Female Athletes Add a Touch of Class

Pundits recently wondered aloud (again) if John Rocker was off his. A few weeks ago, the Texas Ranger mouthed off to some gays in a Dallas restaurant. This is not the first time the pitcher has dug his own grave with his tongue.

Meanwhile, WNBA fans were logging on to that organization’s Web site to see what Nykesha Sales and Sheryl Swoopes had to say about that delicate balance of maintaining family, motherhood and a professional sports career.

Maybe sports fans have come to expect stellar and studied good behavior from their female athletes, and the occasional randy--or just plain stupid and wrong--acts from some of the men-who-would-be-boys.

Rocker said he was provoked by patrons at a Dallas restaurant, a contention denied by the person who waited on him. As he was leaving a restaurant, Rocker was said to have called some of the patrons “fruitcakes,” and then he exchanged harsher words with them, and perhaps a few other people, outside. What he said exactly is unclear, but it appeared to have something to do with his hope that the people with whom he was arguing would get AIDS and die. He has since apologized.

Immediately, the folks on “Crossfire” tried to decide if Rocker and his ilk are just regular folks behaving badly, or if maybe as role models they should be held to a higher standard.

Whatever. The first round of the WNBA playoffs started Thursday, and a few weeks ago wnba.com launched “This Is What I Think,” an online series that asks players and fans to comment on topics such as motherhood and professional sports careers, the importance of Title IX and whether it’s wrong for professional athletes to pose in Playboy magazine. Participating players so far have included the Orlando Miracle’s Sales and the Seattle Storm’s Sue Bird. (See wnba.com, “This Is What I Think,” athletes and motherhood.)

The series has been so successful that the league is considering continuing something like it in the off-season, says WNBA President Valerie Ackerman.

“This allows the fans to see the players as something more than just athletes,” Ackerman said. “They see them as people.”

It’s just a continuation of the way we look at collegiate female athletes. We want them, to the last woman, to be scholar-athletes and well-spoken. We look to our professional female athletes for more of the same.

Said Sales of motherhood and professional sports: “Basketball is a job, but what you do as a part of your life and your livelihood comes first. You’re a person first, you’re a sister, a brother.... That comes first. Playing basketball, you never know what happens. You have to go ahead and live your life first.”

Bird’s contribution was a diplomatic comment on tennis player Anna Kournikova, who has gained much media attention without winning much: “If she wasn’t playing tennis, I think she’d still be making money as a model. I don’t think it hurts women’s sports; I think she’s taking advantage of what’s in front of her. We live in a man’s world, so that’s what’s going to make money these days, what Anna’s doing. But at the same time, I don’t think they’d ever put a male athlete on the cover of anything if he’d never won anything.”

Sales says her Miracle fan base is far smaller than it was during her days playing for the University of Connecticut, but little girls still come up wearing jerseys and asking for autographs. She said that makes it pretty easy to remember to behave.

“I don’t think anyone has to tell me, ‘Don’t drink and drive,’ ” said Sales, calling from Indiana, where that night--despite her contribution of 15 points--the Miracle lost to the Indiana Fever, 70-63. “I don’t think they have to tell a lot of us to be careful or watch what you do or say. I think it comes naturally.”

That’s kind of what I thought. There are fine, upright and moral male athletes, sure, but why do you never read about a female Rocker? Why don’t female athletes get run up on gun or drug charges, bless ‘em?

Sales said, “I really can’t explain the difference between men and women athletes. This is how I was raised, and this is how I am.”

*

Susan Campbell writes for the Hartford Courant, a Tribune company.