Male Athletes and Their Penchant for Violence

How does that song go? Oh yeah: “Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys.” Still good advice, moms. There’s some cowboy activity –specifically Dallas Cowboy activity – that’s getting attention, and not in a good way. And it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

In 2014 Greg Hardy (who was a Carolina Panther at the time) allegedly beat his girlfriend Nicole Holder while they were at his apartment at a gathering with friends. The charges were later dropped, an unspecified civil settlement was reached between Hardy and the victim, and Holder made herself scarce. She commented to the police that Hardy would likely kill her if she wrecked his NFL career.

So, in the meantime, what has happened to Mr. Hardy?

The Panthers decided to deactivate him from their roster, but not when the charges were filed, that only occurred after Baltimore Ravens’ player Ray Rice’s fiancé-beating video was released. But never fear, he would recover, quite well in fact. He was picked up in March 2015 by the Dallas Cowboys in spite of his alleged behavior and rewarded with $11.3M for a one year contract.

One might expect the Cowboys organization to publicly decry Hardy’s behavior and make a statement about why they chose such a divisive character to join their ranks. But they did not. Jerry Jones, the famous (possibly more infamous) Cowboys owner had this to say about Hardy: “He’s, of course, one of the real leaders on this team and he earns it and he earns it with respect from all of his teammates and that’s the kind of thing that inspires a football team,” Jones said, via Steve Politi of NJ.com.

The moral of the story: if you are a good football player, a billionaire likes you, and your ex-girlfriend is afraid you’ll kill her, you are welcome to play for the NFL. Oh, and make millions of dollars too.

But there’s a lot more to this story than just Greg Hardy’s unconscionable behavior (here’s a little more proof of what kind of person he is). There’s no way his personality was shaped the minute he stepped into the NFL’s warm and cozy embrace.

In fact, much is being written about male athlete behavior toward women and the special treatment they get in spite of their transgressions. Jon Krakauer’s book Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town does a stellar job of telling the stories of several young women at the University of Montana who were raped by some of the college’s football players. The intense emotional and physical pain inflicted by these men went largely unpunished partly due to a female prosecutor’s seeming indifference to the facts and partly because of the God-like status given to the town’s elite football team.

But that’s not all. With the advent of the internet, tracking a person’s public behavior is easier than ever. The arrestnation.com website tracks arrests every conceivable sports-related arrest, even including sportscasters and agents. The database goes back to August 2010 and is sadly well populated with so much information one must wonder how there can be such blatant willingness to ignore these patterns of crime and transgressions.
A peek into the last couple months of this year finds more examples to further the male athlete/female victim scenario:

9/12/15: Leonte Carroo. Rutgers University. Simple Assault under Domestic Violence.
10/8/15: Adam Searl. UCLA. Three counts Suspicion of Rape.
10/14/15: Deiondre Porter. University of Florida. Second Degree Aggravated battery, Second Degree Firing a Weapon, Third Degree Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon.
10/28/15: Michael Wyche. University of Miami. Misdemeanor Domestic Battery.
11/11/15: Julian Jones. University of Illinois. Aggravated Sexual Battery.
11/17/15: David Lucero. Boise State University. Felony Attempted Strangulation.

Those are some scary accusations against young men who may only just be beginning this behavior. They have potential to do far more damage in the future. When you add in the possible power, money and position that comes with an NFL contract, as well as the lack of accountability that comes with huge paydays, that’s a sobering thought. The problem is that their off the field conduct will not stop fame and fortune if the NFL should come knocking. Odds are highly likely that these behaviors and violent tendencies will be exacerbated and fed.

But all those examples above are just the NFL and college. We must be aware that these young men have to be encouraged to think of themselves as invincible and above the law. The attitudes and behavior don’t happen overnight. The Steubenville Ohio football team is a sadly excellent example of grooming young male athletes to feel indestructible.

In 2012 a 16 year old girl told her parents she was spending the night at a friend’s house, but instead went to an end-of-summer bash (one of three big parties that night) that was attended by the local football players and other students from nearby schools. The beer and alcohol flowed freely and the girl quickly got drunk and became incoherent. By the time it was all over two football stars had abused her sexually; many bystanders – and the players themselves – had recorded the incidents on their phones and had broadcast them on social media.

Subsequently, the two athletes were charged and convicted of rape, sentenced to time in the local juvenile detention, and emerged to regain their place on the football team. The coach professed ignorance of any of the goings on, the school Superintendent was charged with obstructing justice by destroying pertinent documents, and the town was divided into warring factions: those who felt the football players had gotten away with so much over the decades, and those who thought the girl was at fault and had never said no. The similarities between Missoula and Steubenville are haunting. Alcohol, male athletes, young women, parties: these are the common denominators.

The National Coalition Against Violent Athletes (NCAVA), which was started in 1997 by a victim of college athlete violence, has a mission to educate and rehabilitate the perpetrators about the ramifications of their actions. The website is truly alarming to read as it describes their program called INTERCEPT: “The program’s mission to promote proactive strategies to challenge behaviors and foster personal accountability to cultivate leadership. Intercept is a powerful agent in combating athlete violence while producing moral exemplars of society” and its need: “By the time college athletes arrive on campus, most have been personally exposed to violence against women - through a teammate, friend or family member. And most are not equipped to understand its full impact, process it or prevent it. The campus environment combined with the culture of big time college athletics can be a devastating mix, especially given that 1 in 5 women on campus will have been raped or have it attempted.”

Here’s the first line of the Minnesota Golden Gopher’s Student Athlete Code of Conduct: “Student-athletes at the University of Minnesota are expected to represent themselves, their team and the University with honesty, integrity, and character whether it be academically, athletically or socially.” None of these young men even come close to reaching those not-so-lofty goals.

The culture of sports – whether collegiate or professional – is, at its core, flawed in its attitude toward women. The money, power and fame that comes to those players and their lack of conscience regarding their behavior will never change those mindsets without help. Awareness, advocates for change, and consequences must be put in place first.

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