Flying Testosterone and Alpha Males

There has been so much testosterone flying around the news networks since Rush Limbaugh’s name became associated with a possible purchase of the St. Louis Rams!

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What, you may ask, does a former banker and bank consultant – a female, at that – have to add to this argument? Well, no testosterone, that’s for sure. And in these days of older age, I think I’ll hold on to whatever estrogen I have, too. I know you won’t assume the shape of my skin limits my capacity to understand the game. That would be almost as sexist as the racist comments being unfairly attributed to Rush Limbaugh. This former banker and bank consultant started the first girl’s baseball league in Denver in the 1950s. The first article I ever published in a newspaper was The Denver Post, and it was a sports story about the Bears (I was 16 and am still proud that it garnered a front page headline). I was also one of the first women in the country to write sports under a feminine by-line: the daily morning Wyoming Eagle in Cheyenne, 1957. The 1982 NFL Player’s Strike devastated that season by reducing the number of games played from 16 to nine. The playoffs suddenly included 16 teams (eight from each conference) and the Super Bowl playoffs became a “tournament." The strike began September 21st and lasted 57 days. It ended November 16, 1982. The dispute was over the percentage of gross revenues the players wanted versus what league owners were willing to share. As I recall, the players wanted 55 percent. I – this normally calm, introspective and somewhat humorous person – became incensed over men behaving like… testosterone-driven alpha males. My primary concern was for the fans who had paid exhorbitant prices for season tickets and were only going to get nine rather than 16 games. Was anyone offering refunds? Surely, you jest! I called my lawyers and had them incorporate the National Football League Fans Union (NFLFU). I called my friend, Jerry Phipps, who at the time owned the Denver Broncos. I asked him for permission to hold a press conference on the 50-yard line of Mile High Stadium to announce the formation of the NFLFU. To his credit, Jerry said “yes.” The event was well covered and the story made most of the major newspapers in the country. “Fans want players and owners to show them the respect they are due as the financiers of the game,” I said that beautiful fall day in 1982. “We aren’t pro-player; we aren’t pro-owner,” I said. “Neither are we anti-player or anti-owner. We are pro fans. We want fans to have a right to the first class football for which ticket sales were made. We feel both owners and players have the responsibility to provide this based on ticket prices charged.” We encouraged people to write letters to sponsors of televised football games. “Tell them that football fans will not purchase sponsor’s products because anyone associated with the game of football during the 1982 season does not have the better interest of the fans at heart.” We recommended that fans boycott all products advertised by NFL players. We demanded refund policies be put in place. For example, when season ticket sales promotion literature was sent to season ticket buyers in 1982, no one informed fans a player strike was likely. It was known to be a probable event at the time owners promoted ticket sales. We – the NFLFU – were concerned about the lack of third-party mediation. Talks were going nowhere. Management was represented in the talks; players through their union were represented in the talks, but fans whose ticket purchases finance the game were not included in the talks. We offered to provide trained mediators to help bring the players’ strike to a conclusion acceptable to everyone. The NFLFU wanted management and players to guarantee no loss of ticket priority for fans who refused to buy tickets during a strike year that provided no – or inferior – football. We even challenged a Supreme Court ruling made in 1922. It held that professional sports were exempt from typical Antitrust provisions because no product was sold. I felt that ruling, made in an economic environment driven by manufacturing (rather than today’s service-driven economy) was antiquated. It was. The Fans Union told players that they should not expect owners to let them leave the club after investing risk capital in them. They were unknown college athletes who had a greater risk of failure than success when they signed. Team owners needed to be compensated if players exercised the free agency rights for which they fought. We told the owners they should not access a system of “sports slavery.” They could not blindly restrict player movement within the league after being sufficiently compensated for risking capital to develop a college kid into a pro. When the Donovan McNabb story first raised its ugly, racist head in 2003, I wrote an article for a print publication. I decided to put the words of the media to the test. Was Rush being a racist? Or, was he merely telling the truth. Was the media merely playing its mainstream role as anti-anything-conservative? Here’s what that article fairly reported:

