Pro Athletes Just Responded To Trump’s “Locker Room” Debate Excuse. Game Over
Athletes around America are taking to Twitter and to the media with one very firm message to Donald Trump and the Republican Party: “that’s no locker room talk.” This message is moving rapidly through social media in reaction to the Republican nominee’s hideous excuse for sexually assaulting women and bragging about using “celebrity” status to get away with it – which he clearly has up until the Washington Post uncovered the explosive video of Trump saying, “grab her in the p***y,” late last week.
It led NBA coach and player Doc Rivers – who has been to more than a few locker rooms and knows all about the oft discussed chemistry that makes a championship team – to remark on video to TMZ, “That’s a new locker room for me” and that it was “unfair” to demean the sanctity of the locker room.
When I asked Florida newspaper opinion columnist and former Miami Dolphins beat-writer Andrew Abramson – who covered the football team during the Richie Incognito locker room bullying scandal – he was unequivocal in saying that no “locker room talk” he ever overheard was similar in content to Donald Trump’s now infamous comments to a hot mic on Access Hollywood:
When the media’s in the locker room, they’re more guarded. I can’t remember players graphically talking about sex when I was there. I’ve heard plenty of offensive things in the locker room, so “locker room talk” does exist. But I don’t think that Donald Trump’s excuse of locker room talk holds up.
Republican nominee Donald Trump can deny the earthshaking gravity of his recorded comments all he’d like, but there’s simply no excuse for sexual assault. Locker rooms are naturally places where people of the same might sex discuss the opposite sex, but it’s demeaning to the many thousands of Americans whose professional livelihoods happen in those rooms. It’s also insulting to regular Americans (and men who aren’t adulterers) to insinuate that after we hit the gym, we start discussing marital infidelity, sexual assault and conquests. That’s not who we are as a nation, nor who we should choose to lead this nation.
Here’s what a selection of athletes had to say on twitter:
PSA: sexual advances without consent is NOT locker room talk.
— Kendall Marshall (@KButter5) October 10, 2016
I was a 5 sport athlete in high school.
5 years of college football.
12 years in the NFL.
Guys don't talk like that in locker rooms. #Trump— Sage Rosenfels (@SageRosenfels18) October 8, 2016
Claiming Trump's comments are "locker room banter" is to suggest they are somehow acceptable. They aren't.
— Dahntay (@dahntay1) October 9, 2016
4. Politics isn't sport.
The White House isn't a locker room.
Respecting women (et al.) seems a desperately low bar to fail in 2016.— John Amaechi OBE (@JohnAmaechi) October 10, 2016
It's not normal. And even if it were normal, it's not right. https://t.co/RQUWJJBSTn
— Jacob Tamme (@JacobTamme) October 10, 2016
As an athlete, I've been in locker rooms my entire adult life and uh, that's not locker room talk.
— Obi-Sean Kenobi Doolittle (@whatwouldDOOdo) October 10, 2016
Played for 8 football teams, used 3 different gyms, and have never heard locker room talk like that. Insane that they think it’s normal. https://t.co/o94KL30SLu
— Matt Mann (@MattMann95) October 9, 2016
Don’t get me wrong, there’s been casual sexism I haven’t been happy or comfortable with. But this is so different, and so much worse.
— Matt Mann (@MattMann95) October 9, 2016
