Ever hear of a towel, Reg?

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Posted: Monday April 12, 1999 06:03 PM

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Say this about Reggie White, the former Green Bay Packers defensive end and newly-minted author: He can still knock you for a loop right off the line.

In an adapted excerpt from his new book, Fighting the Good Fight, which ran in April 8 editions of The Wall Street Journal under the heading "Women in the Locker Room," he begins, "Another baseball season is upon us, and once again female reporters will enter locker rooms full of naked male athletes." That stunner was quickly followed by this: "I see no legitimate reason for forcing male athletes to walk around naked in front of women who are not their wives."

I don't know what baseball leagues or parade grounds White frequents, but I've been covering pro and collegiate sports for nearly 10 years and have yet to enter a locker room full of naked athletes, male or female. And I promise you, no one is forcing any athletes to walk around in the altogether in such places; indeed, my male and female colleagues and I would all greatly appreciate it if they didn't.

There is this thing called a towel, and, fortunately, most athletes blessed with a measure of common sense and modesty have become familiar with it in the 22 years since women reporters first entered the locker room. And that's not the only trick available for preserving athletes' dignity.

Most women's teams accommodate reporters by waiting for them to leave before changing, or by putting a time limit on locker-room access. The NBA gives teams 15 minutes to get showered and dressed before the media descends, and the Chicago Bulls, as one example, make good use of that time. Michael Jordan was always dressed before the media came in, and so were the majority of his teammates. Most athletes and institutions long ago figured out how to deal harmoniously with coed media. However, White, who retired this year and is thus no longer subject to the terrible "ogling" he claims to have witnessed female reporters practicing in the locker room, remains in such a sweat over it that he ended the Journal article by calling on players and their spouses to put a stop -- "Go all the way to the Supreme Court if need be" he exhorts -- to the current practice of fair and equal access.

Why is he trying to turn this non-issue into a hot button now, nine years after the last relevant public incident? White, like the Lord he says he serves as an ordained Christian minister, moves in mysterious ways. Though he frequently gets hammered for his peculiarly benighted and borderline paranoid world view -- in a speech last year before Wisconsin Republicans in which he offended several ethnic groups and homosexuals, White said that Hispanics are "gifted at family structure" because a Hispanic "can put 20 or 30 people in one home" and that among their talents, Asians know how to "turn a television into a watch" -- White likes to give it a good public airing every now and then. Thus in the Journal article White expressed sympathy for the three New England Patriots players who were "driven" to the "vigilante action" of exposing themselves and harassing Boston Herald reporter Lisa Olson in 1990, and stopped just short of accusing female reporters of secretly taping college wrestlers in their locker rooms and selling the tapes over the Internet.

"If they choose to, female reporters and camerawomen can film guys showering," claims White. Not true. Showers are off limits to all media.

"They can keep the film for themselves, make copies, give it to friends -- and who knows what else?" he continues. Even if reporters were allowed -- and, unimaginably, had any inclination -- to make such films, they would be hard-pressed to come up with a more fevered "what else" than White, who can already foresee some imagined film of him singing in the shower popping up as a Supreme Court exhibit. Now there's a reason to hope this fight doesn't ever get started.

What's your opinion on women in the locker room? Click here to tell us what you think.

 

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