As a sports ethics keynote speaker, sports ethics consultant and co-author of Monday Morning Ethics, my heart is invested in ethical choices and consequences. As grandfather to girls, my heart is invested in their future happiness. Whether they become athletes — or not, is not relevant; that they have an equal chance to compete in all phases of life, is both my desire and my cause. Every time I think society has “arrived,” something comes along to discourage my optimism.
The Portland Thorns
Before touching on the key points of the “Thorns” scandal, I would encourage everybody to review an excellent article by Ryan Clarke in the Oregonian (October 7, 2022). The piece exposes the dismal underbelly of women’s professional soccer.
The Thorns, once a model of women’s professional sports, came to a crashing halt at the start of November 2022, when club executives Mike Golub and Gavin Wilkinson were finally fired. The reason for the terminations was far too predictable. We will get into that in a minute.
The Portland Thorns entered the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) in 2013, a team funded by the Paulson family, of Morgan Stanley fame. The team had the makings of a dynasty — more than that adding a refreshing light after winning the NWSL championship that year.
Coach Cindy Parlow, a soccer genius, then abruptly resigned, allegedly to spend the proverbial “more time with her family.” It should have served as a warning of the crap storm to come. U.S. Soccer, in a later investigation determined that Mike Golub was making inappropriate sexual remarks toward her.
In a “birds of a feather type deal,” after Parlow left, the Thorns bought on Paul Riley, a coach with a solid reputation but a handicap of his own: Riley already been implicated as forcing a player into a sexual relationship. Her name was Sinead Farrelly. And suddenly, Farrelly was brought onto the Thorns in 2014.
Riley already owned a reputation as the kind of coached who belittled and verbally abused his players. The ownership of the Thorns was made aware of such behavior but they elected to do nothing. So much for due-diligence.
Players confided in one another that Riley was sexually harassing them, and finally a sexual harassment complaint was made to the Thorns front office in 2015.
The Thorns investigated and determined Riley violated several team policies. They fired him for sexual harassment but they never told the truth to the media. They blamed his exit on the poor team record. It gives the impression that he was a lousy coach, not an abuser. As a result, and in a kind of weird protection, the team executives kept expressing their admiration to Riley throughout 2016. You know what they “owed him?” Nothing.
Golub kept harassing
Despite all of the turmoil, public and private, Golub never changed his behavior. From unwanted shoulder rubs on his players to failing to accommodate players who had recently given birth (by providing nursing stations and other amenities), to other, even more inappropriate acts of physical closeness and touching, Golub treated his players more like objects than people.
It was really not until October 2021 when The Athletic magazine. Detailed all of the offenses that public became aware of the truth; of all of the true stories behind the curtain of lies.
The number of ethical and, of course, legal violations of the management of the Thorns through 2022 was staggering. Though the team has performed exceptionally well on the field, part of my viewpoint is “So what?”
I can argue that players of color performed exceptionally well in the early days of the NBA in the 1950s and for MLB after the admission of Jackie Robinson and other players starting in the late 1940s but did they do enough? No. Hell, no. It is long past due for women in sports to become athletes in sports and not objects.
Sports Ethics LLC in its mission, wants to always ask the most basic of questions: Why did this happen and what can be done to prevent it in the future? Without ethical expectations, women’s professional soccer will be a sport with a cloud over every accomplishment the players have. They deserve much better.
Chuck Gallagher, Sports Ethics, (828) 244-1400, Chuck@chuckgallagher.com
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