The Slanch Report

You know how you know you’re a really successful soccer coach? When you can ask the various girls on your college team important soccer questions like:

’Who [her] fuck of the minute is, fuck of the hour is, fuck of the week [is],’ whether there was a ‘guy [she] ha[dn’t] fucked yet,’ and whether she ‘got the guys’ names as they came to the door or whether she just took a number.’” He routinely commented on players’ “nice legs,” “nice racks” and “breasts bouncing.” Among other things, Dorrance also asked one player if she “was going to have sex with the entire lacrosse team,” advised another to “keep [her] knees together; you can’t make it too easy for them,” inquired of another whether she was going to have a “shag fest” with her boyfriend, and told the trainer within earshot of team members that he fantasized about having “an Asian threesome” with his Asian players.

The man in question is University of North Carolina women’s soccer coach Anson Dorrance who has led the UNC team to 19 out of 27 possible NCAA championships with a win percentage of .943 (career record 625-28-20) which is staggeringly dominating. He’s been the NCAA coach of the year 7 times and this past March was elected to the National Soccer Hall of Fame (a place that keeps sending back my donations of my teenage shin guards as “not relevant to soccer excellence.”) So, clearly he’s been pretty good, and UNC, a school that loves it’s championships is not in a rush to kill the golden goose.

Unfortunately, that means that he’s been able to get away with this gross inappropriateness to his players. One of the plaintiffs, Melissa Jennings who brought her case of sexual harassment to the courts explained,

“I was 17,” Ms. Jennings recalled, “when he asked me [“Who are you fucking?”] in a dark hotel room, knee-to-knee….” By this time, Ms. Jennings had already reported her discomfort with Dorrance’s behavior to a school official, but the official took no action and instructed her to “work it out” with Dorrance.

That’s great UNC, I mean, why would you want to pay attention to any claims from the students that they are being harassed, by a university employee no less. I can see why they’d want to ignore it. After all, those soccer player girls are always asking for it, haven’t you seen all those games where the girls trap the ball with their chest? I mean, they’re just ASKING for it, why else would they be attracting all that attention to their boobs?

Of course, the courts have thrown the case out, (thanks Bush appointees! (the two judges who wanted it thrown out were each appointed by a Bush)) because clearly these women deserve to have a man whom they should be able to trust, and who has incredible power over them continue to harass them and make them uncomfortable. Seems fair to me. As the only dissenting judge accurately noted, “the power [Dorrance] implicitly wielded over his players to stifle protest against his behavior was ‘tremendous.’ He ‘controlled everything.'”

The majority judges though whitewashed the whole affair, saying Jennings’ claims of harassment were merely “‘sexual banter,’ ‘vulgar language’ and ‘second-hand harassment’ insufficient to amount to unlawful discrimination.” Yeah, because my soccer coach telling me I’m a slut and that I fuck everyone on campus is HILARIOUS banter.

This of course is coming from someone who almost never gets offended by anything. I am offended by this. More than anything I’m offended by the courts, who are by law required to look at the issue from the side of the victim, and still opted to throw this case out of court. Despicable.

Then, because these judges are so concerned with morality and the welfare of others, in the writing of their decisions, the two judges used asterisks when quoting the sexual profanities Jennings detailed. It seems that while these words weren’t offensive for Jennings to hear, they would be MUCH too offensive for the rest of the world to consider, even in just print form. Thanks judges! I’m glad to know you have the true interests of all good Americans in mind.

[Full Court Press]