Panic attacks and fractures: how Wesleyan University failed to protect runners like me
Last week, 24 former members of the women’s cross country team at Connecticut’s Wesleyan University, myself among them, published testimonials detailing their toxic experiences as competitive college runners. Leading the effort was Yuki Christina Hebner, a 2017 graduate who wrote an open letter about the destructive culture pervasive across athletics, bought into by the coach and abetted by a blind administration, of disordered eating, body shaming, injury and high rates of attrition.
With the signatures of 36 alumni in
all, we have presented a list of demands to the university. Saliently, they do not include removal of the coach. Rather, they require that this or any coach’s capacity for direct or collateral damage be checked by oversight, education and collaboration.
The testimonials describe experiences going back eight years: stories of second-tier treatment compared to the stick-and-ball sports at the athletic training facilities; fractures in femurs, feet and tail bones; exerciseinduced blackouts; panic attacks; the “fat talk”, in which a runner is told that her weight hampers her potential; eating disorders; missed periods; anemia; instructions by a non-specialist to take birth control; increased pressure on runners perceived as faster and decreased interest in those perceived as slower; petty and punitive reactions by the coach after poor athletic performances; scapegoating; and, for many, a loss of the love for running.
Some of the women have chosen to come forward anonymously, believing in the necessity of their stories to effect change but having reservations, for diverse reasons, about being named. Many of the women expressed hesitance about publicly sharing experiences that felt personal not only to them but to the team, the school and even to the sport itself. Above all, however, they have expressed a mixture of disappointment, frustration and anger at: first, feeling isolated when the problems actually occurred; and, second, not being listened to when they did summon the courage to speak up.
A timeline lays bare repeated attempts to discuss these issues with the athletic administration extending back nearly a decade. The second try, in 2013, was an email I myself wrote to the director of athletics. As a then-recent cross country alumna, I had been asked to provide a letter of evaluation on behalf of our coach, who was up for reappointment and promotion. While I had some good things to say, I also stated concerns similar to what ultimately appeared in the testimonials. In 2013, I told the administration I was worried that, unless changes were made, “there will be future Wesleyan students who have profound and echoing negative experiences.” Never have I wanted less to be proven right.
From an exterior perspective, the situation seems impossible. As threeseason athletes, we trained seven days a week, 49 weeks out of the year. How could people who ran every single day together, ate together, often even lived together not be immediately horrified that their teammates – and they themselves – were enduring rampant injury, illness and psychic degradation? How could it take eight years to connect with one another and develop a collective awareness of the issue?
This can be attributed in part to the very nature of distance running, which – like gymnastics, swimming and diving – can engender hermeticism. Cross country is a team sport but it is experienced, on many levels, individually. The triumphs can be communal but the burden to perform is individual. Training over the summer, I often logged 40 to 50 miles a week entirely alone. You run together, but only you know how much you sleep, the entirety of what you eat, how you really feel.
The problem is that, in distance running at the collegiate level, even if a coach is not an abuser, he exerts an extreme level of control: over your eating, your sleeping, your class schedule – your body and your mind, which in running are intimately linked. There is a reason those speaking out today are alumni, many like myself more than five years removed from graduation. They say you can’t read the label when you’re inside the jar. While on the team, we were all inside the jar. With no administrative accountability or oversight, with a willfully ignorant director of athletics and NCAA staff, we had only our coach to give us direction – and tell us what we were made of.
Credit also goes to how society currently talks – or doesn’t – about subjects like women’s bodies, eating disorders and mental health. Even when some women – mainly those who had left the team and gained the perspective of remove but remained close with current runners – did recognize that their friends were in pain, they struggled to articulate what exactly had gone wrong. They did the best they could to take care of one another at the time, whether by fostering supportive spaces in their dorms or accompanying teammates to the hospital. Yet they felt stymied
trotting forward with the ball during the early exchanges and teeing up Fred, though the Brazilian blazed over. Next he won a free-kick with a slick flickand-pirouette around an opponent. It yielded nothing and when Lask moved forward the visitors were turned for the first time.
Klauss sprinted in behind Harry Maguire along the right and went down but Artur Dias, the referee, ignored the penalty shouts. Despite this, United were in control. A quick move that featured Brandon Williams to Ighalo down the right had the latter’s cross mis-hit by Juan Mata. Fernandes collected and fed Luke Shaw and when he put the ball in this time Mata drew a corner. Fernandes took it but Scott McTominay could not score with his header.
United were warming up. The faster passing play that Fernandes has ignited since his winter transfer was behind a Daniel James snapshot that the goalkeeper, Alexander Schlager, saved well to his left. When Ighalo was signed on loan in January there was derision in some quarters. These naysayers had already been silenced by his three goals but the fourth suggested his arrival may prove a minor masterstroke: the ball arrived on the edge of the area at pace but following a mesmerising juggle he hammered the ball in off the bar to leave Schlager with no chance.
“He had three touches and the fourth was the finish,” his manager said.
“All those touches were high-quality, but he had to make them to give himself the space and the strike is on the half volley, great timing. No one would have saved that one.”
While two over-enthusiastic United fans were ejected after breaking into the stadium, the home support nearly had an equaliser to cheer when the ball broke to Dominik Frieser near Sergio
Romero’s goal. The forward’s attempt looked to be heading in before Eric Bailly blocked.
The half closed with United still in the ascendancy. Another pinpoint Fernandes corner deserved a better header from Maguire. But Solskjaer’s half-time chat seemed simple: telling his side to sharpen up in front of goal to make the contest comfortable.
First up was a Lask free-kick, though, after Shaw was booked for felling Dominik Reiter. Peter Michorl took it but United’s wall did its job. Valérien Ismaël’s team pressed, but United were able to roll the ball around until Shaw was in position down the left. He hit Mata but the No 8’s first-time effort sailed over.
A dimension Ighalo offers is the outlet ball and how he killed a high pass and twisted before spraying possession wide to Williams was a fine illustration. Next he turned creator, helping James to break a six-month drought by finding the Welshman, the latter’s long-range strike his fourth of the season. Moments later, Ighalo might have scored again but hit the right-hand post, Fernandes’s
vision again releasing the striker.
In the closing stages United added three more. With eight minutes left Mata finished clinically after Fred played him in with a glorious throughball. In added time Tahith Chong put in Mason Greenwood, who smashed in via both posts, and there was still time for a fifth as Andreas Pereira’s speculative long-range effort was fluffed in by Schlager to complete a satisfying night in Austria’s third city.
What happens next for United in the Europa League is unclear. This may be their last action for a while.