How’s everyone’s weekend going? Thanks for spending a portion of it with the Six.
Scandal is a term used to describe otherwise vexing events in history. Watergate comes to mind. Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky. Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan. The Royal Family.
There’s an evolution to scandals as they are presented to the public in real time: a transgression is uncovered. There is reaction to that transgression. The accused denies the charge. More accusations are made, involving more individuals. People lose their jobs, then everyone lawyers up. After enough time, usually one week, maybe two, the media loses interest and public curiosity wanes. The information gusher—and urgency of the news cycle—springs open again when ensuing cases work through the legal system.
The Northwestern/Pat Fitzgerald story certainly mirrors this pattern. It has taken on calumnious form, reaching the heights of moral outrage becoming of a scandal. Let’s not pretend for minute the race and identity of the offended/offender doesn’t matter. It always matters in America in the year 2023.
For the sake of argument: let’s say all of the Northwestern accusers were white and that everything that’s been reported to have gone on in the locker room or at the program’s summer retreat, Camp Kenosha, happened. Let’s go back to 1950’s-era college football before integration.
I think what would still weird people out about the reported incidents is the nakedness. Why were all the players, all 18-22 year old young men, so naked while all of these activities were going on?
As a reporter having spent many hours of my adult working life in locker rooms covering sports, seeing bare-assed male athletes came as an occupational hazard.
Mark Grace, the former Chicago Cub first baseman, used to hold court with reporters with a beer in hand while bottomless. He’d be stripped from the waist down. Hockey players would routinely conduct interviews completely nude. Former Blackhawks Chris Chelios and Tony Amonte had no hang ups about chatting casually with a group of 6-10 reporters wearing nothing but shower sandals. The locker room was their sanctuary, after all. Our property, our rules, they believed, and if guests are made to feel uncomfortable by such rules, no one is forcing you to be there.
Admittedly, the circumstances I experienced as a beat reporter are different from recent events at Northwestern.
They––Grace, Chelios, Amonte and others––were professional athletes in a post-game locker room. The Northwestern players are college students and the alleged hazing happened isolated from adult supervision. I’m sharing stories from my time covering professional sports from the late 1990’s into the early-to-mid-2000’s. Digital photography and social media did not exist. Then, locker rooms were still mostly populated by white males, either athletes or reporters. We tended to look the other way at jocular shenanigans.
Fast forward to 2023 and societal norms have changed. There are more women and people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds in locker rooms. They have different attitudes about what’s appropriate. Athletes are more brand aware today than 20 years ago. Leaked dick pics are not good for the brand. More interviews are done in off-site locations, separate from the confines of the locker room.
Regardless of all that, and the eras of time these events span, one common narrative sticks out like a sore thumb amidst the stories.
Athletes are naked in locker rooms. And we are uncomfortable with conversations about behaviors and environments where people are not wearing clothes. That’s one reason why coaches, managers, administrators or owners rarely go into locker rooms.
There’s an old adage that reads “what you don’t know won’t hurt you.” Nobody knew about what was going on at Northwestern for a long time. And, until two weeks ago, we never heard about anyone getting hurt.
Maybe it should have stayed that way.
Let’s proceed with the Six.
1. College Newspaper Breaks Northwestern Story Wide Open.
A quartet of student reporters for The Daily Northwestern exposed the depths of the scandal after it first seemed destined to be a Friday news dump afterthought. The story that triggered it all is a fantastically reported article by a group of student reporters. How did it all go down? The Washington Post takes an in-depth look at the events around the investigation and interviews the reporters involved. Separate from how I feel about situation––Fitz should still be the coach––as a graduate of student newspapers (Maneater at Missouri; State News at Michigan State) much respect to these students who deserve the attention, and more importantly, a job upon graduation.
2. Is Trump Fit To Serve In 2024?
Another week, another possible indictment hovering around former president Donald Trump. The questions remains––will all of Trump’s legal messes help or hurt his 2024 GOP primary candidacy? Polling seems to show it’s helping. Rivals on the campaign trail are forced to answer constant questions about Trump. Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis have given edgier answers this week and, as Politico reports, “the answers represented at least a small crack in the deference that some previously courteous candidates had shown to Trump following his earlier two indictments. But only a small one. And privately, the campaigns were skeptical that even those modest attacks would have any impact other than benefiting Trump himself.” It’s going to get mighty interesting here in the coming months as summer rolls into fall.
3. Welcome to the MAGA Hamptons!
This piece via The Free Press is the most media attention Lake Of The Ozarks have received since Jason Bateman and Laura Linney set up their criminal enterprise in the Netflix series aptly named, “Ozark.” The author writes from a classist point of view about the vacation destination for hillbilly millionaires, stating how “the lake is the picture of Middle American wealth, and the most important metric of one’s financial muscle is giving the coastal elites—the people summering in the Hamptons and Nantucket, those who sail, those who believe their Teslas will save the climate—a huge middle finger.” I spent a bachelor party weekend at LOTO a while back and best to say that what happens in the Ozarks, stays in the Ozarks.
4. I Gave Slamball A Try. It’s A Lot Harder Than It Looks.
SlamBall, an extreme sport that combines the structure of basketball but replaces the wood floor with a bunch of trampolines, is back this Friday after a 20-year absence with an eight-team league. Right now athletes are in training camp in Vegas for the second iteration of the sport and involves powerful trampolines that can send participants up to 30 perilous feet in the air. Of the crop of new players, 34 played college basketball and 12 played college football, with the players averaging 26 years old. I’ve found myself watching irregular sports like Pogo Sticking and BMX Biking late night on ESPN and my hunch is SlamBall will be in the rotation when broadcast.
5. Strike Plunges Hollywood Into Chaos.
The Hollywood writer’s strike rolls on this summer and now includes actors. There’s a lot at stake with this strike and concerns over residuals and the impact of Artificial Intelligence are hard to quantify. Variety takes a stab at the conflict that’s basically shut down production across the country. The article lede shares an anecdote from the movie set of “Gladiator 2” and how, “they were more than halfway through the arduous three-month production of the film that marked the long-awaited sequel to Scott’s 2000 Oscar best picture winner, when, on July 13, at high noon, Scott called “Cut!” That’s a wrap folks, unless WGA/SAG-AFTRA (unions representing the artists) and management come to an agreement. No one is all that optimistic it will happen soon.
6. Holy Shit! Tom Cruise Just Did That.
I saw the latest Mission Impossible movie earlier this week. My recommendation: get out of the house and go see it in a theater. This is a film meant to be seen on the big screen and it delivers with non-stop action and crazy stunt sequences. One of them is star Tom Cruise leaping off a mountain while riding a motorcycle. This YT short shows how he did it with behind-the-scene reaction shots from the production crew. Men the age of Cruise (61) are not supposed to do such things.
Thanks for reading everybody and have a great rest of your weekend.
Have a suggestion for The Sunday Six? Send email to jonjkerr@gmail.com.