By Laura Pappano

NM soccer player Elizabeth Lambert’s hair yanking, punching, and nasty behavior have gone viral. She’s being labeled the “dirtiest player” in women’s soccer and – depending on who’s writing or talking – all of women’s sports.

What makes Lambert’s behavior so outrageous (aside from being captured on video) is that girls are supposed to play nice.

The image of female athletes as more than skilled players – as good, wholesome people – is a centerpiece of women’s sports and a staple of marketing, promotion, and ticket-selling, particularly in basketball and soccer.

This has been both a benefit and a limitation that has helped shape women’s sports as “gentler” fare.

Of course, Lambert is not the first athlete to get in trouble for hair pulling. Last month, Oakland Raider’s defensive tackle Richard Seymour was reportedly fined $7,500 for pulling Broncos tackle Ryan Clady’s hair (also caught on tape). In August, Semi Tadulala, a Fijian rugby player, faced a one match suspension after pulling the ponytail of Eorl Crabtree during play between the Bradford Bulls and Hudderfield Giants.

Hairpulling, like grabbing opponents’ privates in the football pile-up or purposely seeking to injure another player, is blatant dirty play. Unfortunately, nasty play is more common than you’d think, though less so among female athletes.

A study on sportsmanship by the Josephson Institute asked male and female high school athlete about questionable scenarios (test your own sportsmanship here). They found:

– 29 percent of males felt it was all right to “attack” a pre-existing injury of a top scorer on the opposing team (another 22 percent were unsure). Among female athletes, 66 percent knew such behavior was improper.
– 69 percent of males and 55 percent of females felt it was all right for a hockey coach to put a player on the ice specifically to intimidate opponents and protect the team’s players.
– 43 percent of males and 22 percent of females believed it was okay for a basketball coach to teach young players how to illegally push and hold in ways that were difficult for referees to detect.

A family-friendly, role-model-for-kids image hardly holds up with someone like Lambert on the field. On the other hand, this is likely the first time SportsCenter, the NFL pre-game show on Fox (from Afghanistan no less!), and thousands of sports talk radio shows across the country gave air time to women’s college soccer.

This is where men’s sports (and the broadcasters whose definition of “hockey highlights” are on-ice brawls) could use a little self-reflection. As a society and fans who value fair play, we should spend some airtime and outrage on bad on-field behavior among male athletes, too. The integrity of players — male and female — is what makes sports bigger than the game.

View Original Post at fairgamenews.com

• Filed Under:  
• Soccer, Sports, SportsPLUS, College, Student-Athlete, Sexism

• Tags:
• Soccer
• Basketball
• female athlete
• Sportsmanship
• NFL
• Sportscenter
• The Athletes
• unsportsmanlike conduct
• Money Power & Politics
• Pony Tail
• new mexico
• Elizabeth Lambert
• Brigham Young
• hairpulling
• Josephson Institute
• male athlete
• role models