Author: Jacquelynn Huff

These coaches take winning to new (heel) heights

Women coaches, high heels
Head coach Courtney Banghart of the Princeton Tigers is shown with leopard spotted heels during the women's Ivy League Tournament in March 2018.  (Photo by Corey Perrine/Getty Images)

This particular job involves jumping, squatting, pacing and standing for hours in a hot, muggy gym.

So why do female basketball coaches choose to wear designer high heels on the court?

Like it was said of Ginger Rogers compared to Fred Astaire, she did everything he did but backward and in heels, women basketball coaches do everything their male counterparts do, but with the added difficulty of wearing stilettos. Despite all of the moves toward equality on the court, female coaches continue to bring high style and high heels to games.

“I love to dress for games because I know for two hours, I can be this very feminine but very powerful, passionate person,” Nicki Collen, head coach of the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream, told InStyle. “I don’t know if I could do it every day, 9 to 5, so I love the balance of what I get to do.”

According to the Los Angeles Times, coaches say the fashion consciousness is also due, in part, to the increase interest in women’s basketball -- and women’s sports in general. In some parts of the country, local turnout has surpassed the men’s game.

“Most coaches I know are conscious of their dress,” C. Vivian Stringer, the longtime coach at Rutgers University, told the LA Times. “When you talk about ‘dress for success,’ that indicates something special is about to take place. You pay respect to the event by the way you present yourself.”

Female coaches are changing the coaching dress code that has been set and maintained historically by males. Last year, according to ThinkProgress, close to 60 percent of women’s college basketball teams were coached by women, which is actually down 30 percent from when Title IX was enacted in 1972. The law incentivized men getting more involved in women’s basketball, rather than just men’s. From 2000 to 2014, there were 2,080 new head coaching jobs in women’s athletics but only about ⅓ of those jobs went to women. In addition, the percentage of women coaching women at the collegiate level has declined from 90+ percent in 1974 to near an all-time low today of 40 percent, a number that has remained stagnant for the last decade.

Historically, when most female teams had a female head coach, they dressed in a way that looked similar to their male counterparts on the court: a dress suit but with heels.

The dress code for coaches varies by league and by school, but for the majority of the sport a strict work attire for basketball has been in place. For other sports, attire is more lackadaisical. In baseball, coaches practically match their players in the dugout. In football, head coaches tend to rep the team logo with a hoodie or a hat.

Why is it different in basketball?

Muffet McGraw, Notre Dame, women's basketball, NCAA
Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Muffet McGraw instructs from the bench during the NCAA Tournament in green high heels. (Photo by Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

In basketball, different places have different rules. For example, the University of Florida requires its coaches to wear a suit and tie. Until a few years ago, NBA coaches had to wear a collared shirt under a suit jacket.

Yet, in recent years, female coaches have grown more comfortable making a fashion statement courtside.

On the sidelines of a women’s NCAA Tournament or WNBA game, coaches are making a statement whether it’s sky-high stilettos or bowties. Some have shown their style, such as Muffet McGraw of Notre Dame, who has sported a bright green scarf; Dawn Staley of South Carolina, who wears thick-framed glasses with a leather top; or Kim Mulkey of Baylor, who often arrives in a bright orange suit.

According to the LA Times, Stringer said wearing nice clothes boosts her confidence. She said that in her 23 years of coaching, a team dress code has always been required. Stringer’s assistant coach, Jolette Law, said players are expected to wear skirts or dresses and hosiery before and after games and while they travel.

For some coaches, the attire is more uncomfortable. Collen opts for high stilettos. She said perhaps the reason is she stands 5-feet, 5-inches tall, but she said she will always be in a least 3-inch heels.

“I made a personal bet with myself that if we made the playoffs during my first year [as Atlanta Dream coach] I was going to buy Christian Louboutins,” Collen said in an interview. When her team made the playoffs last season, the shoes weren’t what she was expecting. “I was more tortured that night than any other night. But I looked great!”

Another coach that has taken the “beauty is pain” approach during games is Cheryl Reeve, Minnesota Lynx coach. According to InStyle, Reeve suffers a condition that causes inflammation of tissue in the heel of the foot, plantar fasciitis — partially because of her unsupportive shoes on the court.

“High heels may technically be a voluntary clothing item,” Summer Brennan, author of the book “High Heel,” said. “But there are so many instances in a woman’s life when she is compelled to wear them in order to communicate something about herself, authority and formality being the most common.”

The question is, do female coaches typically wear high heels to portray something about themselves or because they know they often are expected to?

Chris Dailey, associate head coach for the University of Connecticut, said wearing high heels is about wanting to be seen as appropriately dressed. She said her No. 1 priority when she chooses her game attire is to describe her look in two words: “professional” and “appropriate.”

Charmin Smith, former associate head coach at University of California, Berkeley told InStyle that women are always critiqued on how they look whereas men are not. She said men can dress in a pair of slacks and shirt and tie and no one will say anything.

“Women are always judged on how they look and their appearance,” Smith said. “And I do think there is a pressure that the critique surrounding you is positive. It doesn’t affect your ability to coach the game, but it is the way our society works and it’s something we have to deal with.”

A study done by a team of psychology students at California State University, Northridge and Columbia University looked at how dressing professionally influenced an individual’s thought process. The researchers found professional dress increases abstract thinking and gives people a broader perspective.

“The formality of clothing might not only influence the way others perceive a person and how people perceive themselves,” the researchers said in the study. “But it could influence decision-making in important ways through its influence on processing style.”

The study indicates what an individual chooses to wear can have an impact on the way they think and feel about themselves.

In another study, psychologists at the universities of Liverpool and Central Lancashire conducted an experiment in which they edited photos of women, both lengthening and shortening the pictures to change the height appearance of the woman. The results revealed that heightened women were judged more assertive, independent, intelligent and ambitious — not to mention richer and more successful — than their shorter versions.

Despite perceived “expectations,” Smith and other female coaches tend to lean toward comfortable work attire without giving up style. Smith often wears blazers with popped collars, shiny Oxfords or loafers or her J.Crew game-day look for comfort. She claims she will never wear heels to a game.

Smith added University of Kentucky assistant coach Niya Butts’s Chuck Taylor and bow tie debut inspired her. She said it made her feel like she was able to wear whatever made her comfortable, too.

 

A recent trend on social media is coaches tweeting pictures of their gameday attire, particularly their shoes, on the sidelines. After Collen shared a picture of her red high heels, the Dream’s social media team told her the tweet they shared of her shoes gained more engagement than anything else on their page.

“There are a lot more coaches in women’s basketball who are allowing themselves to step outside the box and be comfortable, or dress the way that fits their personality,” Smith said. “And not to try to fit inside this box of what we think a women should look like when we get dressed for work.”

 

Logan Huff is a journalism major at Arizona State University.

Moves to change Title IX could have unintended consequences

Peabody High School freshman Stephanie Manning in the girls' locker room at the school. One of the issues facing the schools is Title IX and the inadequacies of the girls' facilities. Here, the tiny lockers in the girls' locker room cannot hold much and there are no team meeting rooms. (Photo by Joanne Rathe/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Editor’s Note: This story is being highlighted in Global Sport Matters’ Best of 2019. 

Bernice Sandler was a part-time teacher at the University of Maryland in the 1960s, hoping to land one of the full-time positions in her department. When she learned she was not considered for any of the positions, she asked a colleague about the decision.

The proposed changes to Title IX could transform the way gender equality and sexual misconduct is handled across the nation, at all ages and all levels.

“Let’s face it,” he said. “You come on too strong for a woman.”

That inspired Sandler to embark on a campaign that would change the culture on college campuses for equality, even earning the nickname, “The Godmother of Title IX”, for her efforts to remove sex discrimination on federally funded educational institutions.

The introduction of Title IX in 1972 was the largest factor driving increased participation in sport by women in the United States. It is also the biggest driver for the enormous global success of American women in sports. Despite the benefits, efforts at the state and national level to pull back parts of law exist.

Forty-six years ago, Title IX was enacted, establishing equal access to any program or activity that receives federal financial assistance, including sports. The law reads: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”

“Title IX defines who I am as an athlete,” Casey Snedecor, assistant director of athletics and the director of media relations at Long Island University Brooklyn, told Pocket Outdoor Media LLC. “There is absolutely no way that I would have been an athlete at the collegiate level without it. It’s quite possible I wouldn’t have played sports in high school, either. I wasn’t good enough.”

