Negative recruiting happens every day. It happens in different forms and in different contexts. But in women’s sports, namely basketball, there is a particular form of negative recruiting that seems to be happening more commonly than it should. Coaches are afraid of adding lesbian players to their team, plagued only by the “disease” of homophobia.
When I was looking for a post to blog about, this one stood out. After discussing basic ideologies and structures revo
lving around sport and gender specifically, it clicked in my mind. Power. It always goes back to power. Structures like these are put it in place by people of power to keep their status quo the same.
I found it particularly interesting when ESPN addressed the issues of head coaches telling recruits they are a “family” in that particular program. But what was funny, was how un-family-like their tendencies can be. The blog says that ESPN tries to “unpack the references to family and reveal them for the veiled homophobia they contain.” It’s a classic case of prejudice and discrimination. It doesn’t cause too much controversy because it’s not an issue that addresses such mass amounts of people, as it would with simple race or gender discriminations. But because it address homosexuality, such a taboo issue in women’s sports, it continues to fly under the radar and unpunished.
This homophobia is not only causing cases of negative recruiting, but affecting the game of basketball for women completely. She says that it's rumored that this homophobia is the reason why powerhouse women's college basketball teams such as Tennessee and Connecticut don't play head-to-head defense anymore. This mindset needs to be changed. It’s crossing all kinds of ethical lines and inhibiting female athletes from being treated as equals. Hopefully ESPN can be an advocate in making this change.
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