The NCAA News - Comment

October 28, 1996

• Guest editorial -- Umpires claim victory in the war for respect ...By Barry Mano
• Comment -- President makes the tough call head-on
• Opinions -- Make gymnastics a sport for women, rather than girls

Guest editorial -- Umpires claim victory in the war for respect

BY BARRY MANO
National Association of Sports Officials

"If You Spit, You Sit!"

How ironic it was that a full-page ad in the September 30 issue of this newspaper carried that headline.

Just days before, Roberto Alomar, second baseman for the Baltimore Orioles, in a fit of temper, spit on the face of umpire John Hirshbeck, resulting in one of the most-discussed and disturbing sports incidents in recent memory.

Of course, the "If You Spit, You Sit!" ad had nothing to do with spitting at an umpire. It did have something to do with the prohibition of tobacco products use by student-athletes, coaches, game personnel and officials. The irony, though, was undeniable.

To many, the Alomar outrage might seem an isolated incident. To us here at the National Association of Sports Officials (NASO), it was and is anything but "isolated." In just the past year, we have witnessed Dennis Rodman head-butting NBA referee Ted Bernhardt, Norm Van Exel shoving official Ron Garretson, Magic Johnson bumping ref Scott Foster and St. Louis Rams safety Toby Wright shoving NFL referee Ed Hochuli. These celebrated incidents occurred in professional sports. They also happen at the amateur level, and that fact is most disturbing of all.

For more than a dozen years, NASO and the staff of Referee Magazine have tracked physical assaults against officials. The fact of the matter is, the magazine could feature assault news in every monthly issue. If you review the sordid record of assaults against officials, it is not hard to come away believing we have lost civility and that being cordial, respectful and accepting of authority is no longer necessary. In its place stands the braggadocio of confrontation, justified by PR spin.

Sports officials find themselves in a precarious position. We are asked to enforce the rules of the game at a time when society advocates myriad excuses for uncivil behavior and accepts the wholesale shifting of responsibility from the individual to some "generalized other." Blame society, blame a weak dad or a too strong mom. Blame the police, blame the judges and blame the refs.

During the week after the Alomar incident, our staff was inundated by media requests for commentary and perspective on what had happened. I personally did more than three hours of radio time on a variety of sports programs. One in particular was the Rita Foley show on WMAL-AM, Washington, D. C. The interview covered 90 minutes, and many, many fans called in to support the stand taken by the Major League umpires, as articulated by their executive director, Richie Phillips. Fans were genuinely outraged over the lack of decisive leadership exhibited by baseball's brass. They were fed up.

The last call we took that night came from a York, Pennsylvania, sportswriter. He called in from his car phone, just having left an Orioles game. He indicated that he covered all the Orioles games for his paper and knew the players and the team well. His was solid ground.

His main point was that the called third strike by Hirshbeck was a "bad call." That led to words between player and ump, which led to more emotion and confrontation and then to the spitting in the umpire's face. The upshot of his commentary was that the bad call led to the spitting and therefore Alomar should receive only a minor sanction, if anything.

I must admit I was taken aback by the caller's take on the matter. But then again, after time to reflect, I wasn't surprised. For each infraction, indiscretion, insensitivity, there will be an excuse.

When is the last time you heard someone say simply and promptly, "I am sorry for what I have done and I take responsibility for it"? Sports can be and has been a wonderful tool to help young people build character. Yet, if you ask the guy or gal on the street about that, you will get a real guffaw in response and for good reason. It used to be a person read the front page of the newspaper for the bad news and the sports page for the good news. Today, that is no longer the case. We get plenty of bad news on the sports page. That is shameful.

Sports officials feel deeply about the games they work. More than anything, they want the game played fairly and within the spirit and intent of the rules. Officials want one other thing: the unyielding support of sports administrators when it comes to sanctioning a player, coach or fan for unruly or invasive behavior. Officials are taught that they must adhere to an especially high ethical standard and that they are the protectors of the rules and conduct of the game. That is possible on a sustained basis only if officials firmly believe egregious and outrageous behavior will not be tolerated and that it will be dealt with firmly, quickly and with appropriate penalty.

The Alomar incident will continue to be a black eye for baseball. The fan reaction has been swift and unequivocal, while at times excessive. The Major League Umpires Association staked out the moral high ground and America respected them for it.

We officials who work collegiate, high school, recreation and intramural sports also feel proud for the umpires' stand. The umpires weren't successful in having Alomar's sanction enforced during the postseason as opposed to next spring. But if we measure success by the outpouring of fan support for more civility in sports, more accountability by individuals and less coddling of errant athletes, the umps hit a grand slam!

Barry Mano is president of the National Association of Sports Officials and publisher of Referee Magazine.

