COLUMBUS, OH--Tiffany Mann, point guard for the Ohio State women’s college hoops team, has received no free cars from alumni, despite the fact that she is the team’s leading scorer and rebounder. She hasn’t received any special assistance in the classroom, either, nor has she been awarded a part-time job in which she doesn’t have to actually do anything. Mann believes that the slights are a result of sexism among corrupt school officials.

“These crooked alumni are not just crooked—they’re also sexist,” said Mann, after scoring 30 points in her team’s victory against Georgetown. “I go to the same school as Maurice Clarett, yet I’m not getting any of the benefits he got. I’m one of the best players in the nation, too. I give and I give and I give to this school, and just once I would like someone to hand me the keys to a new Ford Explorer. But I haven’t gotten anything. I guess the Title IX Gender Equity law doesn’t cover SUV’s.”

After recent allegations that football player Maurice Clarett received improper benefits from alumni and coaches, Ohio State is on the defensive. Several former Buckeye football players have accused the university of violating NCAA laws regarding student athletes. Apparently the corruption, if it exists, is limited to the football program, because Mann and her teammates are receiving none of the benefits alleged by the former football players.

“Yea, right. Real corrupt,” said Mann. “If there was so much corruption, why am I still driving around in a ’93 Honda? Sure, the guys might be getting hooked up, but that’s it. Us girls have to fend for ourselves. Well I’ll teach them a lesson. I’ll transfer to another school, then watch them come crawling back with gifts and money. Everyone knows that women’s basketball is the lifeblood of this university.”

Mann recounted an incident where she approached an alumnus of the school looking for “a little something.” She was turned away immediately, a stark reminder of the inequities that still exist in the college ranks today.

“I ran into this alumnus at a party, this guy named Frank,” she began. “Everyone knows him as one of the richest and sleaziest boosters there is. So I was chatting with him and I just casually brought up my Honda. I told him it was running really bad and I could use something more dependable to get me around, wink wink. You know what he said to me? He referred me to an auto mechanic, but he wouldn’t give me the phone number because he said it would be improper.”

On a separate occasion, Mann sought “extra help” from her biology professor to ensure she would pass the class. The professor happily obliged, but not in the way Mann had hoped.

“I was failing this class miserably, but I figured they would let me slide anyway because I’m a big shot athlete,” said Mann. “So I asked my professor to help me out. I said ‘Gee, I hope I don’t fail this class. It could really jeopardize my basketball eligibility.’ Then I gently elbowed him in the side to let him know what I was getting at. He just said ‘Stop elbowing me,’ and then told me report to his office for tutelage every day for the next two weeks.”

Man was exposed to the alumni’s exclusionary tactics long before she was the NCAA’s third leading scorer. On her first visit to Ohio State, she noticed a striking contrast in the way she was treated and the way the males were allegedly treated.

“After all the stories I heard about recruitment, I honestly expected to be partying with a bunch of male prostitutes,” she said. “At the very least I expected to be taken to a strip club or something. Then maybe we would go to a frat party and meet all these cute frat guys and they’d have sex with us. But instead of all that, we were taken to Denny’s for lunch and then given a tour of the campus. After that, they dropped us off in downtown Columbus and made us find our own way home. Oh, and then we got a bill for the lunch.”

Women’s rights activists are demanding that female college athletes be given the same illegal benefits as their male counterparts. Martha Burke, director of the National Organization for Women (NOW) threatened to sue the NCAA unless crooked alumni begin paying more attention to the needs of females.

“The actions of university boosters around the nation with regards to female athletes are shameful and degrading,” Burke said. “We must do more to ensure that they are doing their job of handing out money, cars, and other favors to ALL athletes, not just the males. It will be a great day when a female hoops prospect is fawned over by slobbering alumni the same way that male athletes are. Women can be just as crooked and dishonest as men if they are just given the opportunity. As Gloria Steinem once said, ‘Women are despicable, corrupt whores.’”

 


Copyright 2005, The Brushback - Do not reprint without permission



Female College Athlete Receiving No Free Cars From Alumni
February 1st , 2005- Volume 1 Issue 85