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The NFL’s continuing female trouble

Well, just when you think gender news couldn’t be any more depressing in this “election cycle” – “Is that what we’re calling it?” one wag asked me – comes word that New York Giants kicker Josh Brown was released from the team Tuesday after new information surfaced that he had assaulted his then-wife, Molly, two dozen times, including at least once when she was pregnant. After a botched initial NFL investigation that in effect blamed Molly Brown for not cooperating – yes, always good to blame the victim – Josh Brown was suspended for a big one game.

“He’s admitted to us that he’s abused his wife in the past,” the Giants co-owner John K. Mara said Thursday (Oct. 20) on WFAN in New York. 

“And I think that’s what’s a little unclear, is the extent of that.”

Translation: It was OK for the Giants to resign Brown, because he may have knocked around the missus only a bit some time ago. ...

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A seat of our own

With all of the talk about race in the aftermath of two high-profiled cases – one in Ferguson, Mo.; one in New York City – in which grand juries declined to indict police whose actions resulted in the deaths of two black men, few have considered that this may be as much a problem of gender as it is of race.

Looking at the leaders and experts who sat with President Barack Obama recently during a discussion of the explosive events in Ferguson, you saw white faces and black faces. What you didn’t see – or at least what I didn’t see – were many female faces.

Why is that? Studies have shown that female cops are better at diffusing difficult situations without resorting to violence or even one-upmanship. I hate to reduce the world to hormones, but I do think testosterone and the “mine is bigger than yours” mentality it fosters play a crucial role in male police officers’ responses to male suspects. Sure, education, racism, poverty, media stereotypes – these are all factors. But at the end of the day, women are generally – emphasis on the word “generally” – better at dealing with volatile moments.

That doesn’t mean that every incident can be handled with kid gloves. Nor does it suggest that it’s always easy to discern the situation in which force is necessary or the one in which discretion is truly the better part of valor.  

But it does point to the need for women to add their voices to the decision-making process, as Ali Torre observed when I talked to her recently about the Safe at Home Foundation that she and husband, former Yankee manager Joe Torre, founded to end domestic violence.

We need more women. We need more women in the NFL, not only to help the league sort out its domestic violence issues but also to tell young players like Colin Kaepernick, going through a bad stretch, that you don’t shove a cameraman out of the way because you’re having a lousy day at the office. That’s not going to improve your circumstances.  Indeed, culling ill will is one way to cloud them.

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A guy named Joe: Torre goes to bat for victims of domestic abuse

When representatives of the four major sports – football, baseball, basketball and hockey – testified on domestic violence before the Senate Commerce Committee Dec. 2, not one commissioner appeared. It was a snub that wasn’t lost on committee members. 

"They were all asked to be here, and leadership does start at the top. And I do think that it's pretty convenient that none of them were able to appear today," said Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a Republican from New Hampshire. "That does say something about: How big a commitment is there going to be on this?"

One prominent sports figure has never shirked that commitment. Joe Torre, who managed the New York Yankees through their magical championship run in the late 1990s, was on hand for the hearing. His interested isn’t casual. Joe is the founding chairman of the Joe Torre Safe at Home Foundation, which seeks to end the cycle of domestic abuse through intervention and prevention programs for youngsters.These are offered in safe rooms in 10 schools and community centers on both coasts, each of which is called Margaret’s Place, after Joe’s mother, who was abused by his policeman father. Since the organization’s founding in 2002, close to 50,000 children have been helped.

“If we’re going to end the cycle of domestic violence, kids are going to have to be part of the solution,” he told fans and shoppers at a special Bloomingdale’s White Plains event Dec. 3. (The store donated 10 percent of sales from the event to the foundation.) “Whether they have the same name as ours or not, they all belong to us. Kids are our future.”

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Under fire, the NFL thinks pink

A shout-out to two former colleagues covering the NFL’s domestic abuse crisis.

Jane McManus of ESPN continues her fine reporting with a piece on the NFL’s addition of more women to the team that will ultimately help clean up this mess. A revelation: Off the Field, the NFL wives organization, is just being included in the discussion now.  (Apparently, a first letter from the wives to the league was lost.  What a surprise.)

If you’ve been reading this blog, then you know that Jane and I worked together at  The Journal News, a Gannett publication.  One of our estimable colleagues was longtime religion reporter Gary Stern, who contributed a piece on the entwined lives of NFL commish Roger Goodell and suspended player Ray Rice in the paper’s Oct. 5 edition. ...

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In the pink?: The NFL and women’s health

Oct. 1 begins Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and as usual the NFL will be up to its helmets in pink paraphernalia. But pardon me if it’s seems more than a tad hypocritical this year with all the domestic abuse scandals rocking the league.

It’s great that the NFL is concerned about advertisers, er, women getting cancer. But a woman with a cracked skull might have more immediate concerns, you know?

In the meantime, domestic abuse organizations are keeping up the pressure. Hope’s Door in Pleasantville recently issued a “Call to Action” as we mark the 20th anniversary of the passage of the Violence Against Women Act.

“Unfortunately, the recent horrific incidents involving the NFL remind us that domestic violence continues to be a major societal problem that can no longer be ignored,” said Jane Aoyama-Martin, executive director of The Pace Women’s Justice Center said. “I am encouraged by the public outrage, since years ago it would have been swept under the rug and ignored.” ...

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On the field, without a playbook

It’s getting harder and harder to tell the proverbial players without a scorecard in the NFL as the rules keep changing daily, the scandal widens and the hits (to those off the field) keep coming.

First Adrian Peterson (running back, Minnesota Vikings, felony child abuse charge) was deactivated, then reactivated and now he’s on something called Commissioner Roger Goodell’s permission/exempt list, which sounds like a good thing but is a good/bad thing, because he can’t play (altogether now, awwww!) yet still gets paid, which, as we know, is the most important thing.

Joining Peterson in the lucrative timeout corner is Greg Hardy (Carolina Panthers, defensive end, appealing a conviction of domestic abuse). Will Jonathan Dwyer (Arizona Cardinals, running back, charged with aggravated assault involving his wife and toddler) be far behind? For now he’s been deactivated, but, as we’ve seen, anything can happen. ...

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