Sports-Bra Outrage

The head football coach at Rowan University was in the thick of leading a team practice last fall when he spotted women circling the track around him in sports bras. That’s when Jay Accorsi lashed out.

“You don’t belong out here,” Accorsi screamed at Derick (Ringo) Adamson, head coach of the women’s track-and-field team, according to Adamson. “You were told you don’t belong out here when we’re out here.”

How was Accorsi supposed to get 18-year-old boys to concentrate on X’s and O’s, he said, when their eyes were “going back and forth” at the sight of “girls running out here with sports bras,” Adamson would later recount in a written statement to university officials.

It was football season, so Accorsi’s team had the right to hold an exclusive practice at a time of its choosing. But it was the coach’s concern about sports bras that thrust a regional public university’s Division III athletics program into a fiery debate about the objectification of female bodies and the subtle shape of everyday sexism.

In a blog post, a Rowan student argued that women had been told to cover up so that they wouldn’t distract their testosterone-crazed classmates. Soon, the story was in The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, and Runner’s World. Their angry readers flooded Rowan administrators’ inboxes with hate mail.

“This is rape culture,” one woman wrote. “You disgust me.”

Under siege, the university proclaimed that going forward there would be no restrictions on sports bras. Rowan acknowledged that its in-house rules about practice apparel, which required men and women to wear shirts, “could be misunderstood” and failed to accommodate what many female athletes view as standard workout gear. The message, in short, was that there’s nothing much to see here. But there is a lot to see here, even in the still-unfolding aftermath.

Rowan’s sports-bra episode was remarkable in its specificity, a crystallizing example that seemed customized to provoke outrage in the #MeToo era. A ban on practicing in sports bras, an iconic invention of the 1970s that recognized the gender-specific needs of female athletes, sounded particularly retrograde at a moment when the nation is increasingly focused on equity, discrimination, and the threat of sexual assault on college campuses. At the same time, there is nothing particularly remarkable at all about Rowan’s story; it’s a common story about disrespect and entrenched cultural norms that can be as challenging to recognize as they are to fix.

Women on Rowan’s cross-country and track-and-field teams have for years complained about relatively minor inconveniences — a habitually locked bathroom door, a subpar locker room, cramped buses. Inaction on issues like these could reasonably be explained by communication shortfalls or even indifference. The sports-bra flap, however, was a final insult, betraying an environment where women say that casual sexism had gone unnamed and unchecked.

Yet, even now, women at Rowan say, they are being told that the problem is all in their heads.

At its core, Rowan’s story isn’t really about a dress code at all. It’s about a fight to undo what some women describe as a stubborn and corrosive culture.

The incident has brought to the surface a longstanding conflict between the athletics department’s leaders and female runners, who say that the department’s top brass often responds to their concerns with either anger or dismissiveness. Those problems are laid bare in a trove of documents and secret audio recordings, which The Chronicle obtained through a public-records request and sources within the university.

Interviews, internal emails, and documents from a recently concluded Title IX investigation present a picture of a protectionist and hierarchical athletics department, where secrecy and intimidation left athletes and coaches feeling helpless and bullied. The Title IX investigation did not find a violation of the law. It did, however, criticize the department’s leaders for failing to report evidence of possible discrimination in connection with the sports-bra episode, and further concluded that the head football coach had not been “credible” in his interview with an investigator.

The whole controversy started with a rather mundane debate about sharing facilities and practice schedules. With just a few weeks left in football season, Accorsi, the head coach, emailed administrators to complain about runners on the track, which encircles the football field. This presented a “safety issue,” he said, as it impeded the work of trainers. But Accorsi had a problem with the women’s attire, too.

“I still am uncomfortable with female athletes running around the track in sports bras which unfortunately did happen again,” Accorsi wrote in November to Penny Kempf, the associate athletics director. “At least they were no bright colors!”

Restrictions on athletic attire, from Wimbledon to the local Boys & Girls Club, are nothing new. In NCAA competition, runners’ uniforms must “cover the full length of the torso,” a regulation that would preclude wearing a sports bra without a shirt. (There are, however, no NCAA restrictions on practice attire.)

What distinguishes the situation at Rowan is the suggestion that some men at the university considered women exercising with exposed midriffs to be distracting or even sexually provocative.

The Title IX investigator found a preponderance of evidence to suggest that, as women ran around the track, a football player made a crass remark along the lines of “They’re asking for it,” implying that they wanted sex. Since the women did not hear the remarks, however, the investigator concluded that the incident had not created a hostile environment in violation of the law.

Accorsi stopped practice and reprimanded the player, according to witnesses. But the coach, appearing to protect one of his own, would not reveal the player’s identity to the investigator.

“Coach Accorsi’s denial or lack of recollection lacks candor and is not credible,” the investigator concluded.

In addition to the Title IX investigation, which focused narrowly on potential legal violations, Rowan has begun a human-resources inquiry that could lead to firings, university officials said. Rowan has also commissioned an outside review of the culture of the athletics department.

