Well before arriving to play American University, the women's rugby team of Ohio State University had a plan to mark its visit to Washington in a way that neither the team nor anyone who saw it would soon forget.
Thanks to Jeff "the Ageless Wonder" Gravatt, I can offer you two additional photos: 1) Click here to see the Ohio State University Women's Rugby team fully clothed. 2) Click here to see the rest of the photo the Washington Post used. - Wes
By Nancy Trejos, Washington Post Staff Writer, Sunday, October 31, 1999; Page C01
A Memorable Moment On Steps of Memorial
Well before arriving to play American University, the women's rugby team of Ohio State University had a plan to mark its visit to Washington in a way that neither the team nor anyone who saw it would soon forget.
So it was that on an idyllic fall afternoon yesterday, some members of the team lined up on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and removed their rugby jerseys. And there they stood, facing the nation's Capitol, naked from the waist up.
They plan to put the bare-breasted photograph on T-shirts that will be sold on the campus in Columbus.
"We wanted to do something crazy," said Megan Cowley, the team's captain. "It's rugby. It's a crazy sport."
A crazy stunt but not illegal.
"Under D.C. law, it is not illegal to bare one's breasts," said Lt. Russ Walkowich, of the U.S. Park Police. "Realistically, the behavior is not appropriate. The Lincoln Memorial is not the place to do this. . . . If you're asking whether we condone this type of activity, no, not in the least."
No Park Police officers witnessed the prank, he said. A Washington Post photographer, on hand to cover a Pagan ritual at the memorial, recorded the rugby team in its more revealing moments.
About 15 of the 37 team members doffed their shirts. Afterward they said they wanted to shock people and to bond as a team.
"It kind of makes us closer," Cowley said.
"We're stripping friends," Trina Dutta, 20, said.
Getting naked is not uncommon in rugby. The players explained that a tradition requires them to run around naked when they score for the first time. Going topless in front of the Lincoln Memorial was an extension of that, they said.
The team members hatched the plan during their nine-hour drive from Columbus. First they discussed what would be the perfect spot. Would it be the Lincoln Memorial or the steps of the U.S. Capitol?
They voted against the Capitol for logistical reasons.
"We couldn't find any parking," Jen Jarrell, 20, said.
So they drove over to the Lincoln Memorial. Crowley, 20, was the first to take her shirt off at about 1:30 p.m.
"I wasn't worried about it. It's legal," Crowley said.
"If guys can do it, then girls should be able to do it, too."
After Crowley, the others followed.
"I didn't feel embarrassed," Gina Lynch, 20, said.
"We were holding our breath, but I can't believe I did it," Dutta said.
There was a smattering of cheers, and several tourists said they were amused.
"I say, go girl power," said Katherine Fisher, of Richmond.
"Most everyone turned around, and lots of guys stared in that direction," said Sam Haynsworth, of Portsmouth, Va.
The team's coaches said that they were unaware of the plan but that the players had hinted they would do it.
"Rugby has a very strong social side and very strong traditions," Jon Moore, the team's head coach, said after his team's 19-0 victory over American University. After the victory, the players stripped once more on the rugby pitch.
When they return to Ohio, they plan to make a T-shirt with the picture of their Lincoln Memorial experience as the centerpiece.
"It'll get us some money," Jennifer Dunlap, 21, said. "We need some money for our club."
By Nancy Trejos
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 3, 1999; Page B01
It seemed like a fun idea at the time. But by now, the fun is long over.
The Ohio State University women's rugby team, seeking a different way to mark its visit to the nation's capital, took to the steps of Lincoln Memorial on Saturday and posed for a picture. But first, at least a dozen of the players stripped off their jerseys. And they weren't wearing sports bras.
Ohio State has suspended the players from games and practices while it investigates the incident, officials said yesterday. The stunt was not illegal under D.C. law, but that has not stopped university administrators from considering sanctions for the team.
On Monday, David Williams, vice president for student and urban/community affairs, temporarily canceled the team's games and practices. Administrators are interviewing the players and coaches about what happened Saturday afternoon. Williams would not elaborate on what they were considering as the punishment for the team, which is a club rather than a varsity program, though he said that players who did not bare their breasts would not be punished.
"As representatives of Ohio State University, we think the behavior was inappropriate," Williams said.
The 37 players were in Washington to compete against American University when they posed for the picture. A Washington Post photographer, who happened to be on hand to cover a Pagan ritual, also recorded the topless moments.
Williams said the team's co-captains, to whom he has spoken, now feel that it "was not the right thing to do."