While the success of Title IX is evident in the sporting arena, the proposed changes narrowing the definition of sexual harassment comes at a sensitive time in sport after the issues at Michigan State, Ohio State and USC and the treatment of athlete sexual assault victims is in the spotlight.

Prior to Title IX

When most people think about Title IX, they associate it with athletics — for good reason. In sports, the inequality between male and female athletics prior to the law being passed was substantial.

“It gave us the confidence we could do anything we wanted to in the world,” Laura Silvieus, recipient of a female athletic scholarship at the University of Chicago in the 1970s, told The Daily Item. “It wasn’t that we felt we were going to take on the best male athletes and win, but we could take on people our size and do quite well.”

In addition to athletics, Title IX regulations address other activities and areas including financial assistance, physical and mental services and many others. Most recently, Title IX has been associated with the enforcement of policies regarding sexual assault and harassment on campus.

As Sue M. Durrant wrote in the Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, Title IX was the first comprehensive federal legislation to include the rights of students, as well as employees, to be free of sex discrimination.

Prior to Title IX’s passage, it was normal to find certain classes of study limited to males and others to females; to see rules that enforced closing hours for female dormitories while males had none; to have dress and hairstyle codes for males and females; to read college publications listing “ironing boards and sewing machines” for women’s dorms and “recreational facilities and equipment” for men’s dorms, according to Durrant.

Dr. Bernice "Bunny" Sandler was an integral part of the creation and passage of Title IX legislation addressing discrimination against women in education and collegiate athletics. (J.M. Eddins, Jr./MCT via Getty Images)

In athletic programs and physical education classes, it was typical to see men using new uniforms and equipment, and women being given hand-me-downs; for women to have team practices early in the morning or late at night while men’s teams were immediately after school; or for the college men’s teams to travel by bus or plane while the women’s teams went in cars driven by coaches and players.

When Lisa Rainsberger was a runner at the University of Michigan in the early 1980s, she experienced gender inequality. In 1985, Rainsberger (then Lisa Larsen Weidenbach), won the Boston Marathon the last American woman to do so until Desiree Linden won in April 2018.

“Title IX defines who I am as an athlete. There is absolutely no way that I would have been an athlete at the collegiate level without it. It’s quite possible I wouldn’t have played sports in high school, either. I wasn’t good enough.” – Assistant director of athletics at Long Island University Brooklyn Casey Snedecor

“The men had a bus with a bathroom and TVs, and we had to rent these rickety old vans that we drove ourselves,” Rainsberger told GlobalSport Matters. “We were grateful that women’s sports were finally becoming embraced and we were able and allowed to play. It’s hard to explain in today’s world people are appalled when I explain the differences. At the time, it was awesome.”

Title IX brought opportunities and equality to male and females, not only in education but in sports. Female athletes have taken these opportunities and excelled in all aspects of it, since it passed.

National Level

Title IX has made an impact on people all over the nation, at all levels. An example of an impact this law has made at a national level is the U.S. professional women’s soccer team and its record-breaking performances.

The first time the U.S. played host to the Women’s World Cup in 1999, fans broke attendance records for a women’s sports event. The final between the U.S. and China brought a crowd of 90,185 to the Rose Bowl  — the largest crowd to witness a women’s athletic event at the time.

In addition to the record-breaking attendance, the U.S. Women’s team set a world record 12 years later. In the 2011 Women’s World Cup final, the game ended in a penalty shootout after a 2-2 draw between Japan and the U.S. The news of the final score broke the Twitter world record in number of tweets per second: 7,196.

“There's no question in my mind that what we're seeing in terms of our women's soccer team and our other pro-female athletes is due in great part to Title IX,” Neena Chaudhry, director of National Women’s Law Center, told NBC News.

Unites States midfielder Julie Ertz (8) heads the ball during the She Believes Cup match between the USA and Brazil on March 5, 2019 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fl. Title IX has been credited with allowing teams like the U.S. women's soccer team to dominate at a high level because of athletic opportunities the law provides.  (Photo by Andrew Bershaw/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Outside of the impact women sports teams have made on society, they have paved the way for record-breaking accomplishments for both genders. Abby Wambach, a former U.S. women’s team soccer player, broke Mia Hamm’s all-time goal record, scoring her 159th goal in a game against South Korea in 2013. Wambach holds the current record for international goals for men and women.

Two years later, the U.S. team defeated Japan 5-2 to win the women’s World Cup, becoming the first team to win three women’s World Cups. The 2015 Women’s World Cup set the record as the most-watched soccer game – men’s and women’s – in the U.S. history.

“So many great things have come from Title IX, so now women can dream about competing in sports past middle school and high school.” – U.S. Olympic gold medalist Vonetta Flowers

On March 8, the U.S. women’s national team filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against U.S. Soccer, the national federation. Twenty-eight team members were named as plaintiffs in the case and are seeking class-action status over “institutionalized gender discrimination” toward the team.

“I don't know if there was a tipping point, but the feeling was that this was the next best step for us to put us in the best possible position to continue to fight for what we believe is right and what the law recognizes,” midfielder Megan Rapinoe told ESPN. “And to try to achieve equality under the law, equal working conditions, equal working pay. It goes far beyond equal pay into the working conditions as well.”

As for Olympic women athletes, they, too, have paved the way since Title IX was enacted. The first African-American to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympics was a female, Vonetta Flowers, in 2002.

“So many great things have come from Title IX, so now women can dream about competing in sports past middle school and high school,” Flowers told the Missourian.

The U.S. women’s national team has dominated the competition in other sports. The national basketball team has been the team to beat at the World and Olympic championships. In the 2018 Winter Olympics, women competing on Team USA brought home more medals than their male counterparts.  

Collegiate Level

In 1971-1972, fewer than 30,000 women participated in college sports. In 2010-2012, more than 190,000 competed. Before the law passed, women received 2 percent of schools’ athletic budgets, and athletic scholarships for women were nonexistent. According to a report done by the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education (NCWGE) in 2009-2010, women received 48 percent of the total athletic scholarship dollars at Division I schools.

The University of Connecticut’s women’s basketball team has come a long way in the past 30 years as well. In 1989, the team played in front of 287 fans in the front half of a doubleheader with the men’s game. Fast forward to the 2009-2010 season, UConn women set the NCAA “record for invincibility” through their 90-game winning streak, supported by a total of 357,627 fans, a NWLC report said.

In 2017, the UConn women’s basketball fans bought so many tickets that their opponents were locked out. When UConn found out that their regional round with Maryland was going to be played in Bridgeport, Conn., just an hour and a half away from the Huskies’ home court, it bought an additional 500 tickets in excess of the 100 the NCAA automatically allots to competing teams.

The University of Connecticut women's basketball team has equal or better attendance than the men's team and has been a dominant force in college basketball for more than 10 years.  (Photo by Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)

“Knowing that the NCAA allotment would not satisfy our demand, UConn secured as many additional tickets as we could from the arena, an additional 500,” the university said. “Unfortunately, our demand exceeded the supply.”

The Webster Bank Arena, which seats about 7,881 fans, was sold out on March 9, four days before the brackets were even unveiled.

“You look at the number of young girls now that are playing sports versus 40 years ago, even 20 years ago,” Swin Cash said, former UConn basketball player, Olympic gold medalist and WNBA player. “There are a lot more role models because of Title IX, which then brings younger girls to the table to want to experience sports. Because of the women that are out there today that started the movement with Title IX, on the backs of their hard work, I am able to live out my dreams today, and, hopefully, one day I’ll have a little girl and she’ll be able to do the same.”

According to a report by the NCAA, the overall attendance for the 2014-2015 women’s basketball season surpassed 11 million fans. Across the three divisions, 11,123,533 fans attended games — the seventh highest total since attendance figures were kept, beginning with the 1982 season.  The following season, 2015-2016, set the all-time record with 11,366,943 patrons attending games across all three divisions, exceeding the 11 million mark for the ninth straight season.

 

High School Level

According to a report released by the NWLC, elementary and secondary schools provide about 1.2 fewer chances for girls to play sports in high school compared to boys. In 1971, 295,000 girls competed in high school sports (7.4 percent of all high school athletes) compared to 3.67 million boys. By the 2015-2016 school year, the number of girls participating had grown to 3.32 million while boys participants numbered 4.54 million.

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) entered an agreement with the Chicago Public Schools, the largest school district in the state. The agreement was in response to a complaint filed by the NWLC to ensure the district would provide girls with equal opportunities to play sports consistent with Title IX. The investigation revealed gaps that represented a total of 6,200 additional spots needed to level the playing field for female students, according to a report released by the NWLC.

