News
Page 4
BY JASON COHEN
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
ate in her book, “Unsportsmanlike
Conduct: College Football and the
Politics of Rape” (Edge of Sports/
Akashic Books), Jessica Luther tells the
story of former University of Missouri
football player Rolandis Woodland, who, in
January 2014, talked to ESPN’s “Outside
the Lines” about confronting
three of his teammates over a
gang rape they allegedly
committed in 2010.
“We should celebrate
Woodland for being willing to
put the safety of others over
football,” Luther writes.
That such a statement
doesn’t seem self-evident is
the reason “Unsportsmanlike
Conduct” exists. College
football has always sold itself
as being about the high ideals
of higher education, but sexual
violence has become a mirror
in which the sport, fueled by
lucrative television contracts,
insanely passionate fans and wealthy
donors, puts itself before everything else:
education, the well-being of women and,
often, its own student-athletes.
Luther has been on the college football/
sexual assault beat (“it’s not a fun place to
hang out,” she writes in the book’s press
kit) for such publications as Sports
Illustrated, Texas Monthly and Vice Sports
since 2013, which is also when Jameis
Winston, the quarterback for her own
beloved alma mater, Florida State, became
the sport’s most prominent alleged
assailant. But “Unsportsmanlike Conduct”
is not about Winston; nor is it a history of
the 100-plus incidents since 1974 that
Luther uncovered in her research, nearly
half which involved multiple players.
Instead, the book is structured as a
“playbook,” with Luther outlining “The
Playbook As It Is” (with chapter titles such
as “Nothing to See Here,” “The Shrug” and
“Moving On”) in the book’s first section,
and “How It Could Be” in the second part.
E
Jessica Luther's
book addresses
sexual assault
and rape culture
in the game she
still can’t help but
(mostly) love
“I was very interested in the narratives
that we talk about all the time, instead of
actually talking about the things we should
be,” Luther said. She spoke to Street Roots
via phone from Austin, Texas.
Jason Cohen: It has to be exhausting,
obviously, covering this beat. Even just
reading these stories, you feel sad and
outraged, but nothing comes next. It seems
like you wanted to focus on that with this
book.
Jessica Luther: Yeah that’s definitely
true. I was adamant that there be a section
where I at least attempted to suggest
solutions, because otherwise it does feel
defeatist Even if the things that are
suggested in the book are just the
beginnings to fixing an incredibly large
problem.
J.C.: In your introduction, you actually
provide definitions of sexual assault, consent,
rape, and rape culture. What do you think
people don’t understand about the latter term?
J.L.: Well, people get scared of the word
“rape” to begin with. And then when you
attach it to “culture,” they immediately feel
implicated in it, which I don’t feel bad
about But I think that’s sort of where the
struggle is. It’s not an individual thing.
People internalize it because a lot of us
participate in it. This kind of minimization
of sexual violence, of okaying it That it’s
never really that big of a deal. That’s just all
around us, all the time.
And it’s a spectrum, which I think is
maybe one of the most difficult things
about it. It’s certainly about actual violence,
but it’s also any nonconsensual stuff: not
respecting boundaries when a woman says
no to you in any capacity in your life. “Oh,
well, she didn’t really mean that, right?”
That becomes a joke, and then you can’t
see it for the problem that it actually is.
That’s sort of-how it gets embedded in our
culture.
J.C.: And in sports, part of that culture is
just casual everyday misogyny.
Street Roots • Sept. 30-Oct. 6, 2016
"People get scared of the word
'rape' to begin with. And then
when yon attach it to ^culture/
they immediately feel
implicated in it, which I don't
feel bad about."
’
JESSICA LUTHER,
■
AUTHOR OF "UNSPORTSMANLIKE
CONDUCT"
good lens for this, because it’s so hyper
masculine. It’s also very violent. Masculine
violence that we all are excited about.
There’s this idea that you’re good at it
because you’re not a girl. I was reading
about an assistant coach of some sort, who,
like, screamed at the guys about not being
“pussies.” That’s how you get them to work
harder, is to tell them they are acting like a
girl, and that’s the last thing that they want
to be.
J.C.: But football also tells us that it makes
better men. That’s the romance of the coach.
J.L.: We LOVE them. We make movies
about this. One of my favorite TV shows
ever (“Friday Night Lights”) is about a
coach who is a good influence on these
guys, and he gets so much credit for that
But then as soon as something bad
happens, we all shift into, “Oh well, this is
an individual guy doing an individual thing
and a coach can’t keep up with a hundred
and whatever players. This has nothing to
do with the culture of the locker room.
This has nothing to do with football.” And I
hate that. It just doesn’t feel fair that one of
those things is true and one isn’t
I do have that idealistic idea of sports
being able to teach people things.
Discipline, teamwork, rooting for other
people, selflessness, those kind of things. I
feel like that can happen. But it’s also
encouraging you, in football’s case, to be
violent, and often to be sexist and
homophobic. Those things are also there.
We should just be talking about all of it. I
feel like I’m always advocating for a better,
J.L.: Yeah, football in particular is such a
See LUTHER, page 5
’