Head coach Jon Moore was at the memorial but was unaware of the players' plans, Williams said.
"He did not take part in it, from my understanding," Williams said.
Steve Weaver, the club's assistant coach, said yesterday that the team was told not to talk to members of the media until a decision is handed down. He said that the team was planning to meet during the evening to discuss the incident.
Players could not be reached for comment.
The OSU women's team is in its first year. As a club sport, the team plays in university facilities and receives some university funding but must raise most of its money on its own.
On Saturday, team co-captain Megan Cowley said, "We wanted to do something crazy. It's rugby. It's a crazy sport." Cowley and others said on Saturday that it is a rugby tradition to strip when a point is scored, and that they intended to make a T-shirt with the picture from the memorial and use it for fund-raising. But yesterday, university officials said the players were joking about their plans for the T-shirts.
"We're very careful about alerting the players and coaches that they carry the OSU name with them into any community," said J. Michael Dunn, director of recreational sports. "Our position is that this is an institution of higher learning and this is a learning experience."
By Nancy Trejos
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 5, 1999; Page B07
The Ohio State University women rugby players who posed without shirts in front of the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday have apologized to the school, and in return, the team's suspension has been reversed. But that doesn't mean that the players are returning to the field any time soon.
Late Tuesday, university officials lifted a suspension imposed on the team the day before. But the same night, the Midwest Rugby Union, the regional governing body for rugby clubs, decided to bar the team from competition for the rest of the fall season.
"We felt that the girls needed to serve some punishment even though they broke no laws," said Tom Rooney, Ohio collegiate coordinator for the Midwest Collegiate Committee of the Midwest Rugby Union. "When you carry the university name, you need to be made aware that you are held to a higher standard."
At least a dozen of the 37 team members in town to compete against American University posed for a picture without jerseys or sports bras, and their stunt attracted national attention.
Matt Hull, president of the Ohio Rugby Union, said the players' actions have unfairly given the sport a bad image. "It was a silly thing to do and not what we would want to promote in rugby," he said.
The Midwest Rugby Union suspension means that the team will miss its two remaining regular-season games. It also will be ineligible for postseason play. The team may be placed on probation for the spring season.
On Saturday, the players called the picture nothing out of the ordinary for rugby, which one team member described as a "crazy" sport. But when they returned to Columbus, school officials weren't amused. They canceled the team's practices and remaining games while they interviewed the coaches and players about what happened in the nation's capital.
Although rugby is a club sport, rather than a varsity sport, at Ohio State, it still receives some university funding and represents the university when traveling off-campus, said David Williams, vice president for student and urban/community affairs.
Williams said he reinstated the team after players who admitted taking off their shirts apologized and discussed "things that they would like to do" to make up for it, he said, such as community service.
My son, 4, has a fun game he plays each morning called "Pushing Mommy Down." Standing shoeless on my bed, he sticks both arms straight out and dashes forward, stiff-arming me. He knows he can tackle me as hard as he likes except for one thing: He mustn't shove Mommy's "apples." You know, apples - the squishy, roundish things that big girls have on their chests. Smash them and Mommies stop laughing, just like Daddy when you accidentally kick them in the area my eldest, now 17, used to call his "grind." Why my youngest chose "apples" to depict women's busts is a mystery - though as fruit descriptions go, I personally prefer it to, say, "grapes" or "watermelons." The important thing is that he knows girls' apples are special. So special, it turns out, they can get a girl suspended if she doesn't keep them in the cart.
You've probably heard how a dozen or so members of Ohio State University's women's rugby team commemorated their visit to the capital Saturday to play American University: whipping off their jerseys at the Lincoln Memorial and taking a topless photo for posterity - and for whichever classmates would pay to buy the fund-raising T-shirts on which the players planned to reproduce the image.
Have these girls not heard of a bake sale?
Actually, the rugby players might be reviewing their brownie recipes. Late Tuesday, university officials lifted the temporary suspension imposed on the team. But then the Midwest Rugby Union, the regional governing body for rugby clubs, banned the team from competition for the rest of the fall season.
I'm stunned. When Ohio State announced it was assumed an all-male committee would spend weeks poring over evidentiary photos before arriving at the conclusion my 17-year-old zoomed to immediately: "I support these young ladies', and every young lady's, right to express herself in this manner," intoned Hamani, the patriot.
