\u201dI think that if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.\u201d \u2014Bob Knight, Hall of Fame basketball coach, 1988<\/p>\n
As a sportswriter, there is one part of the Steubenville High School rape trial that has kept rattling in my brain long after the defendants were found guilty. It was a text message sent by one of the now-convicted rapists, team quarterback Trent Mays. Mays had texted a friend that he wasn\u2019t worried about the possibility of rape charges because his football coach, local legend Reno Saccoccia, \u201ctook care of it.\u201d In another text, Mays said of Coach Reno, \u201cLike, he was joking about it so I\u2019m not worried.\u201d<\/p>\n
In this exchange we see an aspect of the Steubenville case that should resonate in locker rooms and athletic departments across the country: the connective tissue between jock culture and rape culture. Rape culture is not just about rape. It\u2019s about the acceptance of women as \u201cthings\u201d to be used and disposed, which then creates a culture where sexual assault\u2014particularly at social settings\u2014is normalized. We learned at the Steubenville trial that not only did a small group of football players commit a crime, but fifty of their peers, men and women, saw what was happening and chose to do nothing, effectively not seeing a crime at all.<\/p>\n
We need to ask the question whether the jock culture at Steubenville was a catalyst for this crime. We need to ask whether there\u2019s something inherent in the men\u2019s sports of the twenty-first century, which so many lionize as a force for good, that can also create a rape culture of violent entitlement. I am not asking if playing sports propels young men to rape. I am asking if the central features of men\u2019s sports\u2014hero worship, entitlement and machismo\u2014make incidents like Steubenville more likely to be replicated. There are many germs in the Petri dish of sports. Growing up I had the great fortune of having big-hearted, politically conscious coaches, some of whom patrolled sexism in the locker room with a particular vigilance. As the great Joe Ehrmann has written so brilliantly, a \u201ctransformational coach\u201d can work wonders. But different germs also exist. Ken Dryden, Hall of Fame NHL goalie, once said, \u201dIt\u2019s really a sense of power that comes from specialness\u2026. anyone who finds himself at the center of the world they\u2019re in has a sense of impunity.\u201d<\/p>\n