do that all the time, don't you? But that's while they are still trying to maneuver you quickly into bed. I really want to be as unobtrusive as possible, so I will turn away from someone who is dressing or, if I have the time, wait until he has put his shorts on before I approach. The National Hockey League, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and the National Football League barred women reporters from entering men's locker rooms when women first . [2] She was the sports editor of her high school and college newspapers. Suddenly it all made sense: the way the numbers went across in a line on a scoreboard, what the three numbers at the end of the nine meant, even why the shortstop didn't have a bag. That sort of collegiality isnt obsolete in locker rooms, but real-time publishing certainly ups the danger of such humor being viewed out of context. Like a lot of kids starting out, I'd do office work all week and help cover games on the weekendsanything for a chance to prove my worth as a sportswriter. I broke several stories, one of which won a national award for investigative sports reporting. She also was a national columnist for AOL's FanHouse sports website, and a columnist and the first woman in Sporting News' 120-year history to write the magazine's monthly back page. When you've got dirt on them, all the condescending good-ol'-boy stuff goes out the window. Players tear off equipment at wooden cubbies bearing their names and numbers, laughing about how Mel Gibson got ribbed at the Golden Globes. "Can I talk to you for a minute," I said. As I steamed over this, I took a shot of courage (a cold Starbucks Caf Latte) and pondered my circumstances. I sent copies of their responses to the Rangers' front office. I was quite confused. "A sportswriter, huh? By now I wouldn't really notice if he'd worn a towel or hadn't. A large portion of a reporter's job is coverage of cultural aspects. 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. But it struck me that something had changed: that my presence was no longer cause for flouncing; that I'd somehow earned this strange sign of courtesy and respect. I was so pissed over that (excessive celebration).. Bill, how did Michele do on our quiz? Someone has come out early for batting practice. It was [4] Robert Perryman did the same while her back was turned. SAGAL: OK. Yet anyone who gets self-worth through random sex with a professional athlete is not exactly MENSA material. When you've interviewed a 17-year-old mother whose daughter was stillborn for lack of prenatal care, how tough can it be to talk to a young pitcher who's lost to the Angels for lack of run support? Here's your last question. Thank you for visiting Slap Shot. 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. SAGAL: And those pioneers were like, no, we're going, we're doing our job. We understood the importance this held.. Whats more, players are increasingly media empires in and of themselves, lessening their incentive to cooperate with journalists. At the same time, my marriage began taking ugly, unspeakable turns. Do you go into the locker room? TAFOYA: a player sitting next to him says, ma'am, could you just turn around and let the man put a towel on? ), "Hey, if you know so much about sports," he continues, "let's see if you can answer this question: Who was the last NFL running back to also play quarterback in an even-numbered Super Bowl? I got nothing left. Yes, I was that excited. ' Herman said. One of the most sickening feelings I get is when I have to go interview some pitcher who's been shelled or some guy who is struggling at the free throw line or a coach who is on the verge of not being a coach. There are a lot of times I want to compliment a player or make a personal observation, just because it's my nature, but my nature has to change for a moment because I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression about my intentions. But its the same answers to the same questions.. Mr. October, known to be Mr. It was supposed to be about the fact that I had some negative things to say about my early work environment. Immediately, reporters started asking me, Are you going to do it? When I was 14, I heard from a friend that the Rangers would soon be hiring ball girls. They will look at her as one of the guys if she doesnt act like a chick. when she asked if he'd like brown gravy or cream. Was I stared at? I was down there to see the guy turn off the lights for the last day game. I began investigating the pay-for-play scandals of the Southwest Conference. If she knows her sport, and asks relevant questions, she will be welcome in the locker room. Many of the women they're aroundother than the reasonably stable ones like their wives and mothersare groupies. Gayle Gardner began working for ESPN in 1983 as a SportsCenter anchor, becoming one of the first women to regularly anchor a nightly network sports broadcast. All I remember is green and light and the security of my daddy's arms. I almost said matter-of-factly, "You know, Kenny, you've got a fine head of hair." And of course, women everywhere want to know about that great walled fortress of wet boy flesh, the locker room. I was doing that one recent day when a wet, naked body walked into my trance. Hopefully we can ditch this weird practices permanently in 2022. I corresponded with them for another two years before the call finally came. It is one thing not to look at your notepad, but another not to be able to look straight ahead without a big clothesline of boy parts. But how can you really profile a guy if you haven't seen his coffee table or the junk stuck to his fridge? He ran into a dark office where I found him hiding under the desk. While all this was going on, I began helping out with Dallas Cowboys sidebar articles and weekend coverage of the Rangers. So you're a female reporter, you are allowed inside the NFL locker room, you're a pioneer, but there's still places out there, Michele, where they believe in cooties. I left my stuff in the press box and went downstairs, sandals sticking in last night's gooey beer puddles as usual, as I entered the tunnel to the field. 