University officials are suggesting that bosom-flashing under Lincoln's stony gaze was "inappropriate" for representatives of an institution of higher learning. The flashers themselves admit they made a mistake, though they earlier told reporters that nakedness is a rugby thing - news that should instantly boost the sport's profile.
Now if this all sounds like a tempest in a B-cup, it is. Banning an entire team is excessive, considering that more than half of the 37 team members didn't strip and that a panoply of sports-related madness of U.S. colleges goes unpunished.
But anyone who suggests, as one rugby-stripper did Saturday, "if guys can do it, then girls should be able to do it, too," should be whipped with a Wonderbra.
Even toddlers know that girls' apples provoke more aggressive responses than men's. Sure, women in certain "primitive" cultures embrace public toplessness. But males in such societies generally don't leer at or fondle unwilling women, or purchase intellect-free magazines like Maxim or "meals" at Hooters in order to ogle women's scantily covered breasts.
What lunacy could real, live naked breasts provoke?
Frankly, I'm no more amused by the girls' antics than I would be for male players baring their grinds. The Lincoln Memorial's physical grandeur is matched only by the eloquence of the words etched upon it - words that, if the athletes had read them might have inspired more respect. But hey, the team stripped there only because "we couldn't find any parking" at the Capitol.
And you thought "dumb jock" was male-specific?
Maybe I'd be more amused if Hamani's imminent high school graduation hadn't made me sickeningly aware of the astronomical cost of a college education. At Ohio State, parents of in-state students pay $12,901 per year, a queenly sum that earns them the old-fashioned right to remind their little princesses that ladies keep their tops on in public.
Yeah, yeah, I know. The girls who flashed their stuff before crowds of schoolchildren, senior citizens and tourists at the memorial are athletes, not ladies. But once upon a time, athletes had their own stringent code of conduct, and women didn't do everything men did simply because they could.
To be fair, the rugby players are young, exuberant and thoughtless as only young people can be. "Girl power!" trilled one observer after the stunt.
"I wasn't worried [about stripping]," a player commented. It's legal." So is dousing yourself with a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth's and leaping onto an ant pile. But why do it?
For the oldest reason around. Selling T-shirts, one player theorized before the suspension, will "get us some money. We need some money for our [team]."
Well, stay tuned, girlfriend. When Playboy calls - trust me, it will - you'll be in a position to get enough cash to pay part of the tuition your parents could cut off.
And you can support the only kind of "girl power" that requires exposing your breasts.
And - what a surprise! - a politician weighs in...
Rep. James Traficant (D-Ohio) supports women going topless.
At least he supports female rugby players who take off their jerseys and pose for pictures in front of the Lincoln Memorial, as the Ohio State University women's team did last weekend. The women--who were caught on film by a Washington Post photographer--didn't break any D.C. laws, but their toplessness got them in hot water with university officials, who've suspended the players from games and practices pending an investigation.
"Leave these foxy ladies alone," Traficant hollered on the House floor Wednesday, according to Roll Call. "If Americans can forgive the president, Ohio State University can forgive these Buckeye divas."
By Donna St. George and Angela Paik
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, November 6, 1999; Page A01
Bold they were. Maybe even out of bounds. But the female college rugby players who bared their breasts last weekend at the Lincoln Memorial revealed more than what was under their sports bras.
The 13 Ohio State University players flaunted, for a few minutes, how women's sports--and the culture at large--have changed. At least that is what their coach, John Moore, and some others say.
This, after all, is the year when Brandi Chastain whipped off her shirt--sports bra still on--after a game-winning kick that delivered the World Cup for her celebrated U.S. women's soccer team, a moment that was captured in newspapers and magazines around the world.
"Taking your shirt off does not seem so bad once you have seen Brandi Chastain pull her shirt off in front of 3 billion people," said Moore. "Young women athletes feel that same kind of spirit she felt. There's a cultural progression here."
So, in a moment of fun before the camera, Ohio State stripped down a little further . . . .
The Ohio State players made national news with their stunt. But educators and coaches in Washington suburbs are grappling with the same vexing new realities.
Don Disney, coordinator of athletics for Howard County schools, jumped into the fray over shirtlessness in the heat of August, as fall teams began to practice. In meetings with athletic directors, he spread the word: No sports bras without shirts to cover them.
"It was like a no-brainer to me," Disney said. "Why would I not expect a 15-year-old girl to imitate Brandi Chastain?"
But then came the issue of equity.
A female athletic director said, "Hey, wait. This is not just for girls. This should be for boys, too," he recalled.
Henceforth the rule: Boys have to keep their shirts on, too.
