On August 30, 2003, Katie Hnida became the first women to score in a NCAA Division I-A football game, while placekicking for the University of New Mexico. Katie Hnida is a perfect topic to discuss and is very relevant to what we have been discussing in class. Katie is not only famous for scoring the first female points in Division I-A football; she is also famous for ultimately the firing of Colorado head coach Gary Bennett. Before Katie was kicking extra points at University of New Mexico, she was a walk on freshman for the University of Colorado. After transferring to New Mexico Katie later accused her Colorado teammates of rape and sexual abuse; no charges where filed against any of the players.
Katie later went on recording saying that she endured a sexual hell that was unimaginable. As you may have seen on Outside The Lines, then head coach Gary Bennett further abused Katie by degrading her skills as a football player, and saying that she lucky to just be on the team. The quote that probably ultimately ended Bennett’s tenure at Colorado was "Katie was not only a girl, she was terrible. OK? There's no other way to say it. She couldn't kick the ball through the uprights." For these actions and other incidents Bennett was suspended from the team and later fired. The way Katie described her male teammates of treating her was just troubling. You would think students at that age would be mature enough to coexist with females. Gary Bennett statements where sexist to say the least and inappropriate, he just didn’t respect her as a football player and neither did her teammates for that matter. In my eyes what went on at the University of Colorado was definitely unacceptable and hopefully a female will never have to experience that again.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I was familiar with the story of Katie Hnida, when she played at Colorado (the Coach was Gary Barnett; I think you referred to him as Gary Bennett, and I believe he formerly coached at Northwestern). To be honest, I was shocked and appalled by his comments that discredited her, when he said that "she was terrible!" Rather than addressing the rape and abuse allegations, he seemed to suggest that whatever may have happened, she deserved it because she couldn't kick a football through the uprights! As I recall, he never really repudiated his statements either. That was another thing that amazed me. Although I knew that Katie Hnida transferred somewhere else, I did not realize that it had already been 5 years since she transferred. Thanks for sharing your observations about that situation. It definitely relates to the issues we have discussed in relation to Title IX.
Post a Comment