According to a 2012 research report by Don Sabo, Ph.D, and Philip Veliz, Ph.D, high school girls made gains in athletic participation between 1993-1994 and 1999-2000, but the trend toward greater gender equality flatlined between 1999-2000 and 2005-06. Their research concluded the progress toward gender equity slowed and, perhaps, regressed during the 2000s. Between 1993-94 and 1999-2000, the gender gap in athletic participation opportunity shrunk from 14 to 11 percent. Afterward, the 11 percent difference continued through 2005-06 only to widen to 13 percent by 2009-10.

“It is really sad, but if you went to almost any middle school, elementary school or high school in the state of Arizona, you’d probably find examples of Title IX violations,” Victoria Jackson,  a sports historian and Arizona State University lecturer, said. “Whether it is practice facilities, uniforms, practice times, competition times, travel budgets. There is a laundry list.”

 

New Propositions

The recent Title IX discussions and proposed regulatory revisions are being driven by Betsy DeVos, the Secretary of Education in the Trump administration since 2017. DeVos wants to overhaul how schools across the country address sexual misconduct complaints, altering the definition of sexual harassment on campus and emphasizing “due process” rights for students accused. While the proposed changes relate to sexual harassment on campus, changes in the law may have unintended consequences to athletic access.

The proposed rules, obtained by The New York Times, narrow the definition of sexual harassment, holding schools accountable only for formal complaints filed through proper authorities and for conduct said to have occurred on-campus. The rules would also establish a higher legal standard to determine where schools improperly addressed sexual misconduct complaints.

“It is part of a broader culture war at the moment, where there is a certain segment of the population that thinks: affirmative action, civil rights, gender equity, all of these things,” Jackson said. “I mean, much like what we saw with the Reagan administration in the 80s, that they’ve gone too far and are now harming white men.”

The proposed rules changes are coming at a rather sensitive time. Ohio State University, the University of Southern California and Michigan State University are in the spotlight with charges that claim their faculty and staff members perpetrated serious sexual misconduct. Unlike the Obama administration’s guidance documents, the Trump administration’s rules will have the force of law and can go into force without an act of Congress, after a public comment period.

“This idea that men who are accused are guilty until proven innocent and that they are being prosecuted by this kind of liberal agenda,” Jackson said. “It’s a hot button item because it speaks to this broader culture war at the moment.”

Thomas Newkirk, a civil rights lawyer and advocate for eliminating gender bias and stereotyping in decision-making, views the new regulations as not being a bad thing necessarily. Newkirk focuses on educating people, students and faculty about the dangers in subconscious bias decision-making and said, although the administration might not have intended to, the wording in the proposed regulations potentially covers these dangers.

“There are a number of what I call weird silver linings in this system even though I fully want to be clear on the record that I don't think they created these changes intending the new silver linings,” Newkirk said. “I get that, and I’m not giving any credit for doing this because they were trying to reduce the number of claims made and to save universities money, but I don’t really think they did that, is my point.”

Newkirk said there is an unintentionally biased decision-making process within 99 percent of the people sexual assault victims will complain to. He said regardless of whether one engages in victim blaming or victim questioning, a subconsciously driven process exists whereby the victim's complaint is held to a higher standard or proof. Newkirk concludes the proposed regulations might make a difference in this.

“Even the system that exists isn’t fantastic, so pulling back would be setting women back even farther. I still believe the primary force that nobody is looking at is gender bias. It affects females getting hired, getting fired, getting paid. I believe that is the primary force that causes harm in all of those areas.” – Civil rights lawyer Thomas Newkirk

“Even the system that exists isn’t fantastic, so pulling back would be setting women back even farther,” Newkirk said. “I still believe the primary force that nobody is looking at is gender bias. It affects females getting hired, getting fired, getting paid. I believe that is the primary force that causes harm in all of those areas.”

The regulations implementing Title IX contain specific provisions relating to athletic opportunities. According to the U.S. Department of Education, colleges and universities have discretion in selecting the methods for determining the interests and abilities, as long as those “methods are non-discriminatory.”

Regarding measuring athletic interests, the original Title IX requirements, put in place for institutions, used methods that take into account the increasing national level of women’s interests and abilities; don’t disadvantage the underrepresented sex; take into account team performance records of both male and female teams; and respond to the expressed interests of students capable of intercollegiate competition who belong to the underrepresented sex.

“When an administration signals through the Department of Education or the Secretary of the Department of Education signals that they are deemphasizing Title IX, it gives schools the space to not work as hard to expand opportunities for girls and women, in every way, including sports,” Jackson said.  

Regarding the selection of sports in the proposed regulation, the Department of Education says a college or university is not required to offer particular sports or the same sports for each sex. Institutions also are not required to offer an equal number of sports for each gender. However, the department states an institution must accommodate to the same degree the athletic interest and abilities of each sex in the selection of sports. Basically, the department is stating a school does not need to have an equal number of sports for each sex, but they do have to provide an equal amount of opportunities for students participating in sports.

The new proposals also allow schools to have separate teams under select circumstances, such as when the selection of the teams is based on competitive skills, when the teams are for students in grades 7 through 12, when it can be clearly shown that maintaining separate teams is the best way to provide both sexes with equal athletic opportunity and when the separate-sex teams are substantially equal, according a report from Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF).

As for budgeting, the regulations do not require equal dollars be spent on boys and girls sports programs. The primary concern of the regulations is equal opportunity.

“For example, at ASU, the bathroom facilities under the track, for the women’s bathroom, had urinals until about 2003,” Jackson said. “So the women’s track team would squat over urinals; that is a violation of Title IX because one of the things you had to provide was equal access to bathrooms.”

ASU professor Victoria Jackson, a former collegiate and professional runner, said: "When an administration signals through the Department of Education or the Secretary of the Department of Education signals that they are deemphasizing Title IX, it gives schools the space to not work as hard to expand opportunities for girls and women, in every way, including sports. " (Photo by Deanna Dent/ASU Now)

When determining whether boys and girls receive equal benefits from the scheduling of games and practice times, five factors are assessed to see if the district is providing equal opportunity:

  • the number of competitive events per sport
  • the number and length of practice opportunities
  • the time of day competitive events and practices are scheduled
  • the opportunities to engage in available competition.

The report from the FMF also states institutions are not required to schedule the same number of games or practices for boys and girls teams in the same or similar sport.

“When an administration signals through the Department of Education or the Secretary of the Department of Education signals that they are deemphasizing Title IX, it gives schools the space to not work as hard to expand opportunities for girls and women, in every way, including sports.” – Arizona State University sports historian and lecturer Victoria Jackson

“This reaction is the fear that the “out-group”, women or people who are brown, will somehow push men out of their rightful place,” Newkirk said. “Although, I think a lot of that is subconscious.”

Overall, Title IX has helped focus attention on meeting the needs of gender equality in athletics. It’s important to remember to celebrate how far the nation has come in almost 50 years, but it is crucial to be realistic about our current status and to take steps to address the inequities which continue to exist.

Going solely by what has so far been reported, it sounds as though the proposed rules will go a long way toward restoring meaningful due process protections to the campus justice system, which will benefit both accusers and the accused,” Robert L. Shibley, the executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education told the NYT article.

Logan Huff is a senior journalism major at Arizona State University.

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Lawsuits sought to change the status quo

Spencer Haywood, Global Sport Summit
Spencer Haywood explains how his lawsuit against the NBA helped set the stage for players today. (Photo by Ashley Lowrey)

For as much as we follow sports to see what happens on the playing field, perhaps the toughest battleground comes in the courtroom.

And, at Arizona State University’s 2019 Global Sport Summit in March, one panel focused on two of these lawsuits and the two very different people behind them: Amanda Blackhorse and Spencer Haywood.

Two different lawsuits with two influential people shed light on how their stories and causes helped shape sport and society in some form.

Amanda Blackhorse is Diné and a member of the Navajo Nation from northern Arizona. Blackhorse is a mother, social worker and Native American advocate who lives in Phoenix. Although her official job title is social worker, she has taken up a new role in recent years. In 2006, Blackhorse and others argued the NFL Washington “R*******” team name was offensive to American Indians and, therefore, shouldn’t be a qualified trademark registration. Blackhorse defended her case with The Lanham Act, Section 2(A), which stated no trademark could be used in registration if it was racist in any way.