Comment -- President makes the tough call head-on

BY MARK PATINKIN
Providence Journal-Bulletin

Robert Carothers studied the lunch menu. We were sitting at a campus restaurant at the University of Rhode Island, where he is president. He politely told the waitress he was against the clock.

A meeting, he explained. Every week, he meets with his "President's Team" to discuss the school's key business. Today, he knew, it would be about a problem you could say Carothers himself turned into a crisis.

He did that by disciplining 31 football players for allegedly vandalizing a fraternity and beating up several members. He dismissed two permanently from the team, suspended four indefinitely and canceled Saturday's game against the University of Connecticut. In the history of the NCAA, no president has ever punished team misbehavior by forfeiting a game.

Personally, I can't think of another case in any big-time sport where a game was canceled by management. Usually, it's the opposite: The bar is lowered for athletes, on grades, behavior, on any off-field standard, because only one thing is important, that the game goes on. College players charged with a crime? The game goes on. A baseball star suspended for spitting in an umpire's face on the eve of the finals? Umpire overruled by league president. Too much at stake.

You'd think Carothers might have thought the same way. There is money at stake in college football. And nobler things, too, like school spirit and pride.

Most university presidents know they would barely be missed if they took a semester's leave, but cancel the weekend game once, and it's a national story.

I asked Carothers what kind of reaction he has been getting. Many supportive letters, he said, but he has also gotten calls from anguished parents of players. The most anguished, perhaps, are those whose sons were not accused. Why should their children pay -- and be tarred -- for something they didn't do? Why cancel the game?

It was not an easy decision -- there were days of staff meetings. But in the end, Carothers felt the behavior was so unacceptable, and involved so many, with still more suspected of doing nothing despite hearing talk of a raid, that the team needed to be accountable.

As we talked, a brawny student approached and said that as a player, he would like to help mediate as the discipline process went on. Carothers thanked him.

I asked if the student was among those involved.

The question seemed to surprise him. "No, he's a great kid. If someone like that had been part of this, I don't know what I'd think."

I asked again about canceling the game -- didn't he worry it would turn a campus crisis into something far bigger?

"If you're an administrator," he said, "no good crisis should be avoided. It's a chance to teach."

Others kept approaching him as we talked. At one point, he was introduced to a young applicant from the Midwest who was a star on her high-school track team.

Carothers asked about her events, and encouraged her; such talent, he said, is valued at URI.

The attack on the fraternity house happened nine days ago, on a Monday afternoon. It was supposedly retaliation over two uninvited players being thrown out of a party there a few days before. Carothers visited the house that evening. The damage, he said, was considerable. He spoke with two of those who had been attacked. "Their faces were -- they were pretty tough."

Over the next days, there were many meetings on what to do. It was not hard to agree on punishment of the six who appeared the most violent. But what of the other 25? Should a game really be canceled? Why not suspend the 25 in groups over successive games, but keep the full schedule? That would also avoid a crisis for UConn, which was banking on big dollars from a game expected to draw 13,000.

I asked about the middle position -- if he'd spread out the suspensions, he could have disciplined everyone without as big a mess.

He had ordered a pasta dish. He put his fork down, and leaned forward. He seemed tired, not in the way people do after a long day, but a long week.

"From what I read in your column," he said, "you're raising some children."

Discipline, he said, is one of the hardest parts of that job. The day after, during the "I'm sorry" part, the instinct of most parents is to lighten the penalty, replace it with a warning, be a hero. No loss, the same lesson is learned that way.

But it isn't, said Carothers. "Punishment deferred. We have to ask ourselves: 'Is that effective teaching?' "

But what about less drastic punishment, as baseball did for Roberto Alomar in the spitting case -- allowed him to play the finals and serve his suspension next season.

Carothers shook his head. "Tell them you can suit up, play the UConn game, but two weeks from now you'll be disciplined?" That's a muddled message, he said. "You can't teach what you stand for unless you are clear."

We talked for a time about parenting. Carothers is 54. He has three children -- two in their mid-20s, and a boy, 9. "We adopted him. He's Korean-born. Probably the single best decision I've made in my life."

Mightn't he be stretching it to imply his job has the same standards as parenting? College presidents are supposed to administer.

That got a smile. "Administration is probably 90 percent of what we do."

Often, that becomes everything, and when a mess comes up, a president's instinct is to control it. He found himself thinking that a few years ago when he was out of town and was told of a student sit-in over minority issues. Then, on his way back, he realized his job was not just to control a problem, but to seize it for his job's real purpose: "Create a culture for learning. A crisis can give you that."

A lot of presidents, I said, would tell him his real job is to raise money.

This time, he didn't smile.

"People do not give money to people who need money," said Carothers. "They give it to people with whom they are proud to be associated."

He looked at his watch. Time for the meeting. We walked through the central quad. It was filled with students heading to class. The day was sunny and crisp in a way that made the campus look idyllic. Carothers did not seem to notice.