So far this season, one male soccer player has broken the rule, Disney said. He scored a winning goal in overtime, ripped his shirt off and ran around the field. His coach was held accountable, Disney said without elaborating.
But the shirt rule has apparently not trickled down through the ranks. During varsity soccer and football practice at Long Reach High School in Columbia earlier this week, several athletes said they had heard nothing of the policy. And while some understood its rationale, they still weren't pleased.
"I think it's a little uptight," said Erin Symonds, 16. "If I'm muddy, I'm taking my shirt off after the game."
Several girls said they joke about following Chastain's victory example, but haven't. "Maybe when we win finals next week," laughed 16-year-old Alison West.
On the football team, Bill Clark, an 18-year-old senior, arms and midriff bare during a brisk autumn practice, said: "If they make something that says you can't take off your shirt, I'm going to go against it, 'cause I'm a nudist by nature."
As for the girls, he said, "What's the difference between seeing a girl in a sports bra and in the summer seeing them at the pool in a bathing suit? Some of the bathing suits they wear--come on now."
In the school system next door, William G. Beattie, coordinator of Montgomery County athletics, said all students must wear shirts when playing sports. "I don't consider myself a prude," he said. "I just don't see 2 and 2 adding to 4 here. You score a goal, you take off your shirt? What is that about?"
The sports-bra issue, he added, could place administrators in the awkward position of distinguishing one tight-fitting garment from another. "I've been led to think there's a fine line between sports bras and other kinds of shirts," he said.
In Loudoun County, School Board member D. Kim Price-Munoz (Sterling) said that in an age when sports bras are commonplace, the fuss over Chastain and the actions of the rugby players was an overreaction. "You see them in the grocery store, you see them in gyms across America, you see them everywhere."
"Do I let my daughters dress like that? No. But it's not against the law. And the boys whip off their shirts."
Chastain's ebullience, she said, reflected "women's acceptance of their strength more than their sexuality. They want to show off their powerful body. And we let men do that, so why can't women?"
For the record, the Ohio State team was temporarily benched by the school, made official apologies and pledged community service. The regional governing body has barred the team from playing the rest of the season. Moore says the team's goal is to mend relations with the university and keep the club, in its first year, up and going.
There is more to the story than a college prank, according to Moore, more than the explanation the team captain gave at the time that it was a moment of bonding for women in a "crazy sport."
The team had not set out to imitate Chastain, he said, but had absorbed her triumphant moment as a proud expression of women's athletic power--which team members shared.
The idea has touched off debate among many who follow women's sports, and rugby, about the line between free expression and bad taste, and whether it is drawn according to gender.
Dwelling on what women wear or reveal--instead of what they accomplish athletically--dismays Mary Jo Kane, a sport sociologist at University of Minnesota who directs the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sports.
"What this proves to me right now is that we, as a culture, seem to be incapable of talking about women for very long without getting to their breasts," she said.
She added, "I think it's important for women athletes to create rituals and images that can be replicated by other younger athletes. I would just rather have it be about Brandi Chastain's foot putting the ball into the net."
Moore suggested that the university's disciplinary measures might not have been the same with a male team. He warned: "Public institutions have to be prepared for more and more of this as women share a more equal role in sports."
"People react to the risque behavior of females in sports differently than they react to the risque behavior of males," he said.
From Disney's view, the larger picture is that women's sports have finally become so popular and mainstream that they now reflect the bad habits men have long displayed.
"I think the women's program is becoming the same as the men's program now," he said. "You hear a lot more complaints about trash talking and physical play than you did five to six years ago."
When Chastain pulled off her shirt, Kane cringed. But she has since discerned an age gap in people's reactions to what Chastain did. Kane is 48 and helped fight for the protections of Title IX's anti-discrimination laws. Her students did not. She found they felt, "This is about women soccer players doing what male soccer players do," she said. They felt, "She rocks, she rules."
For many female athletes, the issue is largely abstract. They could not imagine the thrill of victory ever leading to a fit of shirt-flinging.
"Personally, if I was going to score a point, it's not the first thing that would come to my mind," said Victoria Vaskov, 19, a sophomore rugby player at George Washington University. On the other hand, Vaskov said the larger trend may be positive.
"Maybe it shows the level of comfort women athletes have with their bodies," she said.
In the world of sports, many drew distinctions between baring down to the sports bra--and baring down to the breast.
People who know rugby say it is a breed apart from other sports, with its full contact play, no helmets, no pads. Many players argued that the display at the Lincoln Memorial takes away some of the hard-earned respect the sport has begun to command in recent years.