“If there are vestiges of the old days that have to be removed, then we’ll do it,” says Bob Zazzali, senior vice president for administration. “I can’t be any blunter than that.”

Accorsi declined an interview request, but wrote in an email to The Chronicle that “I think a lot has been learned from this situation.”

He did not elaborate.

The women don’t see lessons learned. Instead, they see an athletics department digging in, seeking to discredit and intimidate its critics.

When Rowan’s story caught fire on social media, women on the 19-member cross-country team believed for a few fleeting days that they had won. Public opinion was strongly on their side, and change seemed imminent.

But women say that they quickly got a different message from the athletics department: They were the problem. They were the liars.

A few days after Gina Capone published her original blog post, she and Hannah Vendetta, a cross-country runner, met with Kempf, the associate athletics director. Both students would later describe the meeting to The Chronicle as a scornful dressing-down.

Kempf, who was joined by Zazzali, had printed out the blog post and “highlighted everything that she found offensive,” Capone said, demanding that she be uninterrupted as she read it aloud and disputed a litany of facts.

“I think she wanted me to write another article saying that I made everything up,” said Capone, a former Rowan runner who was sidelined last spring due to an injury. “She was like ‘You could fix this,’ but I would not do that.”

Kempf declined an interview request.

There were some legitimate reasons to quibble with the blog post. It was true that runners had used a local high-school track, for example, but they weren’t banned from the university’s track as the article had suggested. At the same time, women had heard two troubling messages and quite reasonably connected them: You don’t like our sports bras, and you want us off the track.

“That was our truth,” said Brianna De la Cruz, a member of the team.

It was not, however, Kempf’s truth. In an email to Zazzali that same day, she vented about news coverage of the incident.

“One kid writes a blog filled with misinformation and no one is saying it is not true,” Kempf wrote. “This does not represent our department, our athletes and the university correctly.”

“It is making our football team out to be horrible human beings and that is far from the truth,” she continued. “We are not perfect and we make mistakes and sometimes say things we should not. That being said we as a department would not let these things happen without investigating them and handing out discipline if necessary.”

But any such investigations should happen in concert with the Title IX office, the investigator said. That did not happen in this case. Kempf and Dan Gilmore, the athletics director, “were aware of a potentially discriminatory or harassing comment by a football player” and did not report it to the Office of Equity and Diversity or inquire further on their own, the investigator found. It was only after an assistant coach reported it that a formal inquiry began.

In her meeting with Capone, Kempf told the student that she had “made up this whole big lie” and now people could get fired, Capone recalled.

“I was hysterically crying, and she was attacking me,” Capone said.

Vendetta, who is a captain of the indoor track team, said she felt “bullied — manipulated into believing that everything we did was wrong.”

The athletic department has succeeded, Vendetta says, in convincing other athletes that the women were either lying or confused. That’s yet another way of marginalizing students who already felt objectified and ostracized, Vendetta says.

“I competed for Ms. New Jersey,” she said. “I was on stage in a swimsuit and high heels and in hoop earrings, and I never felt like this. I’ve received more backlash from this than when I was in a bikini on stage in front of 500 people.”

Rowan officials declined to comment directly on the students’ descriptions of their meeting, citing a continuing personnel review.

“We are unwavering in our adherence to due process for our students and staff,” Joe Cardona, a university spokesman, said in an email. “We are dedicated to providing and promoting an environment free of discrimination, harassment, and bias in any form.”

After the blog post was published, there was blowback for the women’s coaches, too, according to Scott Costello, an assistant cross-country coach. In a written statement addressed to the university’s president, Costello said that he had witnessed Gilmore, the athletic director, “in his bullying demeanor,” barking at Adamson, who leads the women’s cross-country and track-and-field teams. Gilmore wanted to know if a coach had encouraged the women to go public with their complaints, Costello wrote.

Facing off with Adamson at a nearby cross-country course, Gilmore yelled, “Don’t ask me for anything!” Costello wrote. “This was a direct threat to our cross-country program and shows the toxic environment our student athletes are being exposed to.”

Adamson and Costello both declined interview requests.

During a recent interview in his office, The Chronicle asked Gilmore about Costello’s claims. In response, Gilmore muttered something under his breath, which he refused to repeat, before saying, “I never withhold resources.”

Gilmore, broad-shouldered and stout with fading pale hair, has been at Rowan since 1976. He is old school, insomuch as he pines for a time when parents said “No” more and young people didn’t “have instant gratification in their hands all day long.” But he describes the athletics department as progressive, and he bristles at charges of sexism in its ranks.

“I’ll tell you right now,” Gilmore said, “you can interview any female person here that works for me that would say I’m the least sexist person you’re ever going to meet in your life. There’s just no way that I would tolerate it, because I have nothing but daughters.”

This notion of having daughters as a bulwark against sexism comes up a lot with Gilmore. He says the same of Accorsi, the head football coach. After years of working with Accorsi, Gilmore says, he can’t fathom that the coach would pass along sexist ideas to his players.

