Out of Bounds: Collegiate athletics have twisted priorities
The topic I’m writing about in this week’s column is not very timely. I just learned of it Wednesday, and although it happened a few weeks ago on Sept. 7, it’s disappointing enough that I think it’s worth talking about. Buckle your seat belts.
A women’s college field hockey game was stopped short so as to not interfere with fireworks before a football game. Kent State hosted a round-robin tournament with the No. 24 Maine and Temple field hockey teams. Maine and Temple faced off at 9 a.m. Saturday, and after one overtime, the score was still 0-0. But at 10:30 a.m., before they could play the second overtime, Kent State officials ordered the two teams to vacate the field so they could begin setting up the fireworks to be set off before the Kent State football game at noon.
However, the football game was played in the football stadium, not on the field hockey field. This 10:30 a.m. hard cutoff was originally put in place by the fire marshal because the fireworks were going to be lit from the field hockey field, which is located behind the football stadium. It seems like Kent State could have easily allowed field hockey to finish their game, started the football game on time and saved the firework show for after the game, rather than before.
If you’re reading this article, I want you to pause and type “Riley Field fireworks video” into your preferred search engine. Click on the Twitter link and watch the video that Maine senior midfielder Riley Field posted of the fireworks. It will really help paint the picture of how ridiculous it is that the field hockey game was cut short for this. The Kent State Department of Athletics didn’t deem the football game to be more important than the field hockey game. They deemed daytime fireworks to be more important than the field hockey game.
The teams tried to reason with officials, suggesting a shortened second overtime or skipping straight to a shootout. The best compromise Kent State could offer was to resume the game at 5:30 p.m. — seven hours later — for 10 minutes of play. Temple could not adjust its bus plans accordingly. Because the game could not finish, it was ultimately reclassified as a scrimmage. This was especially a shame for Temple, who went 2-16 last season, as that extra overtime would have been an opportunity for it to beat a ranked team.
In situations like this, we should try to be somewhat understanding of the Kent State officials’ bizarre decision. In the moment, they made the decision to prioritize one of their own teams over other schools’ teams. That’s understandable. But Kent State made the commitment of hosting this round-robin tournament. The football game still could have been played on time without the fireworks, or the fireworks could have been set off after the game. The fact that their initial solution to the conflict was to cut off a field hockey game, rather than the fireworks, says a lot.
In a statement, the National Field Hockey Coaches Association wrote that the officials’ decision was “unacceptable” and “a terrible message being communicated to female student-athletes in this year of 2019.”
Some may claim this incident is solely an issue of a money-making sport versus an unlucrative sport and that it doesn’t involve any sexism. It’s hard to say for certain, but I strongly believe that a men’s soccer game or a men’s lacrosse game — or any men’s sport, for that matter — would not have been cut short for fireworks.
Yes, football generates more revenue for the athletics department than field hockey. However, the fact that football makes more money is not an excuse for anyone, especially the athletics department, to disrespect smaller, less lucrative sports.
“I want our players to know that their efforts and everything that they do, their training and hours of dedication and talent — that everything they do, it matters, because I think that’s what was maybe lacking this weekend,” Maine head coach Josette Babineau said. “I felt like on our team, after the game on Saturday and on Sunday, maybe there was this feeling of ‘What are we doing, and does it matter?’ That’s very sad.”
The football game could have started on time with a slight adjustment to the fireworks plan. Perhaps Kent State should have planned to set off the fireworks from one of the two neighboring football practice fields or Zoeller Field, the soccer field where no game was scheduled that day. Another solution, as I suggested before, would have been to postpone the pyrotechnics until after the football game. Besides, it is the game itself that makes money, not the daytime fireworks, so this doesn’t seem like a money issue.
Following the incident, I saw a tweet that read, “I bet those [four] field hockey fans were pissed.” Sure, field hockey has fewer spectators than football — I’ll give him that. But I would like for us to think for a moment not just about the fans, but about the players themselves. So often athletes are dehumanized, thought of as being on the field simply for fans’ entertainment, but those athletes are real people who deserve respect.
Unfortunately it seems that, especially recently, people are so caught up in the financial aspect of sports that they forget every sport deserves respect regardless of the revenue it does or doesn’t produce. The purpose of Title IX is to eliminate discrimination on the basis of sex in any activity or educational pursuit, but it is clear that even with that law, there are some major flaws in college sports. If a college athletics department can’t respect field hockey or other women’s sports, what does that tell the public about how it should regard women’s teams? This incident isn’t about revenue; this is about football’s fireworks over women’s field hockey.
Kent State should be embarrassed about this, and hopefully this incident will cause athletics departments throughout the country to take a look at how they treat all their teams, not just the men and money-makers.
Jill Burke is a senior writing about sports in relation to current issues. Her column, “Out of Bounds,” runs every other Friday.