Roni Epstein, who has played rugby in the region for 15 years, said the topless posing has been the talk of her team. While a few players have forgiven the stunt as a youthful indiscretion, she said, most were angry.
"Everybody was insulted that the face of rugby was tainted," she said. "We take our sport so seriously. It trivializes the sport of rugby."
Moore said supportive words have come in for his rugby club from across the country. Most offended, he said, have been university alumni and administrators.
But, he said, part of the sport's tradition is fearlessness. "Maybe you're not afraid to take your shirt off," he said, "after you're not afraid to play on the field."
By Tony Kornheiser
The Washington Post Sunday, November 7, 1999; Page F01
Let me see if I have this right: Al Gore, who is running for president on the grounds that he is a regular guy who's in touch with the people of this country, has hired feminist author Naomi Wolf to advise him on his campaign. Ms. Wolf, a big-haired cutie, is perhaps best known for her views on sex. She advocates teaching teenagers masturbation, mutual masturbation and oral sex--a subject in which, she brags in her book "Promiscuities," she was rather adroit.
Hey, now!
To use Gore's own slogan, there's "A Change That Works for Working Families."
Not to put too fine a point on the recent, um, forthright exchange of positions in the Oval Office, but wouldn't you think any Democrat would go for garlic and a wooden stake if an adviser even mentioned oral sex?
As the father of two teenagers, the last thing in the world I want the schools to teach my children is how to masturbate. Heck, let 'em be self-taught, like their father. (As political performance artist James Carville proclaims, "I must have been a prodigy. I learned it all on my own.")
Of course, I might sing a different tune if I could sign up for remedial adult education. Just out of curiosity, how would one teach a course on masturbation? "In an offhand manner," suggests Don Imus's cohort, Charles McCord.
Wolf says teaching kids sex in this way "is as sensible as teaching kids to drive."
Whoa, dollface! Where were you when I wrote that column?
Before he hooked up with Naomi Wolf, Al Gore's standard campaign speech was about greenhouse gases. I take it that will change.
It has been reported that in an attempt to make Gore appear less like a Doric column, Wolf has relaxed his wardrobe and told him to speak from the heart. It shows how far we've come as a culture that Wolf is an "adviser," because long ago, in a universe far away, women who picked out a man's clothes and told him what to say were called "nags."
Wolf's concern is that Gore is a "beta male," and he has to become more of an "alpha male." (For purposes of identification I am classified as "overnight mail.")
Apparently, it's Wolf's belief that Gore has to get more in touch with his masculinity to win over the electorate. People like Wolf and her fellow babe-ette, writer Susan Faludi, have created an industry based on the conceit that men are horribly conflicted and confused about their masculinity.
Personally, I suffer no such agony. I wear leg warmers because I like the way they feel on my soft, bare skin. You got a problem with that?
Anyway, it's not just famous politicians who have to deal with this masculinity issue. Did you read about the women's rugby team from Ohio State University who took off their shirts on the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial? The Post published a photo of the women from behind, who were apparently responding to the common taunt, "Show us your backs!")
What could be more confusing to men?
1. Rugby is a masculine sport. Why are women playing it?
2. Not only are women playing it, but they're TAKING OFF THEIR TOPS! Talk about psychic whiplash. Am I going to need a V-chip in my set for the next women's gymnastics championship?
I have to say I agree with the U.S. Park Police spokesman who said that while the team's action was legal, "the Lincoln Memorial is not the appropriate place" to bare one's breasts. Okay. How about my office?
I had a masculinity question the other night myself. About 12 of us had gathered at the Palm to celebrate my boss George's good fortune at receiving a very prestigious award here at The Post. We were in a private dining room, separated from another private dining room by a large wooden screen (which, come to think of it, bore an uncanny resemblance to Al Gore).
We couldn't have been there more than 15 minutes when the maitre d' said to me, "There's a man who would like to meet you."
He introduced himself as a gastroenterologist. I wasn't surprised. I've got fans in all the digestive sub-specialties.
I said something incredibly witty, like, "Heavens, is my large intestine hanging out?"
The guy begins to tell me how he's in the room next to ours listening to a lecture with a bunch of other gastroenterologists, but the noise from our room was so loud it drowned out the lecturer, and he had to stop.
Excuse me?
