She Would Be Wiser to Forget the Lawsuit

You have an option today of describing sports reporter Lisa Olson as a fighter rejecting an indignity, defending the ramparts of women’s rights.

Or you can see Olson as we do--a pain in the hip, now reacting out of proportion to the stimulus.

Her adventure begins last fall when, covering the New England Patriots for a Boston paper, she is encamped in the locker room, conducting an interview.

The way some tell the story--and there are contradictory variations--three members of the team, familiar with Olson and deciding she was a “looker,” meaning one who tended to peek excessively, chose to teach her a lesson.

They would do this with a crude scenario they put together, exposing themselves, at close range, in her presence.

Olson insists she was not a “looker,” but an accredited journalist doing a job.

She gets very upset. Her newspaper gets very upset. Women’s groups get very upset. And some men’s groups do, too, amid hints from others they are grandstanding for women readers.

Defending his players, the New England owner, Victor Kiam, begins by calling Olson a “classic bitch.”

He then reconsiders, especially after a secondary boycott is launched against the electric razors that Kiam manufactures.

He apologizes to Olson, orally and in writing.

The league orders an investigation by some guy from Harvard, who takes his mind off the Yale game to probe in detail this serious issue.

He submits his report to the league, which fines Kiam $50,000 and each of the players a lesser sum.

Olson, meantime, appears at a news conference to read a statement that she is satisfied the matter is closed. Helpfully, she also advises the rest of us to go on with life.

She shifts from coverage of the football Patriots to the hockey Bruins, and the world comes to believe the locker-room crisis has come blessedly to an end.

But now, months later, she is inspired to file a lawsuit in which her attorney contends she has been the victim of sexual harassment, intentional infliction of emotional distress and intentional damage to her professional reputation.

It also is her claim that her civil rights have been violated.

One does not deny Olson the right of going to court. We have become what is known as a litigious society. We are so litigious that courts are having trouble accommodating our litigious claims. Some cases are being adjudicated today that began in 1976.

If you choose to support Olson in this matter, that is your business. If the judge chooses to substantiate her charges, that is his or her business.

But me? I see Olson as a pain in the hip, coming to enjoy notoriety she never found as an obscure reporter.

You cannot prevent women from covering sports. Nor, in the process of that coverage, can they be denied access to locker rooms where males are admitted.

But females and males alike visiting locker rooms must understand the element with which they deal. This is no convocation of Cub Scouts down there. On every team, you can count on a certain few to get very basic, in varying degrees.

Traditionally, vulgarity is a part of the locker-room scene. It isn’t to be recommended, but if one isn’t tough enough to brace oneself for the crudeness one is apt to encounter there, one should cover tea dances.

Mind you, there is no defense here for guys staging a vulgar prank, as they seemed to do before Olson. But that kind of thing is not expected to induce trauma, leading to charges of emotional distress, damage to professional reputation, sexual harassment and violation of civil rights.

A nice lady who loved the Atlanta Braves once brought cartons of strawberries for the team. Spotting a writer he didn’t care for, Henry Aaron pushed a carton into the author’s face.

Dave Kingman threw a bucket of ice water on another. A former quarterback for the Jets, Richard Todd, pushed another against the locker. George Bell has intimidated many. Even Walter Alston, normally a model of civility, threatened one day to beat up Allan Malamud, who now writes for The Times.

And coarse talk and crude horseplay has never ceased.

For better or for worse, that’s the kind of going one bids for, roaming the latitudes of locker rooms. In almost all cases of indignities, an apology erases the wound.

Sportswriting stiffs are not litigious people.

If three female athletes exposed themselves indecently in front of a male reporters, would he holler sheriff?

He also could follow a litigious course, claiming intentional infliction of emotional distress.

But come on now. Let’s settle down to cases. Choosing the locker room as one’s arena of work, one doesn’t register shock.