“Unfortunately, we lost our case last year. It was really difficult because I felt like we were doing well,” Blackhorse said. “Another case kind of sidelined us and won in the Supreme Court, and when it did, the Lanham Act was thrown out and ruled unconstitutional so now you can trademark anything that is racist.”

Though Blackhorse’s legal bid failed, the fight continues between the Washington football team and protesting groups.

Blackhorse talked about the repercussions she has experienced since the start of the protest. She has received hate mail, threats and verbal intimidation but continues to push to make a difference.

“It wasn’t until 2014 when we won, and it hit the mainstream media,” Blackhorse said. “I was completely unprepared for that. I had no idea that it was going to be as big as it was. Pretty soon afterward, I was probably the most hated person in the United States for 24 hours.”


Since her efforts started, several middle and high schools have stood behind her and changed nicknames, such as Redmen, Savages and Indians. Blackhorse said there are ways people can contribute and help the cause such as spreading awareness and donating to her website: www.nomorenativemascots.org.

Haywood, a former NBA professional athlete who is a member of the Hall of Fame, changed the tone of basketball after a lawsuit that involved sport and society as well.

Haywood grew up in Mississippi in a family of 10 siblings. His mother and his siblings picked cotton for $2 a day. Haywood picked up a hobby that changed everything for him.

“We didn’t know we were changing basketball,” Haywood said. “I was just changing my circumstances because even though I was making millions of dollars for the university, my mother and brothers were still in Silver City, Mississippi, picking cotton.”

Haywood started his basketball career when he was discovered by Will Robinson, who took him in and “adopted” him at a young age. After playing with Robinson, Haywood decided he would play at the University of Detroit after the university guaranteed that if Haywood agreed to play for them, they would hire Robinson has a coach.

“I thought it was a good package deal for the both of us,” Haywood said. “But once they got me there, they changed their mind and said, ‘Well we got you. You’re stuck here for the next two, four years and you can’t leave’.”

After a season in which Haywood averaged 32 points and 25 rebounds a game, U-D hired Jim Harding instead of Robinson and Haywood decided to leave. Haywood went on to play with the American Basketball Association and was told that they would pay him to sit out for a year before joining the team. The problem was that the NBA had a “four-year rule,'' which held players could not enter the league until the college class that would be graduated.

“The ABA said, ‘We’ll let you come into the ABA but we’re going to have to make it look right for the NCAA’ because the NCAA was part of my lawsuit. They were under decurrent of the NBA. They put out the information that this would destroy college basketball as we know it, because without the four year rule, we can’t hold players for that amount of time and the revenue that would be for the university would shrink.”

Haywood began his fight with the NBA in the 1970-1971 season when the Seattle Sonics decided to take a chance on him and break the rule. The NBA moved to block Haywood from playing. Haywood then filed an antitrust suit against the league, claiming that the “four-year rule” set by the NBA was affecting his right to make a living.

“It wasn’t an easy journey,” Haywood said. “When we were playing the Chicago Bulls, the announcer came on and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have an illegal player on the floor, No. 24. And this game is under protest.’”

The league responded with the hardship rule, which allowed a player to enter the league early as long as the player could prove he needed to for financial reasons.

Logan Huff is a senior journalism student at Arizona State University

Sponsorships helping slow runners be winners

Ultra runner and water campaigner Mina Guli runs across the Thames River, during the #RunningDry expedition on Nov. 7, 2018 in London, England.  (Photo by Kelvin Trautman / Welcome to Frank via Getty Images)

Mina Guli, a 48-year-old Australian, does not classify herself as a runner.

“I feel like I’m not an athlete,” Guli told the New York Times. “A runner? I’m not that either.”

Although they might never win a title or a gold medal, some individuals have shown it is not all about how fast you can run but how impactful your story is.

Guli had run a marathon on the day she spoke with the New York Times, and planned to run one the next day, and the next day and the day after that until she finished her goal: 100 marathons in 100 days, 2,620 miles total.

Guli’s goal — to raise awareness of the global water crisis — has attracted a large number of supporters through social media. On Twitter, a recent trend for runners is the hashtag #runningdry and #everydropcounts.

 

But how can she afford to drop everything for at least 100 days?

Guli is one of many runners who have received sponsorships, in a similar way top-level runners coming out of college do. Guli is sponsored by Reebok, which gives her gear, a media campaign and money to cover the logistics of her effort.

Guli is part of a recent trend of non-competitive runners gaining sponsorships and partnerships with big companies as part of the latter’s efforts to build an audience.

Her efforts to increase awareness did not stem from the start of her 100-marathon project. Guli is the founder and chief executive of Thirst, a nonprofit that spreads awareness about the global water crisis. Guli continues to reach new people and audiences each day through her sponsorship, social media and nonprofit organization.

Although Guli is not considered an influencer on social media, she has reached hundreds of people through her unique narrative and story. Reebok is making a statement that regular people that look like them and run like them can do great things too.

Merhawi Keflezighi is the founder and president of HAWI Management, an organization that represents athletes such as his older brother Meb Keflezighi, who placed second in the Olympic Marathon in 2004 in Athens and won the New York City Marathon in 2009 and Boston in 2014. Merhawi Keflezighi has been an agent for 14 years. Throughout that time, he has seen sponsorship deals widen and vary, according to the Times.

“Ultimately, they want to be able to tell a story,” Keflezighi told the Times.

He added that he thinks people can relate to others who are similar to them, ones who are not just the fastest or strongest person in the world.

Justin Gallegos, the first professional athlete with cerebral palsy to sign a contract with Nike, is a junior at Oregon and a member of the school’s running club. Gallegos released a viral video of his reaction to the news he was being sponsored.

“You don’t realize how realistic and emotional your dreams are until they play out before your very eyes!” Gallegos said on Instagram. He later added that that moment was perhaps the most emotional moment in his seven years of running.

Gallegos is planning to run his first marathon, the Chicago Marathon in October. He was campaigning for more runners with his condition to run longer distances at the Summer Paralympics in Tokyo in 2020. According to the Times, he wants to run the 1,500-meter race but said that the standards for it are not achievable for someone with cerebral palsy right now.

“I think it put a statement on what being an athlete truly means,” Gallegos said. “Yes, talent is important. Don’t get me wrong. But you can have all the talent in the world and not have any passion.”

Gallegos later added that it is important for companies to expand their horizons because there’s “lots and lots of talented athletes out there.”

Mirna Valerio, 34, is another popular name in this trending topic. Valerio started a blog, “Fat Girl Running”, that is about being an active larger girl in a thinner world. Valerio created her blog as she was training for her first marathon in 2011 and has 2,060 followers.

According to the Times, she named her blog that “because I was fat and I was a girl and I ran. It’s as simple as that. I knew that it would be a little controversial, and I was O.K. with that.”

What started out as a blog has gained serious attention. Valerio is an author of a bestselling book and a public speaker. She also partners with organizations like Skirt Sports, Merrell, Hydroflask, Hyland’s, REI, Swiftwick and Custom Performance of New York.

Strick Walker, chief marketing officer of Merrell, told the Times Valerio has a passion for being outside and challenging herself and her own evolution and development as someone who’s passionate about being outdoors.

“They’re realizing that their bottom line can be enhanced by including more people, including different communities,” Valerio said. “They will say it’s about inclusivity, but when you get down to it, it’s about your bottom line and market share, and you don’t want to lose market share by not being inclusive.”

Whether an individual is considered a “slow runner,” a “fat girl running” or even has a congenital disorder of movement, these individuals have shown that it is not about the talent or the pace. Endorsements go further than the skill of an athlete or non athlete.

“I’m just a normal person who set out one day to make a difference in this world, and it turned out running was a way to make it happen,” Guli said.

Logan Huff is a senior journalism student at Arizona State University.

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MLB partnership could change the way fans access stadiums

Globe Life Park, home of the Texas Rangers. (Photo by Visions of America/UIG via Getty Images)

Major League Baseball tested biometric ticketing at a handful of ballparks and plans to expand its use of fingerprint-based tickets across the nation in 2019.

MLB’s partnership with Clear could bring biometric identification to venues and games across the country.

MLB is partnering with biometric identification company Clear to switch from paper and mobile tickets to biometric identification. Once this initiative is put into use, baseball parks that utilize Clear and Ticket.com technology will give their fans the access that is as easy as a tap or swipe with their fingers to enter a game at the ballpark. They also will be able to use Clear’s biometric identity platform to pay for concessions.