We talked again about the incident, and he mentioned that about half of those in the raid did not go inside the fraternity.

Then why punish them, too?

His answer, like all his answers, was quiet, and did not seem rehearsed, uncommon in a job where the tone more often reflects carefulness about image.

"I would have liked to have thought that someone there would have had the courage, and leadership, to stop it." Many who weren't there, he added, seemed to have known enough to have said something, but didn't.

That is why he felt this was a failure not just of individuals, but the team.

And in a way, he added, of the school.

"Somewhere," Carothers said, "we did not teach our core values."

As we approached his building, a photographer moved around him, taking pictures. At one point, he turned his head a bit and said something about that side working better.

I asked why a man not caught up in image would care about his good side. For the first time, he seemed flustered. "I don't know," he said. "Maybe some issues of being 54."

I stayed for the first hour of the meeting. A big issue was paying UConn for its lost revenue, perhaps up to $150,000. The president there did not request it, Carothers offered. I've heard of sniping on talk shows about this -- why should taxpayers pay for this decision?

Earlier, I had asked him about that. Everything you do, he said, you have to ask: What does this teach? You can't teach students to own up to the damage they inflict on others if you as a leader don't do the same. This was his decision; UConn shouldn't have to pay for it.

Before I left, I paused in Robert Carothers's office. The shelves are lined with scores of small whales made of wood, glass and stone; he did his doctorate on Moby Dick. Only one shelf held books, almost all on management, except for one, the Bible. On his desk, there is a photo of his 9-year-old, but not standing alone; it's inserted inside a frame on top of his weekly schedule.

Among the honors and diplomas on the walls is a Juris Doctor. He had not mentioned that he began as a lawyer. Nor that before URI, he was chancellor of Minnesota's university system. I don't think he used the word "president" once.

Or "professor."

Only teacher.

Opinions -- Make gymnastics a sport for women, rather than girls

"Even Barbie is becoming an athlete. Olympic Barbie comes in a gymnastics uniform, complete with her own gym bag and hairbrush. At 35, Barbie is about 20 years too old and rather awkwardly proportioned to be a believable member of the U.S. gymnastics team. But her creators have given her a makeover, knocking off a few years and a few millimeters from her plastic bustline to give her a more girlish, athletic figure. It's no surprise that Barbie chose to go out for gymnastics, the most ladylike of women's sports, where you can be a great athlete and still be compared to a doll.

" 'They brought America to tears of pride and joy,' sportswriter John Lopez wrote in a wrap-up story on the U.S. women's Olympic gymnastics team. 'But Thursday night, it was tears of sorrow for the American gymnastics dolls, who broke down mechanically, then emotionally.'

"A lot of viewers were disturbed by network coverage of those weeping dolls, little girls under enormous pressure turning in robotic performances. Girls' gymnastics, while requiring tremendous strength, skill, and courage, nonetheless showcases traditionally feminine qualities that are painfully restrictive -- extreme youth, daintiness, even sexiness. In a way that is not true of other sports or even men's gymnastics, girls' gymnastics can be oddly degrading, subjecting the contestants to a kind of merciless critical gaze while they dance and preen in front of the judges.

"It would be a less mixed spectacle if they got rid of the ridiculous little bump-and-grind routines in the floor exercises and changed the events to suit mature women's bodies instead of tiny prepubescent ones.

"But the visibility of athletes like diver Mary Ellen Clark, who was a portrait of power and composure, and the great, muscular sprinter Gail Devers, and the fabulous, hugging, high-fiving women's basketball team represents a welcome change in our sense of what women can be and do.

"That's why I loved watching the Olympics -- not for the soap-opera coverage, but for the sheer joy of seeing those wonderful, powerful women in action."

TITLE IX

John Price, men's volleyball coach
California State University, Northridge
Los Angeles Times

"The problem is that men's sports and women's sports aren't equal, just like men's sports are not equal to each other. Men's volleyball and men's basketball are not equals.

"The men's sports that are generating most of the revenues should be treated even better than other men's programs. Basically, they fund all of us. But that doesn't matter in gender equity."

ATHLETICS CERTIFICATION

Comments made at a public hearing as a part of Brown University's athletics certification process:

Philip Bray, professor emeritus of physics
Member, Brown Athletics Advisory Council
Providence Journal-Bulletin

"There's a lack of understanding, knowledge and appreciation of our students who are participating in athletics. Things have not changed. They were the same when I was here in the 1940s. I hope this age-old problem will be helped by this process."

Thomas J. Anton, director
Brown's A. Alfred Taubman
Center for Public Policy and American Institutions
Providence Journal-Bulletin

"I think a lot of members of our community don't know a lot about our athletics program. I imagine by the end of this year a lot of people will know a lot about the athletics department and how it contributes to the university."