Here We Go Again

Today, a new round of documents came out alleging a deeper level of involvement and complicity on the part of Baylor University in the cases of football players assaulting other persons.

I'm angry, you know? I'm so angry that I'm not angry anymore, that I'm just exhausted. Ken Starr and his student-friendly ways, student-friendly until it came time to actually stand up and be a man of honor, which he apparently couldn't do. Art Briles and his country charm, his folksy mannerisms, and his willingness to take on anything. Ian McCaw and his savvy hiring, his quiet maneuvering of a sinking ship on the Brazos to a new safe harbor of entertaining success.

If there's anything these new reports show, it's that the leaders of this university can't hide behind a claim of ignorance anymore. There is no ignorance, and it seems to be growing ever clearer that there never really was.

How did I not see this coming, that this was a group of people so determined to win at any cost, even if that cost was this? They can't say "oh, well, they never played a down of football" anymore. No, these were huge team contributors that would have hurt those chances for titles and money and glitter if the men in charge done the honorable thing.

But no, we've got a stadium to pay off, and so the show must go on.

The thing is, the thing that I want to come back to and also avoid, is that this is everywhere. This is everywhere! Not every university may be failing to this level, but there is this kind of systemic failings of victims at every university. No one is perfect. The greater sin, though, is that for years and years and years, Baylor has pretended it is.

I wrote some on this in my previous pieces on this theme, but here we are again, with another round of damning documents that no longer allow us the innocence of youth. When you step onto Baylor's campus, you're told it's a home, that you're with family, that these people (this president of the university who helps you unload your boxes) would do everything to protect and encourage you - but it turns out there are limits.

There are limits, like when a team chaplain reportedly tells a young woman reporting an assault to him to let it be. There are limits, like when there's not even the most basic of system in place - a Title IX office, the very least possible - to ensure that when this happens, it can be handled well. There are limits, because this is Baylor, right? We can stick our head in the sand like ostriches and pretend that Good Christian Boys have been Taught Better and Would Never and that Good Christian Girls wouldn't Put Themselves In These Positions Anyway, and therefore, it just Can't Happen Here.

Wake up, Mr. President. Wake up, head coach. Wake up, various and sundry honored sirs and madams of the council. You are not exempt. You are not special. This university is just dirt and stone like every other place on earth, and the people in it are a mix of humanity like any other. If you don't take proactive measures - not just those blue-light poles, half of which seem to be broken every semester, not just the asinine "we're here for you" and then cutting off counseling sessions after a semester, not just the barest of minimums - if you aren't here, then you don't only lose your claim to being "better than," you are therefore worse than for even claiming it.

Of course, I've said this all before. I have! I've said it in more flowery language, I've torn apart rhetoric from here to there, I've screamed and cried and cursed and worn myself hoarse trying to make this university worthy of me. Right now? It's not, and I feel like I'm just repeating myself, screaming at an unhearing wall, an uncaring group of people who want to wear a caring mask.


Note: I feel I must lay this out here, simply because it is who I am. I did not experience anything like what has been reported while I was at Baylor. My experience while on campus was, for the most part, a good and growing one. I had incredible professors who did live up to the ideals put forth by the university, I had wonderful mentors who made time for a very confused and frustrating music student who wanted to do anything but, and I had a counselor who flouted those very "only so many sessions" rules to help me make it out of the mire of my mind, even temporarily. This is why I feel so betrayed, I supposed - because I had the model experience, and it seems there are so many who didn't, and were shoved away for not. 

something ranty about things

Right now, at this moment, if I had money and time and life on my side, I would gladly drop everything and give my all to a baseball job.

In the real world, though, if I were to get the highest paid internship I have heard of in baseball, I would be taking an immediate 25% pay cut, and that's low-balling my annual income as of right now (which is already on the low end of the scale for my particular specialty in my particular location). That pay cut doesn't include the question of health insurance, or any increase in rent, or moving expenses, or all the little things that come with dropping everything to do what we're lied to about from middle school on and pursue a dream.

I'm not even in any need. I'm very firmly middle-class, from a middle-class family, in a middle-class job. I live in a not huge but not tiny apartment, by myself, in a fairly low cost-of-living area of the country. My student loan debt is weighty, but not crushing. I don't even have credit card debt! I make some extra money on the side, I try my best to save and spend wisely, and I budget for the occasional extravagance - like playoff hockey tickets or a nice dinner out, but not both at the same time. If I can't make baseball work from a practical standpoint, then who on earth can?

These limitations mean that "the best and the brightest" becomes "the best of the interested richest.” Yeah, there's going to be exceptions. There's going to be those precious few who hit on the right thing at the right time, make insane amounts of sacrifice, and then are rewarded with token status  - "if they did it, then clearly you, you younger generation, are just lazy!" or, the ever-dreadful "but look at this one hire we made!"

It's been shown time and time again in multiple fields of business that diversity - inclusive of race and gender and opinion - makes for better ideas. Why has baseball, a business so intent on chasing any bit of advantage in a largely even field, not paid more attention to this? There are signs of this happening, yes. The Dodgers, for one, the Brewers, for another, the Mariners...but it's still the exception, not the norm.

There are bright minds out there. They may not be making noise, but they're in college, and they're in the workplace, and they're thinking and commenting and coming up with ideas that, for the large part, won't be seen by a major league team due to the barrier for entry. Not only do these "diverse" minds have to first overcome the societal skepticism that comes with whatever tag they're blessed with, but then they have to figure out whether or not they can actually, practically, if they have the good fortune to get noticed, make that next step.

Major League Baseball's diversity problem isn't this easy to fix, I know. The financial barriers aren't the only thing making it difficult for people to decide that something they love is more valuable than something that allows them to live - but they're no small part.

To bring this back to me - however selfish that is, I only really have my example to work from - a lot of things might have been different if I'd known that baseball was something I could do, for real, when I graduated college. It took me two years to find a full-time job in my current field, two years I lived with my parents doing my own succession of low- or no-pay internships, two years that are the reason I can't drop everything and do that now. I drained my savings account paying my student loans so I wouldn't have to pay more later - and how lucky was I to have savings! Now, when I know enough and am encouraged enough and lucky enough to have a chorus of people telling me that I - a woman, a music major, a non-math person - I could (?) be good enough to work in baseball, I just can't make it happen.

If you want to really see change, it has to happen at the beginning. Baseball can't wait for people to come to it. We've got to stop holding it up as a golden god of employment, something worth sacrificing health and wealth and sanity to. We've instead got to hold it accountable, something that's been happening more and more often in these recent years.

It may be too late for me and baseball, but I sure as hell want to make sure it doesn't get to be too late for whoever is next.