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"Support the Player and Be Quiet": What It’s Like to Be an NFL Wife

by AntoniettaHuie Posted on September 12, 2014

Mother Jones

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Editor’s note: Tracy Treu worked at Mother Jones from 1998 to 2006 and is married to former Oakland Raiders center Adam Treu, who played 10 seasons in the NFL.

I’m so fed up by people blaming Janay Rice. We’re asking for incredible bravery, and we’re giving little compassion to this woman. Because it’s so easy to say: “Well, she’s the fool who married him. Why doesn’t she just leave?” There are just so many components to it that people aren’t aware of.

The NFL is a culture that values secrecy. When you’re with an NFL team, the message to you is clear: Don’t fuck anything up for your partner, and don’t fuck anything up for the team. Don’t be controversial. Don’t talk to the media. Stay out of the way. Support the player and be quiet.

I saw this firsthand. The Raiders didn’t formally sit us down—they’re not structured like that as an organization to sit the wives down and school them, and say, “This is what we ask of you.” But it is definitely passed down by the veteran wives in the league. The veteran wives will talk to the rookie wives. So will the administrative or coaching wives. It’s made very clear to you, and not in a hateful way, by any means: “Let’s work together for this one common goal: to win the Super Bowl.” That will mean, for the coaches’ families, that you’re not going to get fired and you’ll get to stay here for another year. And that might mean, for some of the marquee players, that they’re going to get a better contract.

They really don’t want anything to be a distraction from that goal. I remember getting a lot of grief for planning my first pregnancy poorly because I had our daughter during the season. You only have babies in the offseason. There are lots of informal rules like that.

And the media is the devil—the enemy. I had my husband come home and tell me, “Don’t ever talk to the media.” Guys would get teased; they’d rib each other if they were in the news, or if the wife got mentioned. There was a sportswriter for the Oakland Tribune whom I’d sometimes see at games, and Adam would be like, “What’d you say to him? Were you talking to him? Don’t talk to him.” And that’s not just Adam’s personal preference; that’s what he’d been told. I don’t know everything that was said in meetings, but that’s how it came down to me: “Did he call you? What did he say to you? What did he ask you? Don’t tell him anything.”

It’s motivated by this you-versus-the-world mentality. You know: People are going to try to take us down. People are going to try to distract us. Do not let anybody distract us from our singular goal. Looking through past notes and playbooks, a lot of coaches use a lot of war analogies and wartime quotes—they liken it to going to war. They use that to build camaraderie, and they want the wives to build camaraderie amongst each other to support the players.

Adam was the kind of player who was just hoping to make the team year to year. So it was like, don’t fuck this up for him in any way. “Don’t give them any reason to cut you,” he’d always say. But my husband was never a marquee player—he was the long snapper. So, you know, he was very anonymous. Ray Rice is in a premier position. He’s not a long snapper. He’s a running back.

And I’m sure that sort of thing was going through Janay’s mind: If I tell, and if I take away their best running back, and they lose on Sunday, that’s my fault. I did that. I set that ball in motion. This is what she was risking: embarrassing the Ravens, embarrassing her family, screwing his teammates out of their prized running back, losing money, losing security. Janay was under an incredible amount of pressure. She probably thought to be quiet was to make this go away. Because she needs it to go away.

Janay met Ray in high school. They have a daughter together. So we’re asking her to walk away from this, and it’s like, “How?” This is all she’s ever known. A lot of these wives don’t work. They can’t. They’re only living in a place for six months. Maybe the guy is playing on a new team every two or three years. He wants her home. You know, he’s not coming home and cooking himself dinner. When Adam played, I don’t think any of the wives worked. So what’s she going to leave and go do?

To be blunt, the money pads that a little bit. You get this paycheck coming in every week and you suck it up. I worked at Mother Jones when he played, and I needed that totally separate outlet. But many of these women move into town for six months during the season, and they do whatever they need to do to help their spouse win. (Which, you know, you really can’t do much. It’s not up to you.) Then they go back to wherever they’re from for the offseason. Then they repeat.

I don’t really think that’s changed much over the years. If a player has a partner, that partner needs to not be controversial. I don’t know if teams do research on players’ partners—I’d assume they do, but I don’t know. “Be seen and not heard.” That’s the assumption. Well, that and, “You’re just lucky to be here, so shut up.” He’s making great money, so you support him and shut your mouth. You’re put in a subservient position financially. He’s the star. Keep him happy.

And, in the end, why not just show up and shut up and be supportive? After all, Adam and I felt damn lucky to be in the NFL. He was a walk-on at Nebraska. Playing pro football was a dream. It made me incredibly happy to watch him play.

Most of the girlfriends and wives feel the same gratitude and happiness, and I encourage them to be supportive of the team. But that quiet support stops the second you are abused. Speak up. It’s not a secret worth keeping.