So far, Clear technology has been installed  in more than a dozen venues and the company has partnered with a lengthening list of pro teams, including the New York Yankees, Colorado Rockies, Seattle Mariners, New York Mets, Atlanta Braves, the Los Angeles Football Club, Oakland Athletics, San Jose Quakes and Madison Square Garden.

As part of a new mobile-ticketing policy, the Seattle Mariners announced their fans will no longer have access to its stadium with print-at-home tickets. Starting Mar. 23-24, at the Mariners FanFest, the fans will enter T-Mobile Park via their MLB Ballpark app on their phone.

Over half of all MLB teams have already made the switch to mobile-only ticket entry or are doing so this season, according to MLB.com. According to SportTechie, while the Mariners no longer accept cash at select points-of-sale, the Tampa Bay Rays will no longer take cash at all, inside Tropicana Field.

Over 60 percent of all our single-game buyers, and many of our season ticket holders, are already opting for mobile delivery. The technology has evolved to the point where it is a fast, easy and secure way for fans to purchase, access and manage their tickets,” said Malcolm Rogel, Mariners VP of Ticket Operations and Event Services, according to MLB.com.

The technology can identify individuals using physical attributes such as fingerprints, retinas, voices, face recognition, hand geometry and DNA. A blog post from a security expert with Minerva Security, a British based fire and security system firm, M2SYS, states that the business system is much more secure and extremely efficient; it provides precise results and with minimal invasiveness since a simple scan is needed to activate the business system functionalities. Employers can scan employees’ biometrics to access company devices and to clock in and out of work. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, the most common form of biometric authentication used is fingerprint scanning, followed by facial recognition.

“The adoption of mobile ticketing has brought us to this point,” Noah Garden, MLB’s executive vice president of business, told FOX Business. “Getting into the stadium as seamlessly and expeditiously as possible is important to the fan experience. The last thing you want is a pile-up getting into the game. We want to achieve security measures at the same time as taking the fan experience to the next level.”

Consumers are familiar with or have been at least introduced to the idea of biometrics. For example, most cell phones have fingerprint and/or facial recognition features to unlock phones. Consumers are also familiar with fingerprint scanning through services by Clear that allow passengers to move through security lines at the airport.

The MLB-Clear partnership is the first time any major sports organization has collaborated to provide fans with a new identification technology. Although the league will not store the data itself, the general collection and use of fans’ biometric data raises privacy consideration questions. Furthermore, only three states have passed laws to protect biometric information.

Biometric data can be stored and reused, leading to violations of existing privacy laws. The current question is what happens with the data and how it relates to privacy rights.

In 2008, Illinois passed the Biometric Information Privacy Act in efforts to prohibit the collection of a person’s biometric information without his or her written consent. The law requires organizations that hold biometric identifiers or biometric information to inform individuals that their data is being collected, why it is being collected and how long it will be used and stored.

Washington and Texas passed similar legislation. Montana, Connecticut and New Hampshire have considered, but not yet passed, laws. Furthermore, Illinois’s BIPA is the only law that includes a private right of action for those aggrieved by a violation of the statue.

Biometric privacy in the United States, biometric privacy laws in green and failed biometric privacy bills in orange Source: https://www.bayometric.com/u-s-states-enact-bipa/

In a lawsuit, Rosenbach v Six Flags Entertainment Corp., against a Six Flags theme park, Stacy Rosenbach sued the park after her son was fingerprinted in order to access a season pass she purchased for him. Rosenbach fought that the park violated BIPA because it didn’t have her son’s written consent to be fingerprinted, or disclose what it does with the biometric data. The mother stated that her family had not been in any harm but argued that she wouldn’t have purchased the season pass for him had she known he would be fingerprinted.

The trial court rejected Six Flags’ argument that Rosenbach’s suit must fail because she did not allege any harm as a result of the allegedly illegal data collection. The court agreed to present to the appeals court the question of whether a person aggrieved by a violation of BIPA must result in some actual harm.

In 2017, the appeals court reversed the trial court’s decision, stating that a plaintiff must allege harm as a result of the alleged violation to maintain a claim, although the harm doesn’t need to be financial.

Rosenbach appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court on the narrow question of whether a party is an aggrieved party if the only injury is the data collection without disclosure and proper consent. The court answered with a yes, holding that an individual can be an aggrieved party, even without actual harm, where there is only an invasion of a legal right.

Although Illinois is the only state statute that gives consumers a right to sue for privacy violations, its application might not be restricted to the use and collection of data in that state. The question still stands as to where the data is stored and how it is being used.

As MLB expands and experiments with biometric identification across the country, with their large fan base, legal discussion will inevitably continue.

A team that appears to be on the opposite side of the spectrum is the Philadelphia Phillies, as the city of Philadelphia is instituting a ban on cashless stores and restaurants, effective this summer.

As the switch to cashless systems starting to become effective, different demographics in different areas could be effective, as lower-income demographics have limited access to credit and debit cards. Teams like the Rays and Mariners could impact which areas can access games.

Logan Huff is a senior journalism major at Arizona State University. 

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Call NY Jets' Brandon Copeland 'Professor Copeland' in the offseason

Brandon Copeland of the New York Jets has taken on an unusual role in the offseason - university professor. (Photo by Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images)

During football season, people see Brandon Copeland as a 263-pound linebacker for the NY Jets.

What they don’t know is what the 27-year-old does in the offseason.

Brandon Copeland, NY Jets linebacker, took up teaching at the University of Pennsylvania in an effort to help students get a better grip on finances and life before the world hits.

For the first time in his life, and in a rarity for an active NFL player, Copeland is teaching a class of 30 students at the University of Pennsylvania.

Every Monday from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., Copeland works at his offseason job as a co-professor of URBS 140, Inequity and Empowerment, Urban Financial Literacy along with Dr. Brian Peterson, the director of Makku, Penn’s Black Cultural Center.

According to ESPN, Copeland started thinking about teaching two years ago when he was driving around Detroit with two Lions teammates, looking at possible real estate investments. One of his teammates started talking about how he would’ve loved to take a class that walked him through the financial information he knows now, that he wished he knew then.

“The goal for me is to make this information accessible to everyone, some way or some how,” Copeland told ESPN. “And then, long term, hopefully that actually shrinks the wealth gap. So that might sound outrageous, but I don’t care. It’s outrageous to make it to the NFL right?”

The course Copeland teaches, which he nicknamed “Life 101”, was his creation. It was created to give financial information to college students who might not otherwise have it available to them. Copeland talked about how even the people who don’t go to college would get something out of this class.

“I don't care if you're an engineering student, a nursing student, if you're going to build rockets when you grow up or if you're going to sweep floors,” Copeland told ESPN. “You're going to have to use something in this class, and you can't say that for every class at Penn. Every student. Every major.”

Despite his lack of a teaching degree, he is ready and willing to take on the college teaching lifestyle. According to ESPN, Copeland grew up in a middle-class household in Baltimore, attended the prestigious Gilman School primarily on scholarship and worked at a local hedge fund.

In his first year at Penn, he worked at Walmart on the night shifts. He interned at UBS and then worked as a data analyst at Weiss Multi-Strategy Advisers on Wall Street as an NFL offseason job. He opened a real estate company last year. Copeland juggled all of this and the NFL, producing one of the best seasons of his career. For this reason, students listen when he talks about 401Ks and tax rates.

In Copeland’s class, he is not focused on formulas and tactics he learned as an undergrad. He is trying to influence students and teach them proper actions to take in order to secure their first job, buy their first car or home. His students recognize his passion in teaching. They described him as raw and open.

Copeland’s teaching style differs from the typical college professor. He is an active participant throughout his lectures. He gets involved with discussions and conversations. According to ESPN, he even told his students about the time he used a photo of Kim Kardashian as motivation in high school. Copeland was one of them, just a few years ago, so he knows what they are going through and he understands where they are at in life.

I was kind of shocked how good of a professor he was," sophomore Mark Jackson told ESPN. “I didn't go in with any expectations, but he's a very, very smart guy, and you can tell by listening to him. He knows what he's talking about, and he's obviously willing to learn. He’s not going to say he knows things he doesn’t, but at the same time, he really knows a lot.”

Copeland is aware he isn’t an expert in the field of teaching, and he admits it to the class. But he continues to show engagement in the classroom. He says if he doesn't know something, they’ll research and learn it together. Copeland emphasizes that in finance, the correct decision for one person can be the wrong decision for another.