“Limbaugh did not attack Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb. He simply stated that McNabb was, in his opinion, being given unearned kudos by some members of the media who are using him to create a black quarterback hero. His negative comments were addressed at the media, not the quarterback. “Limbaugh said – very accurately – that some members of the dominant establishment press are too race-conscious. He said some sports reporters wanted a black quarterback to succeed so badly, they were willing to overstate McNabb’s achievements. “If McNabb is playing like a superstar, he deserves all of the positive press he gets. If he is not, and if the media is singing his praises as if he were, then the media is guilty of reverse racism. “It seems to me that fair and balanced news reporting requires research. Since the sports media seems disinclined to provide people with statistical data, I decided to go back to my days as a sports reporter for the Wyoming Eagle in Cheyenne (1957) and do the research myself. “The following statistics come from the Web site of the Philadelphia Eagles. For those who are not football fans, Donovan McNabb quarterbacks for the Eagles. “In the following data, I gathered statistics for each quarterback who placed first in each category, and the quarterback who placed 12th in each category. I picked #12 because it represents average performance. When possible, statistics are given by AFC and NFC performance. “According to statistics from the American Football Conference (AFC), the highest rated passing quarterback is Tommy Maddox of Pittsburgh with 1304 yards. David Carr of Houston ranks 12th with 880 yards. “National Football Conference (NFC) statistics place Patrick Ramsey of Washington in the number one slot with 1307 passing yards. The 12th ranked quarterback is Marc Bulger of St. Louis with 734 yards. Donovan McNabb is in 14th place with 664 yards passing. “As a passing quarterback, McNabb is below average. The statistics say so. “Donovan McNabb is first in rushing in the NFL. He has rushed 25 times for 174 yards resulting in 7.0 yards per carry. He has fumbled the ball four times while rushing but scored four rushing touchdowns.. “By comparison, Jake Plummer of Denver -- with less time on the field for the Bronco game against Pittsburgh has rushed 18 times for 119 yards (or, 6.6 yards per carry). He fumbled twice and scored 5 rushing touchdowns. “How many passing touchdowns have top-rated quarterbacks made at this point in the season? “In the AFC, Peyton Manning of Indianapolis is first with 9 touchdown passes and Tommy Maddox of Pittsburgh is 12th with 5 touchdown passes. “In the NFC, Brett Favre is #1. He has passed for 9 touchdowns. Joey Harrington of Detroit is #2nd. He has passed for 7 touchdowns. Donovan McNabb is ranked 18th with 1 touchdown pass. “AFC overall quarterback points rank Tony Banks of Houston #1 with 104.7 points. Jon Kitna of Cincinnati is ranked 12th with 78.4 points. “NFC quarterback rankings place Todd Bouman of the New Orleans Saints first with 126.0 points and Patrick Ramsey 12th with 80.9 points. Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb is in 22nd place with 51.3 points. “Looking at McNabb’s statistics at the time, if he was praised by the media as an outstanding quarterback, Rush Limbaugh was correct. The media was trying to make a quarterback hero out of a less-than-average quarterback... though he appears to be a hell of a running back. “Limbaugh’s comments do not appear to be racially motivated – not even racially insensitive. People who are paid to tell the truth about the performance of others are, as long as they tell the truth, not racists. Nor are they responsible for the overly-sensitive reactions of others.”

If people are going to accuse Rush Limbaugh of something, at least let them be accurate. Limbaugh did not make racist remarks about McNabb. He told the truth. I said it then and I say it again now. Truth is never racist, it merely is. I know that is a hard concept for liberals to grasp. It removes their snivel rights. Aside from McNabb’s statistics, here are some additional hard truths the leftist fanatics in the media need to remember. It’s a free country – or it’s certainly billed as one. People get to invest their money in whatever legal ways they want. The business of football will absorb whatever profits an owner provides no matter who owns the team. Telling the truth about someone doesn’t make anyone a racist. My granddaughters are half black and they sure don’t need it shoved down their throats that it makes them better or worse than anyone else. If as much attention was paid to nationalized health care as is paid to whether or not Rush has a right to invest in a football team, Americans would not be about to turn medical decisions over to bureaucrats.