RE: Saint Mary’s football players suspended for offensive tweets
The headline “Football players suspended” regarding the suspension of 10 members of the Saint Mary’s University varsity team looks harmless at first.
The players used Twitter to convey comments of “hate, racism, and sexism” and, while their actions were completely inappropriate and offensive, a headline like that really just perpetuates the stereotype of the self-entitled jock.
It makes the reader think, “this behaviour doesn’t surprise me coming from university football players.”
Let’s face it, these athletes are often the alpha males around school, especially on a prominent team.
In popular culture they are portrayed as the “jocks” that are big, strong, and think they can do whatever they want.
It’s not just limited to Saint Mary’s either.
The stigma is present when you see headlines such as “2 Ohio teen football players found guilty of rape,” or “Naval Academy drops sexual assault charge against football player,” about the Steubenville and Annapolis Naval Academy cases, found in articles published by CBC News and Baltimore Sun respectively.
I ask why it’s important they were “football players” first and foremost. The story isn’t really about football. It doesn’t add to the story to label them as such.
The stereotype may be fuelled by the media, but it extends further than that.
An important detail in the Saint Mary’s story is the 10 athletes were suspended from all team events, but there was no academic punishment.
Couldn’t the university have handed down a more serious academic sanction? Maybe singling out their involvement with the football team is at the root of the problem?
If they weren’t on the football team, they would be labelled as students.
A similar case in South Carolina to the one in Steubenville involving teens reads: “Six teens charged in Oconee county sexual assault.” This article doesn’t single their identity out as athletes, only referring to them as teens. This headline is how it should be for any case like this that comes up, because it doesn’t push any stigma or cause any emotional reactions about teen football players.
ESPN’s Jeff MacGregor wrote an article accusing football culture, among other things, of promoting rape culture, which there’s no evidence for. He also argued that cover-ups present in these cases are not exclusive to football, referring to the cover-up of sex abuse scandals committed by the Catholic Church.
It’s important we don’t blame the culture surrounding a football program for these crimes, or hold prejudice towards players because of the actions of their peers.
Immediately identifying them as football players in these cases with no reason gives people that image of the egocentric bully associated with jocks. It may be an acceptable stereotype, but it’s a negative stigma nonetheless.