“The point of this class isn’t for me to tell you how to spend your money,” Copeland told his class, as recounted in an ESPN article. “It’s for you to understand what spending your money is doing for you.”

Logan Huff is a senior journalism major at Arizona State University.

Black athletes face bias when seeking medical care

Serena Williams in a compression "catsuit" at the French open playing Tennis
Serena Williams of the United States wore a compression "catsuit" at the French Open to aid circulation. While pregnant with her daughter, she suffered life-threatening blood clots and the suit was aimed at helping her recovery. (Photo by Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)

The new mother lay in the hospital, recovering from an emergency C-section the previous day. She started to feel short of breath and immediately knew the cause.

GlobalSport Matters logo
Marking the end of the Global Sports Institute's year of inquiry on race and sport, GlobalSport Matters and the Sports Knowledge Lab at Arizona State University examined the impact of race and sport. Today, we look at how bias impacts the level of pain treatment black athletes receive.

Serena Williams, professional tennis player, had a history of blood clots and at that moment, she immediately assumed she was having another pulmonary embolism because she was off her medication, due to the recent surgery.

In between gasps, Williams told her nurse that she needed a CT scan with contrast and IV heparin (a blood thinner) immediately. The nurse assumed that her medication was making her confused, but Williams insisted. A doctor performed an ultrasound on her legs that revealed nothing. They sent her for the CT and sure enough, it showed several small blood clots that had settled in her lungs.

Minutes later, she was put on an IV. “I was like, listen to Dr. Williams!” Serena told Vogue.

African-Americans are routinely undertreated for their pain compared to white patients. A study in 2016 shed alarming light on why this might be the case.

Researchers at the University of Virginia tested 222 white medical students and residents to see how many of them perceived inaccurate and, at times, fantastical differences between the two races — for example, that black people age slower than whites, that their nerve endings are less sensitive to whites or that their skin is thicker than whites.

The researchers found that half of the sample advocated at least one of the false beliefs and those who advocated these beliefs were more likely to record lower pain ratings for black patients as opposed to white patients, and were less accurate in their treatment recommendations.

Comparably, a 2017 study looked at race and sports, specifically racial bias in the sports medicine field. Researchers studied the intersection of racial bias in pain-related perceptions among NCAA Division I sports medical staff. The study showed medical staff perceived black athletes as feeling less pain than white athletes did; furthermore, they perceive basketball players as feeling less pain than soccer players.

“Even if race is biological, that makes no sense. I am disturbed by the fact that so many people endorse that.” – Dr. David Satin, assistant professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School

“If you’re really dedicated to science, that makes no sense,” Dr. David Satin, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School, said. “Even if race is biological, that makes no sense. I am disturbed by the fact that so many people endorse that.”

Satin is a professor who teaches courses on topics of race, and he said this study underscores the importance of properly teaching medical students to think critically about race and to understand how implicit bias impacts medical care.

“It is not uncommon at the beginning of the course to have a block of students that are resistant to the idea that unconscious bias really exists,” said Swapna Reddy, a Clinical Assistant Professor at Arizona State University’s School for Science of Health Care Delivery, College of Health Solutions. “You really see a transformation and shift in the students. I always say they’re allowed to think any way they want but they need to be aware of what evidence says.”

Reddy has done years of research in this topic and said the first, and most important, step is awareness of the issue. Although the majority of people will never admit to being racist or bias, an overwhelming amount of clear evidence shows how unconscious and implicit bias can alter the thought process.

The UVA study could help illuminate the problems in pain treatment today: White people are more likely than black people to be prescribed stronger medications for the same medical problem.

Table courtesy: PNAS/ Hoffman. Percentage of white participants endorsing beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites.

“Many previous studies have shown that black Americans are undertreated for pain compared to white Americans,” Kelly Hoffman, a UVA psychology Ph.D candidate who led the study, told UVA Today. “Because physicians might assume black patients might abuse the medications or because they might not recognize the pain of their black patients in the first place. Our findings show beliefs about black-white differences in biology may contribute to this disparity.”

In the experiment, the researchers asked white medical students and residents to rate on a scale of 10, the pain level they would associate with two mock medical cases: a kidney stone and a leg fracture. The participants had to rate the two cases for a black and white patient’s pain level and recommend pain treatments based on the level of pain they thought the patient was enduring. The results shed light on an unexplored area of racial bias in pain assessment and treatment recommendations within a relevant population.

“We’ve known for a long time that there are huge disparities in how blacks and whites are assessed and treated by the medical community,” Hoffman said. “Our study provides some insight to what might contribute to this — false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites. These beliefs have been around for a long time in our history. They were once used to justify slavery and the inhumane treatment of black people in medicine.”

Hoffman said that, to her knowledge, this is the first study that connects racial bias about biology, racial perception of pain and the accuracy of medical advice.

The University of Virginia study supports arguments that physician bias is a factor. The study had two parts: one looked at a random sample of 92 white people from across the country. The second looked at 222 medical students and residents at the university. In both parts, participants were given statements that had accurate or inaccurate information about the biological differences between white and black people.

“The relief of pain is obviously one of the main functions of physicians. Ironically, it’s one of the things we do least well — partly because we don’t understand it.” – Psychiatrist Frank Ervin

“We were expecting some endorsement” of the false beliefs, Hoffman said. But she said the researchers were surprised so many in the group with medical training endorsed the false beliefs, some of which she called more outlandish.

In the study, 58 percent of the study’s general group said the statement: “blacks’ skin is thicker than whites” is true. Around 40 percent of first- and second-year medical students also thought that was a true statement, as did 25 percent of residents.

According to Keith Wailoo, author and professor at Princeton University, the study highlights how mistaken attitudes about race, pain and biology can flourish in one of the worst possible places: medical schools where the future gatekeepers of relief are being trained. Wailoo defines it as the divided state of analgesia in America, which is the overtreatment of millions of people that feeds painkiller abuse while, with far less public attention, millions of others are systematically undertreated.

“The relief of pain is obviously one of the main functions of physicians,” Frank Ervin, a Boston psychiatrist, said in 1959. “Ironically, it's one of the things we do least well — partly because we don't understand it."

In another case, a study published in 2015 by the JAMA Pediatrics Network  led by Monika K. Goyal found black children with appendicitis were less likely to receive pain medication than white counterparts. And in 2007, researchers found physicians were more likely to underestimate the pain of black patients compared with other patients.

(Photo by Gideon Mendel/Corbis via Getty Images)

Another study released by the Group Processes & Intergroup Relations analyzed findings to detect whether people assume that those who have faced hardship feel less pain than those who have not and whether this belief contributes to the perception that black people feel less pain than white people. The researchers, Kelly Hoffman and Sophie Trawalter, found racial bias emerged but only when the hardship information was consistent with expectations about race and life hardship. The experiments suggest that perceptions of hardship shape perceptions of pain and contribute to racial bias in pain perception.

Satin said he was disturbed to find how many medical students and residents agreed with some of the false beliefs about black people’s biology, such as the belief that black people age more slowly than white people, with which 28 percent of surveyed second-year medical students agreed.

Researchers suggest perceptions of socioeconomic status can explain these biases in perceptions of pain in the population because people assume black people have less pain but only if and when they assume black people have lower socioeconomic status.

Researchers who study health disparities have said unconscious stereotypes about African-Americans contribute to the problem, as well as physicians’ difficulty empathizing with patients whose experiences differ from theirs.

In 2011, a National Academy of Medicine report on pain concluded that in medical education, pain generally has received little attention which ultimately contributes to the problem of undertreatment. The report on unrelieved pain called for “a cultural transformation in the way pain is viewed and treated.”

According to a post on Statnews.com, collaborations are underway, by researchers and medical schools, to look at whether educating students differently can reduce racial bias in treatment accuracy and pain perception.

Logan Huff is a senior journalism major at Arizona State University.

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Parents joining in on signing day sparks helicopter parent discussion

Some parents are going beyond appearing in logo apparel when their child signs a letter of intent. Certain parents are now dressing up in uniforms as well.  (Photo by Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire/Corbis via Getty Images)

How often do you see a proud parent repping a college or university on their sweatshirt, coffee mug, hat or bumper sticker?

A recent trend where parents are getting overly involved in football signing day raises the question whether helicopter parenting is going too far.

Football parents, specifically, have a particularly strong passion for their talented child and the school they play for. This year, this special subset of sports parents has taken a turn. During the recent recruiting class cycle and national signing day, many parents dressed up in uniforms alongside their sons. The resulting photos blew up the internet.

