12/21/24
February 19, 2004
Wise Words: "It was obvious Katie was not very good, She was awful. You know what guys do? They respect your ability. You can be 90 years old, but if you can go out and play, they'll respect you. Katie was not only a girl, she was terrible. OK? There's no other way to say it." Colorado football coach Gary Barnett responding to former kicker Katie Hnida's charge that she was raped in an interview with Rick Reilly. Colorado is in a world of hurt, several women suing about being raped, entertaining recruits with strippers and escorts. Page 2 wonders who's to blame for this mess.
In another unfortunately phrased sentence from the Page 2 article, the writer mentions "the allegation of rape levied by a former female kicker for the Buffs." I believe she is still female and a kicker, no? Anyway: this situation is exactly why I have stopped supporting college ball (Div. IA, anyway) in any way shape or form. I have become convinced that the situations at universities and colleges across this country are unhealthy for both the athletes involved and for the schools as a whole, but the schools are too addicted to the money and PR that a winning program brings, and the athletes, especially in football, have no other realistic means to reach the big leagues. The result is lots of wink-wink nudge-nudge between program officials and employees and school boosters, sanctimonious pronouncements from the NCAA itself, and several schools a year being implicated in very unsavory behavior from both athletes and school officials and employees. Each school administration holds their noses and hopes their athletic department doesn't end up in the headlines like Colorado at the moment. The underlying problem as I see it, however, is not the collleges and universities themselves; it's the people outside the schools that seem to put so much emphasis on these programs. This applies doubly (is that a word?) to alumni, who seem to care more in many cases about how their football team is doing than whether the school that is dunning them for donations is actually doing its job educating its students. In my not-so-humble opinion, schools should do one of two things. 1) Remove the basketball/football teams entirely from the school and have them play as a semi-pro team wearing the school uniform. For every year of play, an athlete would get vouchers for two years of full-time college education at the school, along with any pay negotiated. 2) For schools who don't want to go that route, make the teams function much like Div. III teams do: no scholarships, no admissions based more on athletic ability than scholastic ability, no segregated athletic dorms or special classes for athletes. By choosing one of these paths, the schools could decide how important the visibility of a winning program is, and remove all the outmoded and antiquated NCAA regulations about "amateur status." Okay, done with rant. Going home.
posted by deadcowdan at 03:54 PM on February 19, 2004
deadcowdan: she's still a female kicker, but not for the Buffaloes. They should have worded it a little better. But I'm 100% with your solution- right now, the top 1-A programs have nothing to do with education and everything to do with money, and as long as they exist in this schizophrenic situation, it's just begging for corruption and out-of-control programs.
posted by cobra! at 04:03 PM on February 19, 2004
So if she was a 90 year old guy and sucked and everyone criminally harrassed her, presumably that would be ok with Barnett, too? Is he trying to make a case for Hnida being a cry baby? If that's the case, he'd better be pretty much 100% sure she wasn't raped or harrassed because otherwise these are the sorts of words one lives to regret...
posted by Joey Michaels at 06:23 PM on February 19, 2004
Is this not double posting?
posted by billsaysthis at 07:44 PM on February 19, 2004
It's a double post (or triple, quadruple if you count the very first links on the sex parties), but this story just keeps getting bigger. Now there are seven alleged rapes that are being investigated. In this instance the victim was told police she was drugged and sodomized: The woman reported a bump on her forehead and bleeding from what she told police was a sexual assault. One witness interviewed by police, a bartender, refused to disclose the names of two men in the bar that night. "He said he would not risk getting them into trouble because, 'They're on scholarships, I can't do that to them,"' police said. What. The. Fuck?
posted by dusted at 08:22 PM on February 19, 2004
I think the important thing to remember here is she wasn't a very good football player. You all seem to be forgetting that.
posted by yerfatma at 09:07 PM on February 19, 2004
Gary Barnett, highest paid public employee of the state of Colorado...something is seriously wrong with our priorities.
posted by kokaku at 10:18 AM on February 20, 2004
The Smoking Gun is reporting that Barnett vaguely threatened one of the rape victims to convince her to not press charges: ...the woman, whose identity is also shielded, declined to press charges after disclosing the incident. The Boulder report quotes CU football coach Gary Barnett as telling the victim that he would "take care of this problem" and make sure the alleged attacker "got treatment." He also reportedly told the woman he "would back his player 100% if she took this forward in the criminal process."
posted by dusted at 02:02 PM on February 20, 2004
Why didnt the girl say anything sooner???? Hellooooo? The season was over like six weeks ago, and this is just becoming a major issue now?? How long has this been kept a secret for? I think serious punishments for the entire team needs to ensue, because I don't think there could've been rape going on during the season without the whole team knowing about it from the start, including the coaching staff.
posted by tommy at 06:08 PM on February 22, 2004
Let us not forget that these are only allegations and other high-profile college athletes have been hit with rape allegations in the last 2 months that have gone nowhere. Additionally, even assuming they did happen, willing women participating in student-run, student-organized "sex parties" is a far cry from rape or sexual assault. I think much more facts and real allegations need to be disclosed before the lynch mob lines up outside of Barnett's house.
posted by dales15 at 07:09 PM on February 23, 2004
Barnett was egregiously taken out of context on this quote. He was responding to a question about Hnida's ability as a football player, but the media construed it as a reply to her allegations that she was raped. I wish I could find the article that I read this in, but I seem to have lost it...
posted by lew at 12:48 PM on February 24, 2004
tommy: Why didnt the girl say anything sooner???? Hellooooo? I don't know her reasons, but I'm inclined to give a little slack to the victim, especially since she's in a situation where more publicity is the last thing she needs in order to fit in. dales15: Additionally, even assuming they did happen, willing women participating in student-run, student-organized "sex parties" is a far cry from rape or sexual assault. The sex parties are a separate matter from the alleged rape. However, they all add up to some pretty damning facts: Barnett had to be aware of the sex parties, he convinced another rape victim to not press charges, and he questioned Hnida's athleticism and belonging shortly after she revealed that she had been raped. Even if you don't think one of those things deserves a firing, taken together they most certainly do. lew: Barnett was egregiously taken out of context on this quote. Regardless of question or context, Barnett should have known better than to discuss Hnida's athletic abilities in that situation. His comments implied that she was undeserving of respect, about the worst thing he could have said when he find out she was raped: "It was obvious Katie was not very good. She was awful. You know what guys do? They respect your ability. You can be 90 years old, but if you can go out and play, they'll respect you. Katie was not only a girl, she was terrible. OK? There's no other way to say it."
posted by dusted at 01:20 PM on February 24, 2004
What dusted said. Precisely.
posted by jeffmshaw at 01:22 PM on February 24, 2004
Pretty much what jeffmshaw said, about what dusted said.
posted by garfield at 02:50 PM on February 24, 2004
Colorado football coach Gary Barnett responding to former kicker Katie Hnida's charge that she was raped in an interview with Rick Reilly. She was not raped in the interview. Perhaps that should read: "Colorado football coach Gary Barnett, in an interview with Rick Reilly, responding to former kicker Katie Hnida's charge that she was raped." Not trying to nitpick, or derail, as this is a VERY serious situation, but the wording of the post made it sound like the woman was raped while being interviewed.