By Sam Draut–
After Sports Illustrated released an article on Friday criticizing the University of Louisville’s athletic department for creating and instilling a dangerous culture for women, Louisville Sports Information Department put together a strong rebuttal.
SI’s Michael Rosenberg outlined the extra-marital affairs of Head Coaches Bobby Petrino and Rick Pitino while including a testimony from Kathy Redmond Brown, a founder of the National Coalition against Violent Athletes, on her experience at the University of Louisville.
Redmond Brown said the University of Louisville had created a demeaning culture of disrespect around women.
As readers viewed Rosenberg’s claims that the University merely uses women as an object, U of L sent out a press release saying “the conjecture could not be further from the truth.”
With nearly all University of Louisville women’s sports teams being nationally ranked and competing for conference championships on an annual basis, Rosenberg’s article came as a shock to a school known as one of the nation’s leaders in women’s athletics.
“In my four years as a student on Louisville’s campus and as an athlete competing for the Cardinal Athletic Department, I have never been put into a situation where I felt uncomfortable or felt I had to ‘toe a line,’” said volleyball’s Katie George, also Miss Kentucky. George, who earned an ACC postgraduate scholarship, said, “I have been treated with respect as a young woman, and I feel that my play, my achievements and my femininity at U of L have been appreciated by male and females within the athletic department faculty as well as players on both male and female teams.”
It seems interesting that this culture of dismay that Rosenberg sketches is led by an athletic director who has two daughters who played for the University of Louisville’s field hockey team and frequently funds new projects for women’s facilities.
To date, the University of Louisville is the nation’s only school with a women’s lacrosse exclusive field while the women’s basketball and volleyball team compete in one of the nicest and newest arenas in the world.
But what has women’s sports at U of L accomplished in the tumultuous culture Sports Illustrated described?
The women’s basketball team has played in two NCAA Championship games, a women’s tennis doubles pair were the runner-up in the indoor national championship and swimming has collected two national championships.
All of these accomplishments helped the U of L Athletic Department to be named by CBS Sports as one of the top three programs nationally in its annual “Best in College Sports” review.
Former football Head Coach Charlie Strong had five core values that players had to live by—one of them, “Respect Women.”
“In the soccer program, our coaching staff has always emphasized the importance of representing ourselves and the city of Louisville well by serving and respecting other people,” Jerry Ramirez, senior soccer athlete and president of the Student Athletic Advisory Committee said. “As young men, we have the challenge of resisting a mainstream culture that objectifies women. I can testify there has always been an effort from the athletic department to give us resources to make better decisions.”
But the athletic department’s standard goes beyond female athletes competing on the field. Of the 22-member U of L Athletics administrative team, eight are women.
“This department does not condone any behavior that mistreats, disrespects or is harmful to women. The culture that has been created here is one that people want to be a part of well beyond their athletic careers,” Christine Herring, associate athletic director and senior woman administrator, said.
So, the dangerous culture that the article delves into doesn’t seem to run as parallel as what truly goes on within University of Louisville athletics.
“Not one of my students-athletes has ever come to me with any concerns about feeling they have been subjected to a culture that disrespects and demeans women,” soccer head coach Karen Ferguson-Dayes said.
The irony behind the article is it is coming from a publication that distributes an annual swimsuit edition.