“I had buddies coming up to me being like, ‘You know you’re on Barstool Sports?’” Steve Snyder told the New York Times about the image of him posing alongside his son, Sam, during the tight end prospect’s official visit to Missouri.

In the online debate surrounding the image as it went viral, critics of the image charged it represents what is wrong with helicopter parenting. Supporters argued it simply represents the next step in college football programs’ efforts to sway the decision of the recruit by increasing their efforts to woo the parents.

One of the viral pictures was a tweet from Leslie Smith, a commit for the University of Pittsburgh football team. Smith tweeted two photos of him wearing the Panthers’ blue and yellow uniform while standing side by side with his mother.

He asked his mother, Lucretia Chapple, during the visit to put on a jersey.

“She decided, ‘I’m going to put on the whole uniform,’” Smith said in an article that ran in the New York Times on national signing day.

“This is the era of ‘we’ parenting, i.e., ‘We have a midterm. We’ve got a game tomorrow. We’re being recruited by top-tier schools,’” former Stanford administrator and the author of “How to Raise an Adult” Julie Lythcott-Haims wrote in an email exchange with the Times.

Lythcott-Haims expanded on the thought by saying if a child is wearing a jersey that signals their recruitment status, the we-speaking parents want to wear the cool jersey as well. She wonders where the “intertwined-ness stops.”

When a recruit makes the decision regarding which school to commit to, the decision often comes down to feelings. Even for the top football players, college football is also college, which means getting the family to sign on, too.

In a recent picture on Instagram, Jamal Hill posed alongside his older brother, Jeffrey, who wore Oregon’s neon green uniform as opposed to Jamal’s black one.

“The recruiting process is not just about the player. They can’t recruit the player. They’ve got to recruit the family,” Hill said in the Times article. “It’s a long-term decision. You’ve got to trust them. Once you start recruiting the whole family, that makes it go more smoothly.”

Typically on official campus visits, coaches are trying to show the recruit and the family it is a suitable home away from home environment. They are just as likely to show the everyday part of the campus such as dining halls, study halls, etc. as they are to talk about football and the team.

“We spent 20 minutes talking about football,” said Steve Ognenovic, who posed alongside his son, Nikolas, during official visits, about his visit with Auburn coach Gus Malzahn. “The rest was about the new addition on his deck, the truck he bought. He’s a regular guy.”

Florida’s second-year head coach, Dan Mullen, seems set on reintroducing to Gainesville the kind of playfulness one can expect from a team whose fans do the gator chomp and his program embraces the family photos.

On the other side, Brian Niedermeyer, a Tennessee assistant coach, tweeted one thing he prays for is “that I NEVER have to outfit someone’s dad in full gear for a photoshoot.”

Setting aside which college or university has the best prospects lined up to sign with them, this day is monumental to the recruits themselves. They are entering the next stage of their life and this decision could be one of the most important.

“I thought to myself, how many opportunities am I ever going to get to have an experience like this with my son?” Snyder said. “You’re very proud parents, lots of hard work.”

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Adaptive sports improves quality of life for those with disabilities

Tyler Walker of United States competes in the men's downhill sitting event during the  Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games. (Photo by Marcus Hartmann/Getty Images)

For people with disabilities, making a change to their overall health and physical activity can present extra levels of difficulty. Researchers in the United States who conducted a 2017 study  are working on way to improve these outcomes. 

A study shows how effective sports programs can be for individuals with disabilities as well as their families and overall health.

Disability is defined as a physical or mental condition that limits a person’s movements, senses or activities. According to Move Forward, the American Physical Therapy Association  estimates 56.7 million people in the United States have a disability. Those living with a disability have a choice to be active or not. If they choose to be, they can do so in different ways. One way is through adaptive sports — competitive or recreational sports for people with disabilities.

In an effort to determine whether participation in a community-based therapeutic recreation and adaptive sports program has a positive effect on overall quality of life, researchers, Ramon B. Zabriskie, Neil R. Lundberg and Diane G. Groff studied 129 individuals (ranging from 3 to 73 years old) throughout a three- to five-week period. Although the age range was broad, 70 percent of participants were 18 years of younger.

In the study, the participants collectively had a least a dozen forms of disabilities, ranging from visual impairments to amputations. The participants were involved in either an alpine skiing program or a horseback riding program provided by a non-profit community-based therapeutic recreation and adaptive sports agency, the National Ability Center (NAC).

The study looked specifically at whether participation in the activities influenced the participants’ quality of life, overall health, quality of family life and quality of social life. Researchers also looked at athletic identity in the participants and compared it to other samples of people with and without disabilities.

The participants reported their rate level of performance at the end of the program, and the results were substantial. Less than one percent reported poor performance. Around 79 percent reported at least good performance, and more than 20 percent reported excellent performance.

Based on the individual’s personal ratings, these statistics also show a positive influence on athletic identity because it was reported and compared with other samples of people with and without disabilities. The results for the remaining areas of study also came back positive: The majority of the participants agreed the program positively influenced their overall health (79.6 percent), quality of life (84.2), quality of family life (70) and quality of social life (79.3).

The findings suggest community-based therapeutic recreation and adaptive sport programs can influence quality of life and should play a role in the care for people with disabilities and their families. The results also suggested participants in this community-based therapeutic recreation and adaptive sport program were willing to commit to, and preferred, longer and more consistent program participation compared to briefer experiences.

Based on the study, researchers commend community-based programs should consider committing more resources to programs that promote consistent participation for longer periods of time. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the means to improving the health and well-being of individuals with disabilities is a critical issue that healthcare professionals face today.

 

Some national organizations that work to improve and promote sports participation by disabled individuals are listed below:

Logan Huff is a junior journalism student at Arizona State University. 

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Will sports gambling change the way we view sports?

(Photo courtesy Getty Images)

Picture this: It’s the fourth quarter of a professional football game. The home team is down 40.

Since the Supreme Court overturned a federal ban on sports betting in 2018, many states have legalized it and several are in the process of doing so. Can sports betting change the way sports are watched or even played?

Not appealing to sports fans or gamblers anymore?

What if rather than focusing on the score or the lopsided level of play, you can instead focus on how many sacks a team gives up or how many more first downs there will be in the game? What if you could download an app and interactively bet, play-by-play or pitch-by-pitch?

Would that provide the appeal currently absent?

The answer may represent a fundamental shift in the philosophy of sport that could benefit the league and fans.

To the sports betting industry, wagering opportunities that don’t rely on the outcome of the game offer vast potential growth that don’t rely on the score of the game.

In a world where viewers can create their own narrative tension by betting on pieces of the game, the appeal of a game in which a team is up 40 points in the fourth quarter would be different.

“If you’re the (Ultimate Fighting Championship) and you have an absolute dog of a fight on a major card for whatever reason, you could use odds and promotions around betting to drive fan interests,” Chris Grove, an analyst who consults for gaming companies and investors, said in a 2019 article in the New York Times Magazine. “You could use betting proactively.”

For years, sports gambling had been illegal in the United States, outside of Las Vegas. There was no legal betting on players, teams, wins and losses, etc. In 2018, the federal statute prohibiting sports gambling was overturned by the Supreme Court. As a result, as many as 25 other states quickly indicated an interest in legalizing sports gambling.

Just as the introduction to game replays, prime time games for the World Series and the rise of sports cable networks brought fans closer to beloved teams and favorite players via the television, sports gambling may make a similar impact. According to the article in the New York Times Magazine, PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated a fully developed sports gambling industry in all 50 states would bring in $100 billion in bets each year. In addition, the congressional National Gambling Impact Study Commission has said the figure could be closer to $400 billion.

“The players, the sponsors, all the stakeholders in the ecosystem can become beneficiaries of this,” Peter Guber, an owner of both the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Dodgers, told the NY Times.

Across America, the games watched by viewers at home are enhanced by data brought in through technological advances. The fans knows how fast a baseball is going, how far it traveled, etc.

“Leagues are building a fire hose of data around their product,” Grove said. “And the logical recipient of that data is the betting industry.”

Technology has already created numerous opportunities to bet online. According to Zco Corporation, the top sports gambling phone applications are DraftKings, 888 Sports, Betfair, FanDuel and Bet365.

The opportunities created by state’s legalizing sports will depend, in part, on when states (and how many) approve it and what restrictions the states will enact. Jack Evans is a District of Columbia council member who introduced a sports gambling bill that is expected to become law in March 2019. Evans sees the impact it could have on the economy.

