European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 26, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                I guess i have to address the Lisa Olson locker room sexual harassment Issue. Everyone else has. The party line we journalists stance is How dare these scumbag athletes harass this sportswriter in the Jap sine room just because she a a female of ill buy that. In a a journalist. In Mon her Side. And sexual harassment of any kind is unconscionable whether it takes place at the office water cooler or Central Park. Its ugly dangerous. Its criminal. Do it in Central Park and you go to jail. Do it in the new England patriots locker room and the owner prof Anely defends you. Of to sum up Here is my View 1 Lisa Olson As an accredited journalist had every right to be in the football locker room. As a woman and a citizen she had every right to be free from sexual harassment by a gang of allegedly naked bullies. Anywhere. 2 harassment of journalists by athletes in locker rooms is not new and predates women in the locker room by about a Century. It went on before women went in locker rooms. It la go on after. Item Sam Wyche Cincinnati coach was fined $30,000 for denying a female reporter Access to his locker room. Jim Mcmahon never even got a reprimand from the league for blowing his nose in the direction of a reporter in another locker room in san Diego. Like most sportswriters i have been abused vilified threatened and ignored in locker rooms even thrown out of one once by a ballplayer who did no to like something i wrote. Its one of the hazards of the business. If you put out Oil Well fires you expect to get burned. You Deal with athletes who have just lost a ballgame a or a world series a you expect to get abused. When the harassment takes on sexual overtones it becomes ugly although there were jeers along those lines even in the All male Days. Sports letter Jim Murray Whin e r ? 0 enough to have been shocked frantic file women appeared in locker rooms. And frankly if i were an athlete i would not want a chorus of strange women watching me take a Shower. I do not a of Good in a Shower. I done to work out often enough and i prefer to meet women in a Tuxedo if possible. However having said that i must admit that i have never seen a female reporter behave in anything but a la Fly professional manner in a locker room. I have never heard one Tell a leering off color joke about it afterwards. I have heard plenty from male reporters. The interesting Point about equal Access is that most of the tune male reporters Are not permitted to enter women s locker rooms so female reporters have to be barred from women locker room too. In other words if men can to go in neither can women. So Tennis and Golf and volleyball and track dressing looms Are generally off limits to All reporters and the cognizant associations require their athletes to consent to a news conference immediately after the Competition in a Neutral site where dress is not optional. Its come to this anyway in major athletic events. A super bowl. With upward of 1,500 sportswriters on hand the league has had to resort to the pos game tactic of bringing the Star performers to a mass interview staging area where they stand on platforms to Field questions from the Media. The world series has to do that too although in both cases the locker rooms Are also open. The rub is in this Day of super saturation of an event by television print reporters Nave to come up wit i another dimension to the Story other than who won and How. To do this they need the one on one locker Side interview. It Wasny to always this Way. Back in the old pre to Days plenty of beat reporters never bothered with the locker room. Jim Brosnan who pitched for several seasons in the old coast league was at my House and i idly mentioned a writer who had covered the team for years. A you know so and so a i asked Brosnan. He Shook his head. A but you must have seen him in the locker room in All those years a a never a said Brosnan. A the never came  you can t do that today. The Constitution guarantees equal rights for All. To me the reactions of the owner Are As reprehensible As those of his players. Victor Kiam an an owner should know How important the Media is to his sport. You done to expect Rookie players to realize that they re getting $2 million a year to Bounce a Ball up court or fall on a Tumble because of the millions of words of free publicity Given to their sport. Equal Access has been court ordered by a Federal judge and a woman at that Victor and you and your team better get used to it. The social scientists Tell us we Are tending toward a unisex society anyway. Well the hell with that. On that in Mon the Side of the French Vive in difference but the relationship Between athlete and journalist in a locker room is too often an adversarial one. T Here Are mature adult athletes who recognize the value to their profession of publicity. Then there arc those who refuse to talk to the Media at All. Their privilege. As Lincoln said a to give any Man or woman Freedom is to give it to yourself. To deny any Man Freedom is to deny it for  the los Angelos times leave athletes alone in locker room in be just finished Reading about the recent locker room incident involving a is. Lisa Olson of the Boston Herald and members of the new England patriots football team. I think in be got a solution to this sort of problem which will prevent it from happening again. My solution is an old fashioned one mind you but one so staggeringly simple that in a surprised nobody else at least nobody i know of has suggested it. Maybe its just me Here but when i go into a locker room As an athlete its just sort of like going into my bathroom at Home. Usually i end up taking my clothes off taking a Shower Etc. You know private things that men and women i imagine do when they re All sweaty and stink. Since in a not a professional athlete i can to imagine what it must be like to go into my teams equivalent of a group bathroom and have a group of people with notepads and camcorders recording my every move. My solution is to leave the athletes alone in what is really their locker room anyway. Keep both the male and female reporters outside until the athletes emerge All clean and feeling sociable again. Yes it reduces a reporters free Access to the athletes but ostensibly erects a thin veil of privacy hitherto not respected by the Media. Women like Olson done to have to be subjected to the rough behaviour of Guys doing what Guys do in a locker room in the name of free Media or even equal Access by male and female reporters. Players like Zeke Mowatt regardless of their Oeha Vior done to need a flock of re pm Rte is wandering through to Grill them while they tto Erin tie a underwear about what happened on fourth Down and inches. I wonder what the reaction would be if a Bunch of mate reporters crashed the women a locker room at the. A open and did this while these athletes did their private business kind of a novel and perhaps proper idea huh David m. Cole Darmstadt Germany Mon Vecsey get real Vecsey a oct. 4 column insists that bengals 2 u Wyche is a a a bully with a a dirty mind be be he wont let women into a locker room with All his l naked this is a Case of publicity Money and v press and the nil is. Rights to privacy. Inn Ocsie wants a a Strong policy of Equality from every Canji eague a and says that a things will get better be in athletes and journalists who have grown Jno a a l Lnu together will be More comfortable work ln8  of or. Vecsey so you regret not having interviewed the olympic women a volleyball team in the Buff. Or would you have rather started with your favorite prep school cheerleader. Get on it George you righteous writer put your Mouth where your pen is and a a socialize in the Shower with your local High school girls track team. Done to be caught off guard the Story might raise More than ones Eyebrow. Scott l. Failor Heidelberg Germany Olson affair overblown what does a woman expect to see when she enters a team locker room after a game this Lisa Olson new England patriots mess does not deserve the attention its getting. When a reporter male or female enters a locker room he or she should remember what a locker room is for. It is a place for 30 or 40 players to shed sweaty uniforms Shower and slip into something More comfortable than a Jock strap and shoulder pads. After All it is a locker room. And she was a shocked and embarrassed a give me a break. She should have been prepared to see things like this. Granted the language should have been More tempered. But again it is a locker room. The sports Media has been Given a free reign in the interview of a player after a game. Would the Story be so important it  wait until the Guy showered and then let reporters enter the room we re talking maybe an hour or two. It would let the player collect his thoughts before talking to the press. For a reporter to be so upset about seeing a player in a state of undress because he is sweaty and Nasty and wanting a Shower is absurd. After All what did she expect in a locker room name withheld by request Crail sheim Germany