A few weeks back, I neglected commenting on the scandal engulfing the football program at the University of Colorado. But the latest news is so sick and vulgar, that more people ought to pay attention, and drive out the folks that made former Colorado placekicker Katie Hnida's life a living Hell.
Hnida, as many of you may recall, became the first woman to score points in a Division I football game last season when she kicked a field goal for New Mexico State. But before she kicked for the Lobos, Hnida was a walk-on at Colorado during the early days of Gary Barnett's tenure as head coach.
On her first day of practice Hnida found out how welcome she was. She says five teammates surrounded her and verbally abused her, making sexually graphic comments. During the season players exposed themselves to her "at least five times," she says. "They'd go, 'Hey, Katie, check this out!'" One player came up from behind, she says, and rubbed his erect penis against her.Sometimes when the entire team was huddled up, Hnida says, players stuck their hands on her crotch or groped her breasts under her shoulder pads. "She endured more abuse than one person should have to bear," former teammate Justin Bates says. Even as she practiced, players called her vulgar names and one fired footballs at her head.
Why didn't she tell Barnett? "Because I was terrified," she says. "He didn't want me around in the first place. I thought for sure he'd kick me off [the team]."
The worst was yet to come. One summer night Hnida was watching TV at the house of a teammate. "He just starts to kiss me," she recalls. "I told him, 'That's not O.K.' Next thing I know he's on top of me. I told him, 'No!' But he just kept going, 'Shhhhh.' I tried to push him off me, but he outweighed me by 100 pounds." Hnida says he lifted her skirt, pushed aside her panties and penetrated her. She was a virgin. The phone rang, he reached for it, she slipped out from under him and ran.
I'd say more, but perhaps we should give the University of Colorado about 12 hours to make up its mind about what to do next.
you give them that long? Wow. And we thought that Ricky N. was bad.
I read the Rick Reiley story on CNN earlier today. Horrible.
The least the NCAA ould do was to give her a 6th year of eligibilty and suspend those responsible at Colorado, coach included.
If I had a daughter or a sister, I would never encourage them to try and join an all-male football team. I think this woman exercised terrible judgment in the first place by going out for football. That’s not saying she in any way invited what allegedly happened. It *is* saying, however, that people need to recognize actions are likely to have certain consequences. If you’re the only woman walking into a major college football program, there’s every reason to suspect the players will be out to get you, and the coaches will have every incentive not to protect your interests. Whatever benefits you might get from being a second-string part-time placekicker, it’s certainly outweighed by the danger you’re putting yourself into.
All that said, if this charge is true as presented, the University has only one ethical option in my opinion–shut the damn program down. Allow the existing players to retain their scholarships or transfer without penalty, put take football off the table for at least two years. And I’m not talking NCAA sanctions; Colorado is a government-run school, and it’s time the government take responsibility for its misconduct.
I keep wondering about Jeremy Bloom, the Colorado receiver/returner who’s also one of the world’s best freestyle moguls skiers. He’s taking on the NCAA over the endorsements he can get from his ski career. I think he has a great point, but could he have a shakier platform from which to speak?
That’s like being in the middle of an Al Capone shootout and trying to serve papers for tax evasion.
She expressed bad judgement, thus is deserving of this treatment? Per Coach Barnett, she was a terrible kicker, so she deserves this treatment? Reminds me of Bliss trying to lay blame on a dead person. Barnett is toast, over this and other stuff, he just does not know it yet.
I never took that position, lk; there is *no* justification of any kind for rape. And Coach Barnett’s remarks were, at a minimum, misplaced and inappropriate given the current climate. My comment was that she exercised bad judgment in putting herself in a risky situation. Think about it in this light: If you have a daughter, would you want her to be on a team with 80-100 teenage boys? Do the potential benefits of that situation outweight the knowable risks? Acknowledging the risks does not justify the potential consequences in any way.
I would not mind my daughter being on the team (my daughter did go to CU 1991-95), but I would assume they had adult supervision (how many coaches do they have up there?). The coaches let her down, and should have realized the importance of what was happening, and made those teenagers aware of it, as Rocky Long did in NM. Barnett is on leave, soon to be permanent, due to this and other matters. Will she name the player? Look at Kobe matter, and wonder. It’ll be he said, she said, with no physical eveidence, thsu she loses. If i were her, i’d not name him because of the assured outcome.