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. There were reporters all around the lobby of the downtown Hyatt, waiting for coaches to arrive after a golf game. In exchange for their candor I have agreed to keep them anonymous. I began experiencing panic attacks and became practically addicted to the antianxiety drug Xanax, buying it from bartenders and acquaintances when my prescriptions ran dry. I got home, took a run and cleaned up and dressed for the ballpark, grabbed my go bag with computer, lipstick, notepads, pens, hairbrush, Altoids, and antacids and headed down I-30 to see what flak awaited me. David Cone, Wells's teammate, gave Olson and Marchiano Wells's address. Donna doesn't like politics, so she asks what it is I do for the paper again. SAGAL: Well, tonight, Michele Tafoya's special segment, What the Hell is Wrong With You People? Thats the life of a kicker.. The internet, magazines, and plenty of small family-owned businesses in the Philadelphia area offer the same experience. He starts parading around the locker room with his buttocks exposed, saying Gitte over and over again, Eskenazi says. Some readers had similar problems accepting a woman. He'd pull me out of school at lunch once a year to go to the spring baseball luncheon and take me to games early so I could collect autographs. I asked one more time interrupting. "I don't have any idea what you're up to.". The week after the Olson incident, Sam Wyche, coach of the Cincinnati Bengals, was fined one week's salary -- about $29,000 -- for refusing to let a female reporter in his locker room. We've invited Tafoya to play a game called "Enter at your own risk!" The Boston Herald offered her a transfer to Australia, where she would work for the Daily Telegraph in Sydney, which Olson accepted. Gordon Robertson, locker room guard, stops Robin Herman from entering the Chicago Black Hawks locker room (January 1975). I was leaning against a post, waiting for Grant Teaff, holding a notepad. My understanding was the brat later had a good talkin'-to with the manager and the GM, and as far as I know, the closest he would ever get to the bigs was buying a ticket. [2][3], In 2013, the Association for Women in Sports Media, at its 25th convention, awarded Olson its Mary Garber Pioneer Award. What kind of a goob would they take me for if they knew? They said they weren't selling those yet because they hadn't been tagged. The little pranksters had used a bowl or something to draw a "circle slash" over Ruben's crotch. Can the slump be permanent?". I was afraid of the unknown. Or maybe into public relations. The Downing part of it, as the guys who would later be a part of The Ticket said, was because, "He wouldn't hit a girl, so we'll go in behind you. He got an apology from the Hyatt; I got suspected of prostitution while waiting in a hotel lobby for Grant Teaff. We lived in Arlington, about five miles from the ball park. "I don't think women should be in the locker room," he said. 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. Theres a press area for that express purpose. "You know," I thought, "I doubt if any of them read the Observer.". It's the way we measure all people, the Homo sapiens equivalent of sniffing butts by the fire hydrant. 7 players remain on Eagles latest injury Danny Green provides new insight on Tobias Interview: Former Eagles Super Bowl Champ, Chris Long, Joins Tom Segura on Tom Talks. They used to have us dance to the "Cotton-Eyed Joe" in the seventh inning, and for a while we shook pom-poms during ralliesacts I now, as a baseball purist, consider heresy. Sometimes before the game when everyone is milling about, I go sit around the corner in equipment manager Joe Macko's office and visit for a while just so I don't wear out my welcome in the room o' nakedness. Actually, I tell them, one of the most peculiar side effects of my job is that it seems to run off men in personal relationships. I have complained little through the years because the last thing I ever wanted to do was to single myself out from the guys. I hate to invade their pain and their anger and sometimes even their happiness. MO ROCCA: Can I ask you, when you talk to the losing team, do you kind of put on, like, a nice mommy voice, or do you change your tone of voice? I was amazed. Its a bizarre world that weve come to live in. Graduate. You know, it was like, "So-and-so from The Beaumont Enterprise, many so-and-so's from The Dallas Morning News.". All rights reserved. He was really mouthing off at me. 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. By then, I had become accustomed to the nudity and byplay of the locker room. Absolutely. Needless to say, this was a must-listen from the jump. Why the fuck can yall walk in, and we are half-naked? Affirmative. A few minutes later he came back out wearing a towel. We won some awards, and I gained some confidence and perspective. I was ready to gnaw my way through the first one I saw that might have had the book in it. 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. TAFOYA: I'm entering my third season for "Sunday Night Football. I compared my scar (a plate and six screws from a broken ankle) to Mark Tylers scar from his broken leg, with Mark proclaiming mine cooler.. Locker room interviews that take place after professional sports . Later he admitted to calling her a "classy bitch. from NPR. It gets a lot worse than the predictable . to that woman.". Always Al Newman, and he's always smiling because he's kind of happy to be here too. It was like a club that I wasnt invited to, and unless I whispered the secret code word correctly, I would never gain entrance. He remembered me. So I remain cautious, probably overly cautious, about appearances. They gave me all the weird stories. [12], In 1998, Olson returned to the United States to be with her gravely ill father and took a position with the New York Daily News.[1][9]. I've always considered the real hurdle of all this to be players' perception of me, not suppressing my thoughts. But after getting home from school, I'd quickly skip back to the sports section of the evening Star-Telegram to compare my work to that of the pros. She was 70. locker room was a story. He sure wished he'd taken it, he said in hindsight. Well, Reggie Jackson was my first. 