First of all, what is he doing going to a lecture in a steak house? That's like holding a wedding at a construction site, and asking the guys using the jackhammers for a little courtesy while the DJ cues up the Wedding March. This is the loudest restaurant in town. You couldn't hear the person next to you if he was blasting for bauxite. Men bring their wives here so they don't have to even pretend to listen to them. We should be quiet so these gasbags can hear a lecture on bile ducts?
Second of all, this is red meat with huge mounds of hash brown potatoes. These guys call themselves physicians? This food'll kill you. Your arteries will clog up like the Beltway after a tanker of Mazola Oil splits open.
"I wanted you to know you were very, very loud," he said.
"What?" I asked, cupping my hand to my ear.
And then it came to me: Al Gore could instantly become an alpha male by stepping out from behind that wooden screen and using those new earth-toned cowboy boots Naomi Wolf picked out to kick some girlie-man gastroenterologist butt.
And then he could take off his blouse and run a victory lap.
By Judy Mann (the resident feminist battle-axe of the Washington Post - Wes)
Wednesday, November 10, 1999; Page C15
Suppose the staff of the student newspaper at Imallright University, a fanciful college in Podunk, came to Washington for a journalism conference, and suppose they went to the Lincoln Memorial.
It's a clear, fall day, warm as can be, and they are full of high spirits as only college kids hitting the big city can be. Circulation at their newspaper is sagging (because of the fact that everyone on campus is plugged into the Internet,) so these media moguls in-waiting are facing the question publishers are facing everywhere: How do you boost circulation? Do you sharpen up news, or do you dumb down content? Being college kids raised on TV and computers, these young people borrow a page from the Book of Rupert Murdoch and opt to jazz up the visuals. Enough of the beefcake football players running for a touchdown. The women on the staff of the newspaper, the Daily Self-Esteem, decide to strut their stuff and take it off, making their own little run for glory. So on that dazzling Saturday afternoon, a dozen female Daily Self-Esteem editors and reporters go topless at the Lincoln Memorial while the staff photographer takes pictures.
What do you think might have happened to these entrepreneurial young ladies?
My guess is that 12 half-naked journalism students probably wouldn't attract that much attention. Had the picture hit the wires, that might be a different story. The dean of undergraduate affairs, Randy Meechley, surely would have called in Professor Arthur Twaddle, the Daily Self-Esteem's faculty adviser, to find out how this happened and where he'd been. Fortunately, Professor Twaddle had an airtight alibi: He'd been touring the newsroom of The Washington Post. Dean Meechley knows he can trample the First Amendment with complete impunity on a university campus, so he orders Professor Twaddle to confiscate the film and bring it promptly to him so that it never will see the light of day -- outside his office, of course. And that's likely to be the end of the story.
Quite a different outcome occurred, however, when at least 12 members of the Ohio State women's rugby team went topless at the Lincoln Memorial on a lovely Saturday afternoon. Being rugby players, they're entitled to do some wild and crazy things. A Post photographer, who was nearby covering a Pagan ritual, took a picture of the backs of the topless players that was published, and officials at Ohio State suspended the team from practice and from two games. After meeting with members of the 37-woman team, however, the school's vice president for student affairs, David Williams, revoked the suspension. "I think they were very apologetic, they realize they did something that was an embarrassment to the university," Williams told the Lantern, the student newspaper.
The women's coach, John Moore, who was present at the memorial but did not know of their plans, has come to their defense. He says today's young women athletes "feel the same kind of spirit" that Brandi Chastain felt after she kicked the goal that won the World Cup for the women's U.S. soccer team. These acts are proud and exuberant expressions of female athletic power that we are going to see more of.
Athletes are held to a different standard on campuses where they pull in huge amounts of revenue. In some cases, it might be a higher standard, and in some cases, it will be a lower one as we've seen in some of the notorious cases of athletes assaulting women.
These young women did not break any law.
Back on campus in Columbus, there is chatter about what went on Saturday -- but it's not about the shirts vs. skins controversy. The buzz has to do with news reports that officials in the athletics department, upset about a story on the football team that was printed in the Lantern, took 7,500 copies of the newspaper and dumped them in a trash bin. This act, which occurred on the same Saturday as the rugby team's photo op, involves destruction of property and loss of revenue, because advertisers aren't going to pay for an issue that's circulating in a trash bin.
Chad Schroeder, marketing associate for the athletics department, had asked the newspaper the previous day not to distribute its First Down football review because he thought the cover portrayed the team in a negative light. Athletics Director Andy Geiger said that "the newspapers should not have been put in the Dumpster," and that Schroeder made a mistake, but will not face any disciplinary action.
