Barnett: Colorado coach makes case that woman deserved to be raped?

[Tiassa]

It's a complex issue, but I just heard Gary Barnett, coach at University of Colorado, respond to a news story that female placekicker Katie Hnida was raped in 2000 by a teammate by explaining that, "Guys respect you on your ability." He said that "If you're 90 years old, and you can play, they'll respect you." He then went on to explain that Hnida couldn't play. (Ergo, she's not worthy of respect?) And then he went off. About how terrible a player she was (and therefore how terrible a person?)

"It's a guy's sport. (Players) felt like Katie was forced on them. It was obvious Katie was not very good. She was awful. You know what guys do? They respect your ability. You can be 90 years old, but if you can go out and play, they'll respect you. Katie was not only a girl, she was terrible. OK? There's no other way to say it." (Gary Barnett)

On the CNN clip, he went on for another two or three paragraphs to tell us how awful Katie Hnida really is.

And he's angry.

I've never seen anything like it. I just checked to make sure his comments connect with the rape allegations, and guess what?

It would appear that Gary Barnett may have attempted to make the case that a woman deserved to be raped.

 

[Bells]

And this guy is still a coach? He's still employed? Imagine the minds of the players he's coached over the years. Hate to think what kind of influence he may have had on those players. I think this guy had a bigger problem with the fact that she was a female and on his team. That male domain of football . Where no woman should ever tread... Regardless of how badly she may have played, no one deserves to be raped or harrassed. It's disgusting !!

 

[15ofthe19]

This is just the tip of the iceberg for the Buffs. The next few months are going to be full of stories coming out of Boulder regarding recruits, sex and money. Bad scene indeed.

 

[chunkylover58]

I was rather astounded by that, too. Amazingly inappropriate comments.
I suppose the comments were to motivate his players? "If you don't play better, your teammates have the right to rape you....so shape up!!!!"

If he had these feelings about her, if she sucked so bad, he should never have let her on the team in the first place.

 

[Mystech]

Well I'm glad that one of those fancy shmancy college athletes finally got some starch knocked out of them. Maybe now they'll come down off their high horses and admit that they're regular people just like the rest of us.

I'm sick and tired of double standards for athletes in the educational system, they're treated like a bunch of prissy divas, and everyone rushes to defend them whenever they make one of their characteristically huge fuckups.

In this instance, I think that it was fitting that she got raped. I mean, in my job, as an average Joe, I know that my manager doesn't lift a hand to keep my co-workers from raping me in the stock-room if I've done a bad job of shelving dried goods, or what have you, so why should anyone care if little miss priss gets raped for not kicking a ball so well? One is clearly a direct result of the other, and really when you think about it, who's fault is it? The guy who overpowered her did his thing, or is the real problem with she herself, and her lack of commitment to the game, and being part of the team?

 

[Tiassa]

"I wish he hadn't made a comment like that ... very clearly, at a time like this, we need to take the high road." (UC President Elizabeth Hoffman, on Coach Barnett)

Remember that there are two worlds here: the real world and Football World. In football world, rampant drugs and sex abuse, firearms violations ... they're all part of the game. This has been going on for some time, though it was the Bosworth era at Switzer's University of Oklahoma that strikes me as the coming out party for the problem of the conduct of college athletes. Around that time, athletes were getting busted for everything from steroids to rape to accepting cars as bribes, drug dealing, and in one case an incident in which a couple of players fired off Uzis outside a dorm complex. And it's just gotten worse from there.

It's part of the price of football culture, and in Football World, all sorts of things are justified. It's just that we're supposed to treat the issues as isolated incidents bearing no relationship to each other or the college (or pro) athletic culture.