On Wednesday, the United States’ national team took on Trinidad & Tobago in the opening of the CONCACAF 2014 Women’s Championship. Though they won in their first World Cup qualifying match, it was not their best showing. Seattle Reign and U.S. goalie Hope Solo held T&T scoreless, however she failed to shine against a team that the U.S. drastically underestimated.
Back in June, Solo was arrested then charged with fourth-degree assault charges in lieu of an incident involving her sister and nephew in their Kirkland, Washington home. I covered her first hearing back in August, noting that she would be allowed to play pending trial. However, in lieu of the recent incidents involving (but not limited to) Ray Rice and Adrian Petersen, some in the news world began to ask why they must be suspended until a legal resolve is reached in their cases but Solo does not.
I’m not sure that the general public is as concerned as those who brought up this valid yet divergent question, but amid the NFL scandal, Solo’s arrest has garnered more attention than when I reported on her first appearance in August. After analyzing the various events that have transpired (given newfound concern behind criminal charges against sports athletes), these alleged crimes are about as comparable as night and day. All things being equal, yes, professional athletes have a higher standard of expectation when it comes to professional and general human behavior off the field/court/rink etc. But, when you begin to lump crimes together as if they’re equally culpable regardless of the circumstances, especially when perpetuated by men earning hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in the most popular sport in America to women who earn mere pennies in comparison in a sport where they’re lucky to have 2,000 people in the stand, you’re casting a most dangerous wide net.
Before you yell at me that everyone is equal under the law (they aren’t), we have to understand the circumstances that arrived us at this conversation. I mentioned before that a fourth-degree assault charge is par-for-the-course in any altercation involving inter-family disputes. This is true in even juvenile court, where a child may end up for inflicting a common physical aggression against a sibling. No, I’m not condoning any such behavior. But what happened here is so incredibly not the same as Ray Rice knocking his then-fiancé unconscious (she could have easily incurred a brain contusion and been killed), or the use of a switch on a child who has yet to formulate the cognitive ability to understand the seriousness of what is happening to him. As Ms. Fagan at ESPNW suggested, “Female athletes mostly fly below the radar – for better and for worse,” is a ridiculous notion. I’m struggling to understand what “for better” means. This is to suggest that women in sports are benefitting from their incredible disparity in fame and fortune to go unnoticed in a litany of DV crimes that never happened (for the record, it was well covered in Seattle). It feels like the argument I hear sometimes that there’s no more racism and everyone is equal because we have a black president. Give me a break.
I am thankful that we can openly discuss endemic issues in the context of sports that up until this year were easily swept under rugs. However, this does not qualify every sports analyst as a legal expert or expert on gender-based crime. Much like the sovereignty of the states in our union, each professional athletic league operates under its own governance and constitution. I can’t help but feel like Solo is being dragged into an apples-and-oranges argument about domestic violence. This is a woman who has allegedly suffered physical violence by the man she loves (something that most perpetuators in the NFL cannot claim). Moreover, violent situations are almost always the result of physical, psychological or substance-based abuse digested and perpetuated. Adrian Peterson admitted through his lawyer that he was subject to the same punishment that he brought upon his child, for example. This misguided revival of Solo’s arrest to keep a log on the DV debate fire is yet again another instance of journalistic effort better spent on researching why these athletes don’t have better access to counseling services provided by their employers.
If you or someone you know someone coping with domestic violence in any capacity, you can contact your local government for information or visit www.thehotline.org/ or dawnonline.org/
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