You don't have to be a wizard to detect the difference in treatment accorded the women rugby players vs. an adult, male school official in the athletics department. Given the kid-glove treatment he received, it would have been the height of hypocrisy for Ohio State to enforce the suspension of the rugby team.
The women's story, unfortunately, doesn't end all that well. The same night university officials lifted the suspension, the Midwest Rugby Union, the regional governing body for rugby clubs, barred the women's team from competition for the rest of the season. Because the team will miss its two remaining regular season games, it will be ineligible for postseason play and may be placed on probation for the spring season. That's pretty heavy-handed, even for rugby players.
Tom Rooney, Ohio collegiate coordinator for the union, said: "We felt that the girls needed some punishment even though they broke no laws."
Girls? Thank you, Mr. In Loco Parentis. Matt Hull, president of the Ohio Rugby Union, offered the priceless commentary that the players' actions had unfairly given the sport a bad image: "It was a silly thing to do and not what we would want to promote rugby."
For the women, being accused of damaging rugby's image must feel like being called ugly by a frog. The truth is that the young women's prank has done more to put rugby on the sports map than anything in memory. They didn't trash any bars, destroy any property or break any laws. They just had some fun -- and gave the rest of us a good laugh, too.
Washington Post, letters section, Monday, November 15, 1999; Page A22
In all the talk about soccer champ Brandi Chastain, sports bras, equality, women's pride in their bodies and "culture shifts" in the wake of the breast-baring stunt of the Ohio State women's rugby team at the Lincoln Memorial, I have yet to hear anyone address the inappropriateness of such an action at such a sacred national symbol as the memorial ["More Than Meets the Eye," front page, Nov. 6].
Stripping down might be funny somewhere else, but at a place such as the Lincoln Memorial it is disrespectful and offensive. I was visiting the memorial some years ago when two young men decided to take each other's pictures sitting on the statue's lap. The first one got away with it -- to the shock of the other visitors -- but by the time the second one climbed up, someone had alerted the police, who took both culprits away in handcuffs to the applause of all present. The Lincoln Memorial should be remembered for the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., not for the breasts of the Ohio State women's rugby team. Perhaps next time these women feel like "expressing themselves," they'll choose their venue more carefully.
PRISCILLA C. MARSH
Alexandria
Washington Post letters section, Tuesday, November 16, 1999; Page A30
What's up in Ohio? So some women whipped off their T-shirts for a picture at the Lincoln Memorial ["Rugby Group Suspends Team for Topless Antics," Metro, Nov. 5].
Teams aren't suspended for that. Suspension is reserved for cheating, drug use and other high crimes and misdemeanors.
Obviously the members of the Midwest Collegiate Committee of the Midwest Rugby Union have too much time on their hands. This prank didn't bring shame to the university. It will probably bring in more students. Save suspension for serious infractions, not pranks.
JIM ATHANAS
Gaithersburg
Washington Post, Sunday, January 9, 2000
"Oh, look."
"No, no, don't look; you'll only encourage them."
This is the classic reaction whenever a group of ladies decides to appear bare-breasted in public for free. Everyone concerned would be disappointed if this twinned reaction did not occur. We all know the routine, because it happens more often than those employing toplessness as an shock tactic may realize.
Its purpose may be to proclaim sexual freedom or to protest the liberty of regarding nursing mothers sexually. It may be prompted by outrage or it may be prompted by exuberance. It may be done for the sake of art or for the sake of sport. It might be inspired by much thought or by much drink.
Miss Manners therefore recommends a polite "Excuse me, madam, but I wonder if you would be kind enough to interpret your symbolism for me." The preliminary tap on the shoulder to secure the lady's intention had best be omitted in this instance.
A recent outstanding example, which is to say one that took place before cold set in this winter (one assumes that this activity has its seasonal limitations), involved a team of female rugby players visiting Miss Manners's own innocent hometown, which is also known for being Our Nation's Capital. In front of Mr. Lincoln, who remained seated in his memorial without batting an eye, a number of the players removed their upper clothing.
This was not an illegal act. It seems that freedom from upper clothing is one of the freedoms permitted in the capital of the free world. Who knew?
Nevertheless, eyes (other than Mr. Lincoln's) were batted. As it happens, these were not on the faces of drivers-by, who ought to have kept their eyes on the road, nor of tourists, who ought to have kept theirs on the Gettysburg Address. They were on the faces of people connected with schools, notably including their own, and with their sport, notably including the organization governing rugby clubs.