“I was talking to some economic development people from Alabama,” Evans said in the New York Times Magazine article. “They were asking how they could raise money. I told them: ‘Put in sports gambling and you can pay off all your debts on the Alabama-Auburn football game alone. One game, Alabama and Auburn. You’d make billions.”

Ted Leonsis, majority owner and CEO of Monumental Sports, which owns several teams and arenas in Washington, D.C., supports states legalizing sports gambling, and he has a lot of ideas for the future. He also owns a stake in the sports gambling application, DraftKings.

Leonsis envisions simulcasts of every Wizards and Capital game on NBC Sports Washington that contain a steady stream of betting information. He also controls two teams in the resurrected Arena Football League and is pitching networks a gambling-centric concept for its games.

Leonsis cited his personal revelation about sports betting to a November 2015 event in Scotland. According to the New York Times Magazine article, Leonsis had gone to Scotland to be with his daughter and her boyfriend’s family for the holidays. He had passed a betting parlor in a small town. He then went to London, to find one betting parlor after the other.

“Like in America, where you’d have a Starbucks,” Leonsis said there would be a sports betting parlor. He later found out that one could bet on sports at 8,500 outlets in the United Kingdom.

“For me, that was the beginning of, ‘Hey, this is a true consumer phenomenon.” Leonsis said. “This is not Off-Track Betting. This is Starbucks or Domino’s. This is popularized and accepted in the most remote places and the most centrally located places. If you wanted to find a proxy of what could happen here, you just had to look at Campbeltown and London.”

Sports gambling laws enacted in most states have restricted all digital activity. Mississippi allows it but only if gamblers are physically inside a casino. Delaware’s law, passed in 2018, does not allow internet betting. While some casinos plan to leverage their brands on the internet, many view digital gambling as a threat.

According to the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, more than $30 billion has been bet legally on football since 1992. Leonsis said he thinks gambling’s greatest impact can come in new professional leagues or leagues gambling could help to resurrect.

The Arena Football League once had 19 teams. Last year, there were four. Leonsis owns the Washington and Baltimore franchises. He said gambling can help add value to his franchises and the league and help the league regrow. Given that Arena Football games average a touchdown scored every six plays, as well as 98 points a game, a lot of data can be generated.

As of right now, the states that have legalized sports betting are Nevada, Delaware, New Jersey, Mississippi, West Virginia, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. The next two states on-deck are New York and Arkansas, according to ESPN.

Logan Huff is a junior sports journalism major at Arizona State University. 

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Teen scientist collects 50,000 golf balls off coast of California

After years of diving with her father, Mike Weber, one day years ago, Alex Weber started to recognize something covering the seafloor that didn't belong there: golf balls.

According to a story on National Public Radio, then-16-year-old Weber and her father took a dive near Pebble Creek along the Pacific near Carmel, Calif.. Weber said she looked down and saw something very different.

With approximately 32,000 golf courses located near the ocean, millions of golf balls are sent drowning in the depths of the seas adding to ocean pollution.

“You couldn’t see the sand,” Weber told NPR. “It was completely white. It was like a shot to the heart.” Weber was raised going diving with her dad so this sight was offending to her.

The coast the Webers were diving along has five golf courses nearby. Weber decided she needed to act on this problem and began to haul them up and out of the water with her father.

Weber reached out to a Stanford University scientist she heard about, Matthew Savoca, who studied plastic waste and pollution in the ocean. Savoca said he would help the cause and decided to start diving with her. The two took kayaks out to load with golf balls.

“When we were out there,” Savoca said, “We’d hear, ‘Plink, plink,’ and we’d look up on the hill and there’d be golf balls flying in off the course right into the ocean where we were doing collections.”

Weber said when the two had good conditions while diving, they were able to gather between 500 to 5,000 golf balls per trip. After two years, the collective group of Weber, her father and the scientist found more than 50,000 golf balls.

Why is this number of golf balls in the ocean so dangerous? Because many of the 32,000 golf course in the world are located near the ocean.

In the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, the authors, the Weber’s and Savoca, explain that golf balls are coated with a thin polyurethane shell that degrades over time, as well as zinc compounds that are toxic. Savoca was quoted in the article saying the currents of the ocean act like a rock grinder and over time, break down the golf balls.

Weber’s website documents the stages of degradation of seawater golf balls and how they transform from “fresh off the golf course” balls to “the most environmentally harmful” ones.

In a video released by Weber’s organization, The Plastic Pick-Up, the viewer can see a seal swimming near the piles of golf balls. Although the chemicals from these 50,000 or so golf balls only have a small affect on the ocean, Savoca told NPR that they do degrade into microplastic pieces and they can greatly affect marine animals.

According to an article in Hakai Magazine, golf balls have been found in the stomachs of at least two gray whales found dead in Washington State. They also have appeared in birds’ stomachs and birds’ reproductive tracts.

Weber’s efforts started as a simple volunteer cleanup but quickly transitioned into a massive research project that could potentially shape the pollution problem near coasts.

Since the start of The Plastic Pick-Up mission, Weber, now 18-years old, is a published author in a scientific journal and plans to apply to university to study marine science.

Until then, she continues her mission to gather balls from the seafloor and store them in her garage, for the time being. She hopes that all golf balls could float so more and more people would see how many are stuck in the ocean, left to degrade and leave chemicals.

“If a person could see what we see underwater,” Weber said, “it would not be acceptable.”

Logan Huff is a junior journalism major at Arizona State University

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According to Janette Micelli, external/corporate communications manager for the Waste Management open, a team of over 300 help transport and organize trash ensuring a “zero waste” tournament. (Photo by Tyler Rittenhouse/Cronkite News)

The 2019 Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale combined one of the biggest golf tournaments in Arizona and one of the most sustainable events in the nation to create an entertaining and eco-friendly event for thousands of people.

The golf tournament in Scottsdale, Arizona, became the most sustainable sports event in the world because and its sponsor wants others to follow its lead.

Last year marked the 83rd annual tournament, making it one of the five longest established events on the PGA Tour.

The event is a trendsetter in sustainability, and the rest of the golf world has taken notice.

In 2018, the Professional Golfers Association of America recognized the need to discuss the industry’s sustainability efforts and released a comprehensive report: “The PGA and Its Members: Bringing Energy to the Game.” Within it, the organization, which is not affiliated with the PGA Tour, reviews its sustainability materiality assessment to determine the topics that are important to the association and its stakeholders.

The organization joined the Green Sport Alliance soon after. The alliance promotes healthy communities by incorporating influences of sports and brings venue operators, sports personnel and environmental scientists to discuss environmental solutions.

To remain in the forefront of sustainability efforts, the Phoenix Open brings in third parties to evaluate the practices the tournament implements.

The Council for Responsible Sports has certified the tournament several times, judging the organizers’ methods meet the standards for social and environmental responsibility. In 2018, tournament organizers obtained their second Golf Environment Organization (GEO) certification. GEO certification requires a course to send in a request for an evaluation by GEO. GEO analyzes the course and the sustainable efforts being made, and makes the decision as to whether or not the course is sustainable. The event is the first PGA Tour tournament to achieve both certifications, and it is the largest event ever, in terms of attendees, to achieve this level of recognition.

“They partner with a lot of local organizations,” said Jonathan Smith, the founder and executive director of the GEO foundation. “They support good causes; they leave legacies. So after the final putt is holed, there are still social and environmental activities going on that the Waste Management Phoenix Open has left behind for the other 51 weeks of the year.”

The tournament organizers’ efforts are felt beyond surrounding communities.

The tournament’s renewable energy practices have prevented 844 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, MtCO2e, from entering the environment. That is equivalent to removing 181 cars from the road for one year or recycling an additional 294 tons of waste.

As for water conservation, the Phoenix Open qualifies as a water positive event — meaning water is used resourcefully by limiting pressure on the municipal water supply in Scottsdale. For example, the hand-washing stations use hand sanitizers instead of water. And, in 2018, Waste Management captured an estimated 6,353 gallons of gray water. Over the past seven years, approximately 37,787 gallons of water from cooking and cleaning have been reused.

In addition, Waste Management launched the Zero Waste Challenge in 2012 to better control materials from the event and to educate attendees on the impact such behaviors and practices can have. Since 2010, only recycle and compost bins have been placed around the course. Each year, the tournament takes pride in diverting all waste from landfills. Below is a diagram showing the waste diversion during the past four years from the tournament.

Logan Huff is a junior journalism student at Arizona State University. 

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