RebKell's Junkie Boards

[stever]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/sports/ncaabasketball/19lsu.html?_r=2&ref=sports&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

[LTF1]

NYT:"Goestenkors said that the mother of Kelley Cain, a 6-foot-5 center from Atlanta who has since COMMITTED TO TENN [emphasis mine], asked her, “If there are homosexuals on your team, what is your policy?”

Goestenkors said she replied, “I treat everyone the same.”

LOL! What's the implication for St. Pat's answer to that question?

NYT:"In Division I women’s basketball, 230 of the 332 teams — 69.3 percent — were coached by women in 2006, Carpenter said. In 1992, that percentage was 72.2 percent."

Hardly a significant decline.

NYT:"Yet, negative recruiting carries the risk of backfiring, said Geno Auriemma, who has won five national titles coaching at Connecticut.“What if the kid you’re recruiting is gay and you don’t know it?” Auriemma said. “You bring the topic up and the kid says, ‘I’m not playing for this guy; this guy’s got problems.’ ”He added, “Coaches who do care about that stuff lose.”

Absolutely. You know he really does seem to have his head on straight. I wish Geno was coaching at LSU.

NYT:"There are still going to be prejudices,” Auriemma said. “People are just going to be smart enough not to be overt about it. But, Auriemma added that he did not think the Chatman case would prevent female coaches from getting pre-eminent jobs...During the N.C.A.A tournament, an athletic director from an unnamed university called and asked for coaching candidates, Auriemma said. He supplied the names of three or four single women, Auriemma said, and the Chatman matter “never came up.”

No kidding, because the fears are exaggerated for political effect.

_________________
"I'd work very hard but I'm lazy,
I can't take the pressure & it's starting to show
In my heart, you know how it pains me,
A life of leisure is no life you know"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPeJixp-zp4&feature=related

[womens_hoops]

Interesting that G called out Cain's mom by name.

I'm glad she did. Homophobic recruiting is hard to assess and address because it all happens in private. It won't end until people stand up and name names when it does happen.

[gpark33]

[womens_hoops]

[pilight]

[womens_hoops]

[RedEqualsLuck]

[lola528]

[gpark33]

I'm not implying anyone is wrong in the way they read it or in how anyone meant it. I was just saying it could have gone either way. If it were me, as a lesbian raising a family, I would ask the question to make sure my child did not have to face homophobia when they left for school.

[MadDog22]

I agree Gpark. I read it as Kelly's mom basically asking GG if she was open-minded and inclusive.

As for how that reflects on "St.Pat"...I don't think there is any correlation.
From what I've heard of Tennessee's program, everyone is treated as a basketball player and sexuality is not an issue. Pat does not strike me as a woman who has a problem with gay people. She expects her players to be respectful to others and succeed on and off the court. I think those are the qualties she cares about.

[alaskacard]

Well, that was kind of Geno's point, wasn't it? When someone asks you that question, you don't really know why they are asking or what answer they are hoping to hear. If you ASSume it's because they are homophobic and answer in kind, you might be shooting yourself in the foot.

I doubt Gail meant the comment about the Cains as an implication that Pat must have given a bigoted answer because she ultimately got the recruit. That would be a very aggressive thing to say publicly if that's what she meant. It's just as likely that the family would have not seriously considered any school that did NOT give a similar, tolerant answer.

[LTF1]

I don't think the writer has a clue as to what Pat's policy is. I think he did write the story to imply (with the plausible deniability the press always gives itself) that Cain went to the LVs because Pat provided the correct answer. Again he didn't SAY that, and he doesn't know, but it makes a better story to potentially slam some one (Pat in this case) than not. The press, esp the NYT does stuff like this all the time.

wh:"Interesting that G called out Cain's mom by name"

gpark:"Do you think the mom was asking b/c she did not want her daughter around it? I didn't read it as the mom asking in a negative manner as opposed to her just asking"

Indeed. In fact, did GG snidely attempt to slam Cain's mom because her daughter decided to go to Tn. Either she or the writer implied the reason was "homophobia" (an abused term if there ever was one), the writer to sell a story, the coach maybe b/c she was angry with mom. Indeed, if Cain had gone to Duke I wonder if GG would have offered that remark she said Cain's mom made.

wh:" I'm glad she did. Homophobic recruiting is hard to assess and address because it all happens in private. It won't end until people stand up and name names when it does happen."

Hmm, people went to jail for not naming names back in the '50s, maybe you'd like those days back? In any case "because it all happens in private", hmm, don't people have a "right to privacy"? If parents discovers that a coach is gonna open her mouth as to whatever is said in private on a recruiting trip, I can imagine a parent not saying much to that coach or sending her daughter to that school.

_________________
"I'd work very hard but I'm lazy,
I can't take the pressure & it's starting to show
In my heart, you know how it pains me,
A life of leisure is no life you know"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPeJixp-zp4&feature=related

[womens_hoops]

[harlem_basketball]

[LTF1]

wh:"People don't have a right to privacy to everything that happens in a private setting. If I beat my kid in my home, I can't plead "right to privacy."

Yet curiously one can kill a fetus for convience sake, which imo is more serious than a parent asking "Do you recruit lesbians"?

wh:"If coaches use gay-baiting tactics in recruiting, I think that's wrong, and I think it should be exposed."