“There’s no way, no way,” Gilmore says. “I would back him to the hilt.”

From ‘Jockbra’ to Rowan U., a Short History of the Sports Bra

1  of  5

1972

At the center of a controversy at Rowan University, where female athletes complained that they were forbidden from running in sports bras without shirts, is an innovative piece of training gear that has evolved with discussions about gender equity in athletics.

Title IX becomes law, banning sex discrimination at institutions that receive federal funds. The law requires that men and women be given equitable opportunities to participate in college sports.

Birch Bayh Senate Office

2  of  5

1977

The “Jockbra,” which is later rebranded the “Jogbra,” is introduced. Created by three women, who are frustrated by the lack of support offered by traditional bras, the early “Jockbra” consists of two jockstraps sewn together.

Smithsonian Institution

3  of  5

1993

The Enell Sports Bra is introduced for women with larger breasts.

Enell

4  of  5

1999

After scoring the winning shootout goal of the World Cup for the United States, Brandi Chastain whips off her jersey and exposes her black sports bra.

Roberto Schmidt, AFP, Getty Images

5  of  5

2018

Rowan University lifts restrictions on female athletes practicing in sports bras without shirts.

Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The Chronicle

1  of  5

1972

At the center of a controversy at Rowan University, where female athletes complained that they were forbidden from running in sports bras without shirts, is an innovative piece of training gear that has evolved with discussions about gender equity in athletics.

Title IX becomes law, banning sex discrimination at institutions that receive federal funds. The law requires that men and women be given equitable opportunities to participate in college sports.

Birch Bayh Senate Office

1 of 5

Rowan athletics is top-heavy with veterans who have worked together for most of their careers, creating an environment that some coaches and athletes say values fierce loyalty over introspection and accountability.

“Within the athletics department, there are high-school-like cliques that have been around for decades,” says Amanda Brown, an assistant track-and-field coach who recently graduated from Rowan. “And they will stick together.”

In Gilmore’s athletics department, “chain of command” is essential. He says that organizations function best when coaches and athletes respect the layers of bureaucracy and work within them, rather than going over people’s heads with grievances. Reasonable as that may sound as a general management philosophy, it has sent the message to some people around Gilmore that the boss doesn’t want to hear about their problems.

“Issues that have been concerning to students and coaches have not been addressed,” Theresa A. Drye, vice president for human resources, said in a recent letter, “because relying on the ‘chain of command’ has stifled communication.”

Gilmore’s devotion to hierarchy came up in a tense meeting in 2015, with men’s and women’s cross-country and track-and-field coaches. In the meeting, which was secretly recorded by a person in attendance, Gilmore admonished the coaches for not reining in their willful athletes.

“The point is,” Gilmore said, “I’m the head coach. When I go on the road as a head coach, I say ‘Listen, we’re going to Olive Garden to eat. You don’t have a choice. I’m the head coach. There is no choice.’”

In that same year, Gilmore had another grueling meeting with the women’s track-and-field team and its coaches, which was also secretly recorded. The meeting was ostensibly about a minor transportation issue, but it revealed deeper strains in the director’s deteriorating relationship with female athletes.

“I do not want any more garbage from this team,” Gilmore told the group.

In response, women told Gilmore that they felt routinely disrespected by him and the department.

“You’re not listening to us,” one woman said, pointing out that Gilmore had twice cut her off as she tried to speak.

Gilmore told The Chronicle that he had not heard the recording, but that he recently became aware of its existence. Recalling the meeting, he said, “I think I answered the same question three or four or five times in a row. Eventually you get frustrated a little bit.”

For Ali A. Houshmand, Rowan’s president, there is cause for concern about the athletics’ department’s leadership. If there is any merit to charges that Gilmore threatened to retaliate against the team, Houshmand says, he “would not be able to work with” Gilmore.

“This is not the Sopranos — I do this for you, you scratch my back, I scratch your back,” Houshmand said during a recent interview at his office.

“This pisses the hell out of me,” he continued. “I’m sorry to use that terrible language, but that’s not the way we do things in here. Nobody owns money here.”

Houshmand, a marathon runner who was born into poverty in Iran and became a U.S. citizen in 1997, views the sports-bra episode through a personal lens. He grew up in a country with a terrible record on women’s rights.

“That’s really what hurts because I’ve seen the worst,” says Houshmand, sharply dressed in a patterned suit with a paisley tie and a bright red pocket square.

In the first days of Rowan’s public-relations crisis over sports bras, Houshmand identified a deeper problem. This was the university’s insular culture at its worst, he concluded.

“Unfortunately,” Houshmand wrote in an email at the time to a local business leader, “Rowan still has some individuals who are frozen in 19th century and continue to believe it is the women’s responsibility to prevent men from being distracted!! I plan to fix this and never allow it to happen again at Rowan!”

That sounds good, but the women say they will believe it when they see it.