The strongest condemnation in the modern vocabulary--"inappropriate"--was hurled at the offenders. In turn, they cited precedent, in the case of the triumphant soccer player who removed her shirt but not her underwear. When that didn't work, they sensibly put forth an apology.
Miss Manners can hardly be expected to defend toplessness, even on a hot day. But neither did she feel obliged to go on the attack, as the incident ran its natural course from "Isn't this fun?" to "No, we don't think so" to "Okay, then, we're sorry."
But then she heard people commenting that this was no different from what male athletes do, and that nothing more was revealed than would be at a nudist camp or topless beach. To Miss Manners, this reveals a shocking misunderstanding of the symbolism involved.
Symbolism being arbitrary by its very nature, societies vary in what they consider respectable and what not in the way of exposure. One needn't go back as far as the topless Minoans or even the wet-look Georgians to find our own symbolism challenged. Our Victorian predecessors mandated cleavage at the formal dinner table, while the gentlemen got their naughty thrills from illicit glimpses of ladies' ankles.
Nor is the amount of coverage the only factor. If you go to work in your pajamas you won't be indecently exposed. But then you probably won't be gainfully employed, either, for long. Context counts, which is why what you see on the beach is no excuse for seeing it on the streets.
Miss Manners recognizes that there are occasions when clothing standards, whatever they happen to be, should be challenged for the sake of reform, as when dear Amelia Bloomer freed us from getting our skirts entangled in our bicycle gears. She recognizes that there are those who wish to titillate or shock.
What she finds offensive is violating standards and then claiming to be surprised that people are offended.
And here's Ohio Representative Traficant's comments, entered into the Congressional Register:
"The Ohio State women's rugby team, Mr. Speaker, wanted to do something memorable in D.C. It was memorable, all right. Unlike Brandy Chastain's highly publicized sports bra expose, the Lady Buckeyes went topless. That is right, topless. The Lincoln Memorial became a strip joint. Bras were flying everywhere. Unbelievable.
Now, after all this, the University has suspended the team, and these Buckeye vixens are awaiting the final decision.
Beam me up, Mr. Speaker. Leave these foxy ladies alone. If America can forgive the President, the Ohio State University can forgive these Buckeye divas. I yield back all of the memorable excitement at the Lincoln Memorial."
Note that Mr. Traficant is a Democrat, and assumes America has forgiven Bill Clinton...
Finally, my own middle-aged, stick-in-the-mud opinion. - Wes
I'm not terribly shocked by this behavior on the part of the Ohio State Women's Rugby Club, but I do think it was foolish and inappropriate, and that their rugby union was correct in handing down a punishment.
Why? Three main reasons.
1) Some things have to remain sacred. In a society where nothing is sacred, subtle or revered there is no worth. Can you imagine a society patterned after "Married with Children?" That's where we seem to be heading.
Personally, I think Abraham Lincoln was the hands-down all-time greatest American who ever lived. The only possible contender to that title, as far as I'm concerned, is George Washington. But the Lincoln Monument is not just a shrine to the memory of a great man, but to the ideals he articulated and defended. (They include liberty and an imperishable Union of the States.) Despite the frequently-degraded aspects of our society, those ideals are still noble and important and must still be promoted.
A bunch of silly girls exposing themselves in front of the Lincoln Memorial - for the ultimate purpose of gaining money - is in bad taste, foolish and disappointing. It can only be excused by their youth. But their coach should have known better - and their rugby union certainly has to. (Hey, somebody has to play the part of the adult.)
I'm not trying to be politically correct (if you really knew me you'd know better), but I happen to have read the entire text of the King "I have a Dream" speech, and think it is one of the most profound statements of personal liberty ever delivered. To realize that a group of giggling girls went topless on the site where it was given is disappointing. It's not as bad as, say, relieving oneself in the Gettysburg National Cemetery, but it's not entirely unlike that.
2) It gives the game of rugby adverse publicity that it doesn't need. That unfortunate act of public nudity probably undid a lot of the good press gained from the Rugby World Cup in the minds of Americans otherwise unfamiliar with the game.
3) It's a continuing tiresome display of the in-your-face feminism we get served up for breakfast, lunch and dinner. What's entirely lost here is that just because somebody can do something, it doesn't mean it's necessarily a good idea.
So... I support some punishment. I also agree with Donna Britt in her article above.
By the way, I think the matter of whether or not those girls broke laws is irrelevant. You cannot legislate morality, etiquette or taste.
My opinion is that one of the most valuable things those young women have learned at Ohio State is that actions have consequences.