If it violates school regulations or state law, I agree. If not, while I think such tactics are unethical, all one could hope to do would be change the rules/laws to ban the discrimination

wh:"And to a lesser extent, I think it's ok to expose bad behavior by parents...If a dad says "I won't send my daughter there unless you promise that there won't be any Jews on the team," that should be exposed. Similarly, if a dad says "I won't send my daughter there unless you promise that there won't be any gays on the team," I don't mind a coach making that public either."

I disagree. The coach's job is to recruit under university rules and under the law. If dad or a student objects to being on a team because there are Jews there (a highly unlikely objection these days), then the coach should inform them of the school's non-discrimination policy (and if I were the coach, not recruit the kid)

If a parent has religious objections say to being on a team with lesbians, the coach should again inform them of the university's policy and suggest the kid play somewhere else. (There are I assume schools, Liberty, Oral Roberts perhaps, who do not allow open lesbians on their teams, but I don't know this for a fact. It could be a stereotypical assumption on my part)

In any case, a parent or student who has religious objections to playing on a team with lesbians (incl the coaches) is unlikely to be bothered by being outed as a "homophobe" as opposition to homosexuality would be part of their religion and millions of people would agree with them.

wh:"How would you address homophobia in recruiting? Or don't you think that there is anything that needs to be addressed?"

If I understood Geno correctly, I am with him on this. It is going to keep happening even with the Portland business, but just in a more subtle manner. Like Geno, I'd let the market handle it (it usually does better than laws/regulations anyway). Programs that discriminate will ultimately be losing programs. The desire to win, overtime, will lead to less and less discrimination to the point where it becomes negligible. Indeed, I think that is pretty much where things stand now, or is getting close to it.

"Naming names", chilling speech, harrassing people out of their jobs, is imo an authoritarian, polarising and needless approach to the problem. However, I do recognize the unfortunate need of human beings to feel victimized and demand vengeance. So we get the Portland and Imus fiascos, and the intense hope of many that Chatman was fired for simply being a lesbian

_________________
"I'd work very hard but I'm lazy,
I can't take the pressure & it's starting to show
In my heart, you know how it pains me,
A life of leisure is no life you know"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPeJixp-zp4&feature=related

[beknighted]

I think this topic is interesting, although maybe not for the same reason as others.

I don't particularly think there's any trust being violated when a coach repeats what's said during a recruiting session unless, of course, the parent or student asks for something to be kept private.

On the other hand, you ought to have some discretion, and in that context, I think it's a little odd that GG mentioned somebody by name. There are at least three reasons this question could have been asked: in the hope that GG does keep lesbians off her team, to test whether she has an open and inclusive environment in a general way or to make sure that a parent's gay daughter would be comfortable. It's impossible to know which one it is from the article, although I tend to lean, as others do, towards the middle choice. However, if it's the first choice, she essentially called a potential recruit's parents intolerant, and if it's the third, she potentially outed their daughter.

Also, I would think that a coach who talks about what's said at her recruiting sessions in such a specific way might make some parents leery. I suspect that a lot of these conversations are fairly frank, and if I were a parent of a potential recruit, I might find it offputting to think that the coach could tell the New York Times what I said. If I were a coach, I don't think I'd risk that. Again, there's no real expectation of privacy absent some explicit statement to that effect, but it does seem kind of impolite to talk about what's been said, and I think a lot of parents would view it that way.

[womens_hoops]

[womens_hoops]

[LTF1]

wh:"... but how can we ever do so unless we expose it in the first place? How would we even know what to ban unless we know what's happening out there? "

Effectively schools have banned such practices with anti-discrimination policies. If a coach violates one, eg a coach misunderstands a parent's quesion and makes an anti-lesbian remark, and the parent reports it to the school (or the NYT), then that coach would likely be in some trouble.

And again, I think the problem is largely self-correcting (albeit overtime), ie lesbians will not want to play for hostile programs, meaning open programs will get them, thus expanding their choices and having more opportunities to win. Overtime, this will force the overwhelming majority of programs to accept lesbians (which I believe most do anyway)

wh:"So are you arguing that coaches can never reveal things that parents say during recruiting? So if a dad demands money, a coach can't expose that, because her job is merely to recruit under university rules and regulations?"

I'm not sure it's worth reporting to the NYT though certainly to one's AD. I don't know that asking for money from a college (beyond the scholarship of course) violates NCAA rules, although paying it out certainly would be

wh:"Or are you saying that coaches can reveal some really bad things, but homophobic demands by parents aren't bad enough?"

I think it is appropriate for the parent or a student who is say a fundamentalist Christian to ask the attitude of a coach (and the school) re open lesbians in the program. It is the coach's responsibility to say either they are welcomed or banned depending upon the school's policy. I don't see what could possibly be gained by a coach announcing that she/he was asked that. I don't see that it would effectively matter, b/c all a parent or student would simply reply by saying is "Homosexuality goes against my religious beliefs" and then, what?...Hound the program the player decides to go to, say Tn, BYU, LSU, Stanford, or the Univ of Mars for giving a "homophobic" player a scholarship? Put that player on a blacklist? Don't think so.

I agree with BeK, I would hesitate to send my kid to a program where the coach has such a big mouth that she quotes me to the NYT and the NYT of course does nothing to put the quote into context leaving the reader to assume the worst.

Btw I can tell you are a lawyer, you are looking for something to litigate

_________________
"I'd work very hard but I'm lazy,
I can't take the pressure & it's starting to show
In my heart, you know how it pains me,
A life of leisure is no life you know"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPeJixp-zp4&feature=related

[beknighted]

[womens_hoops]