Geno, McGraw on women, men and keeping a cool head

BRISTOL — A warning became multiple code violations and, within hours, our national tennis championship turned into our national sports debate. Words like “histrionics” and “meltdown” were assigned to Serena Williams and they were either accurate or they were sexist.

Muffet McGraw, coach of the 2018 national champion Notre Dame women’s basketball team, saw and heard the words. So did Geno Auriemma, who has coached UConn to a record 11 national champions.

Even in a world of social media fury where nearly everyone has an opinion, it really did seem like everyone had an opinion in September on what Williams did, what chair umpire Carlos Ramos did and how we should view the unfortunate events of the U.S. Open women’s final. Everyone from within the sport of tennis, to academics from outside of athletics, from Martina Navratilova to Stephen A. Smith to the president of the National

Organization for Women.

“In what was a blatantly racist and sexist move, tennis umpire Carlos Ramos unfairly penalized Serena Williams in an abhorrent display of male dominance and discrimination,” NOW president Toni Van Pelt told The Washington Post. “This would not have happened if Serena Williams was a man. She would have been cheered and chided for ‘gamesmanship.’ ”

Some of the debate was unique to tennis, and those points were argued to great nuance, usually to fuel a viewpoint pro or con of Serena’s actions. While they certainly are an important piece of the fallout, nearly two months later there is a discussion worth continuing on how women in sports express themselves when angry and how they are perceived.

“I think there is a double standard, pretty much in every sport,” McGraw said Wednesday at ESPN’s Women’s Basketball Media Day. “I think it happens in women’s basketball as well. From what the referees tolerate from a man and what they do from a woman. From the teams, how they perceive how a woman should talk to them as opposed to what they’ll take from a man.

“But there’s absolutely a double standard in society about women. Serena was arguing a call. That very same day in the New York Post, there was a picture of the Yankees manager arguing a call, but Serena had a ‘meltdown.’ I thought she was very poised. Women have a really hard time of what the expectations of a woman and the expectations of a man are. It’s completely different.”

If you’re unfamiliar with what happened, Ramos gave Williams a warning for being coached by Patrick Mouratoglou. Despite what Williams may have thought or argued, Mouratoglou later admitted gesturing with his hands. It’s not an uncommon practice nor is it uncommon for players to be called on it. Williams told Ramos that she doesn’t cheat to win, she’d rather lose. The problem boiled over a few games later when Williams demolished her racket in disgust with her play. That’s an automatic violation and, coupled with the warning, she lost a point. Williams told Ramos he owed her an apology, never cheated in her life, has a daughter and she stands by what’s right for her.

After Naomi Osaka broke Williams to go up 4-3 in the second set, Williams accused Ramos of attacking her character, said that Ramos will never be on another court of hers for as long as he lived, and called him a liar. She demanded Ramos say he was sorry. He wouldn’t. She told him not to talk her. She then said, “You stole a point from me. You’re a thief.” Ramos called another violation for verbal abuse, which meant Williams lost a game. Unusual for a major.

“Do you know how many men do much worse things than that?” Williams told officials on the court. “Because they’re men, (losing a game) doesn’t happen to them.” After losing, 6-2, 6-4, she would say, “I’m here fighting for women’s rights and for women’s equality and for all kinds of stuff. For me to say ‘thief’ and for him to take a game, it made me feel like it was a sexist remark. He’s never taken a game from a man because they said ‘thief.’ ”

Writing in The New York Times, Navratilova said, “Serena has part of it right. There is a huge double standard for women when it comes to how bad behavior is punished and not just in tennis. But in her protests against an umpire she also got part of it wrong. I don’t believe it’s a good idea to apply a standard of, ‘If men can get away with it, women should be able to, too.’ Rather, I think the question we have to ask ourselves is this: What is the right way to behave to honor our sport and to respect our opponents?”

Sounds entirely reasonable.

“I think it’s unfair to expect women to carry the banner for how you should react,” McGraw said. “It’s not ‘men’ or ‘women,’ they’re athletes, but suddenly they are. I think women traditionally held back by their own choosing, because they knew how it was going to be perceived. I think they’ve tried to present a different image than the men.

“I feel like I’m pretty calm on the sidelines, but I look at a lot of the guys out there that are on the court, screaming and not getting a technical. They’re out of the (coach’s) box, screaming. What more do they have to do to get a technical?”

McGraw said she especially appreciated Billie Jean King’s point of view. “When a woman is emotional, she’s ‘hysterical’ and she’s penalized for it,” King tweeted. “When a man does the same, he’s ‘outspoken’ and there are no repercussions.”

“I’ve talked to a lot of female athletes who felt the reaction was inappropriate,” Auriemma said. “And I talked to a lot of female athletes that there is a double standard.

“To me, it’s not male or female. It’s not black or white. To me the bigger issue is stuff is going to happen to you during a contest and you have a choice how you’re going to react. Whether Serena is male, female, white, black, today’s world, yesterday’s world, there is a history of athletes losing their composure in big moments. That’s not unusual. And it’s perfectly human.

“To then have a national discussion on why did this person lose their composure? If you talk to 100 people you’re going to get 100 different opinions. The bottom line is, did she lose the match because of the umpire or because she lost her composure? I don’t know.”

Auriemma compared it to a great basketball player getting called for a fourth foul when the entire fourth quarter remains.

“You lose your mind and get thrown out of the game,” Auriemma said. “You may say that comparison is simplistic, but the bottom line is it happens to a lot of athletes. I don’t want to go to where if she was a guy, she’d be treated different or that the umpire was sexist, racist, biased. At the same time, as somebody who’s in sports, I think the umpire for whatever reason probably lost his composure, too. So now we’ve got an unfortunate incident and we have to deal with it. Me? I think the conversation should have been how incredible (Osaka) played.”