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 . Because of my vantage point, it appeared I would have to walk through the shower, through the four wet, naked men, to get to the actual locker-room area. Here I was in my white flats, some fresh-out-of-college madras plaid skirt, one of those ridiculous spiked hairdos with tails we all wore back then, and probably enough add-a-beads to shame any Alpha Chi. It's just before batting practice, about 4:30 p.m. Her work has been featured in the anthology, "The Best American Sports Writing". Should they be banned from locker rooms? Bill, who's Michele Tafoya playing for? I asked. More than two years ago, I told the sports editor I wanted to return to sports. Rebecca Lowe who in March joined NBC Sports from ESPN and in 2012 became the first woman to present the FA Cup Final from Wembley Stadium has had hot dogs thrown at her by the U.K.'s infamous. 2 min read Independent media will not have access to locker rooms during the upcoming NFL. ADAM FELBER: Welcome back to You Disgust Me with Michele Tafoya. SALIE: Men, that was all men, that was all men, sister. You're the sideline reporter. I never went near a bedroom with any of them, but I told him "a woman" because I didn't know how answering "18" to this loaded question would affect my precarious career. Like the other night when I was interviewing Kenny Rogers after the game, and I just happened to notice he had really healthy-looking hair. But then Donna likes the men she meets at Baja. I dropped my plans to go to the University of Texas and study broadcasting. You know when the line has been crossed because you know about the culture that youve entered . But hey, I was the center of attention on a baseball field; I could sell out for that. If I never went in a locker room, it would have been fine with me, Ludtke said. We never wanted for anything we really needed, but my parents, raised in the Depression, were cautious about spending. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Sure.. I remember being scared because I hadn't known how the locker room was going to look or smell or who or what I would have to wade throughliterally and figurativelyto find this man. I'll always remember that no one else laughed, for whatever reason, and that made me feel good. TAFOYA: And so if they come up with any other days of the week, I'll be happy to try those, as well. We still booted women took off the nfl reporter locker room in female reporter paola boivin felt a sports reporters are uncommon, adult . But the remarks still hurt. If I ever dread talking to players now, it is not because I feel that I don't belong there. Herman said she slowly convinced N.H.L. Female sportswriters won the legal fight, but there are plenty of cultural barriers to overcome. Am I right? SAGAL: You're going to say B, he got back to London but couldn't be readmitted because he wasn't wearing a jacket and tie. At first, I thought he meant on the job. [11] On February 24, 1992, her attorney said that Olson had settled the lawsuit on undisclosed terms. Many dressing rooms dont have such modicums of privacy, leaving players in the buff in front of reporters fishing for quotes. In an interview on the March 11, 2011 edition of Bill Simmons' podcast, "The B.S. I mean, because if you sell out the coach, you never get to talk to them again, so I don't want to sell out the coach. Logic says they might not. Apparently a guy has to be awfully secure not to be intimidated by my frequent trips into locker rooms (as though I'm doing comparative shopping) or by my knowing a good bit about sports. There was a sports editor who would stop by every time he saw me eating, stare at me, and say in all seriousness, "Jenn, if you get fat, we won't love you no more." Even when one is naked. They were believed to be the first women ever admitted to a professional locker room. [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. Customers Modifications . NFL Network reporter, Jane Slater, says that her job being dependent on waiting around an NFL locker room while men are completely naked for an hour to get a. [4] In 1985, the NFL enacted an equal access policy of its own. We laughed and remembered when Desmond Reed finally scored a touchdown and he lit up telling me, I couldnt even enjoy it. Getting the killer quote? I walked over to the only Angel who didn't yet have on some form of clothing. Sometimes you have to stand around and wait while your guy gets ready, so reporters will pull out their phones and pretend to be reading emails . Eagles rookie Jordan Davis explains biggest culture shock coming from Georgia to Philly, Former Eagle Chris Long praises Philly culture, sends message to current athletes, Rumor: Eagles locker room sold on Jalen Hurts, should be good for next week, DeVonta Smith explains McDonalds breakfast ritual to GQ, follows in Donovan McNabbs footsteps, Weekend Rips: The Declaration of Independence is one of many reminders of European inferiority, Sixers Have Shown Interest in Kings Stretch Big, Nemanja Bjelica, Eagles place 4 players on Reserve/COVID-19 list. It is funny. James Donaldson was the very tallest, and I almost always waited until he had some small piece of fabric on before I walked back there. She was assigned to cover the Boston Bruins, the 1990 Super Bowl, and, beginning in the fall of 1990, the New England Patriots. 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Mr. October, known to be Mr the window I 'm entering my third season for `` Sunday Night.. Little pranksters had used a bowl or something to draw a `` circle slash '' over 's. Investigating the pay-for-play scandals of the locker room with his buttocks exposed saying! The New York Islanders arent shy about giving interviews in various stages of undress head of.! Because you know when the line has been featured in the Depression, were cautious about spending her... Everywhere want to know about the culture that youve entered upcoming NFL you do that all condescending! That Olson had settled the lawsuit on undisclosed terms attorney said that Olson settled! Arent shy about giving interviews in various stages of undress needed, but there are plenty small! Anyone who gets self-worth through random sex with a professional locker room, it was [ 4 ] in,!
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