I wonder now what the Ravens will do for Janay and her daughter. And I wonder, with the league’s new, stiffer penalties for domestic violence, how many abused women will stay quiet—because that means the end of a career, the end of the insurance, the end of it all.

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"Support the Player and Be Quiet": What It’s Like to Be an NFL Wife

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Not-Quite-Supermoon Blogging – 7 September 2014

by ToddBainerry Posted on September 11, 2014

Mother Jones

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I didn’t actually get around to hauling out my camera for Monday’s supermoon (how many of these things do we get every year, anyway?), but I did snap a few pictures on Sunday. So in the spirit of better late than never, here’s one of them. The clouds and the colors were kind of interesting, even if the picture itself is so-so.

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Not-Quite-Supermoon Blogging – 7 September 2014

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Controversial Former College President Mansplains Alleged Rape Victim

by PARTomaskgfaeb Posted on September 10, 2014

Mother Jones

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Two weeks ago, Stephen Trachtenberg, the former president of George Washington University, made headlines when he appeared on NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show to discuss sexual assault on college campuses and said that women had “to be trained not to drink in excess” so they could defend themselves against men who “misbehave.” Critics accused him of placing the burden on victims and equating sexual assault with misbehavior, claims that Trachtenberg contended did not represent his views.

In the midst of this controversy, a woman who says she was raped when she was a George Washington student in the early 2000s and was “extremely traumatized” by how the university handled her case confronted Trachtenberg via email to share her experience and denounce his remarks. In an email response, Trachtenberg, now a professor at the school, said her story “surely entitles you to your anger” and implored her to “tell me exactly what I said that you think I need to be ashamed of.” The exchange was obtained by Mother Jones.

Following the NPR show, the woman—who asked not to be named—emailed Trachtenberg about her case and said:

…Your recent remarks on the Diane Rehm show disgust me. Shame on you. Shame on the message that you have just sent to millions of women, millions of daughters, and millions of us survivors. I hope you can take the time to reflect on your statements and understand the impact of your words.

In interviews with Mother Jones, the woman recounted what happened to her. She said she was raped on campus by a fellow student, in the middle of the day, with no alcohol or drugs involved. She didn’t immediately report the assault, but after she began to experience depression and symptoms of PTSD, she decided to take a leave of absence. According to documents she provided to Mother Jones, a counselor recorded the account of her rape and an associate dean examined her records in order to approve the leave. “No one ever talked to me about my options,” she said. “No one suggested reporting to the police or going through the student judicial process.” Maralee Csellar, a George Washington spokeswoman, said she can’t comment on the case due to privacy laws.

After the woman returned to school, she filed a case against the alleged rapist with student judicial services. But she said she was not provided a victim’s advocate or any other support, and was “blindsided” by the legal defense mounted by the alleged assailant. She had an emotional breakdown and was unable to finish the trial. After that “extremely” traumatizing experience, she said she was not interested in going to the police.

Replying to the woman, Trachtenberg wrote:

Yours is a dramatic story of a dreadful experience and it surely entitles you to your anger. I like to think that today the university would serve you better. Your frustration with what happened seems sound. That said there are limitations to what the university can do. We can regret that but it cannot be denied. I believe that cases like yours need to be dealt with by the state. They have police and prosecutors and courts that have an expertise which exceeds that of the university. Rape by a student is no less rape than that by any other citizen and all need to be treated like crimes and adjudicated as such. My remarks on the Diane Rehm show are what they are. They do not define all that I think about the matter but they stand for a portion of my view that educating women–men too–about the dangers of drinking would make them safer. Being sober make one less vulnerable. And helps with driving too. Similarly I think it empowers women to know something about self defense if attacked. So go back and think about what I said beyond the strong memories of your personal experience and tell me exactly what I said that you think I need to be ashamed of. Educated empowered women strike me as a good idea.

In an email to Mother Jones, Trachtenberg—who noted that he does not speak on behalf of the university—writes, “This is a tragic story that seems to go back about a decade. I tried to be as responsive as I could to this abused woman when she wrote but to some agendas there is no reply.” He added, “My heart goes out to her.”

More than 75 schools are being investigated by the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to determine whether they botched sexual-assault investigations. George Washington is not one of those schools. Still, in January 2014, a victim complained to the student newspaper, the GW Hatchet, about the school’s response to her accusation of sexual assault, noting, “It was this constant battle with GW.” Csellar said that the university issued new sexual-violence policies last year and is “committed to fully supporting survivors of such acts and treating appropriately those who are found to have committed them.”

Trachtenberg insists that his original comments have been misconstrued and that he’s being unfairly maligned. “I thought I was speaking good and prudent truth on behalf of women when I was on the Diane Rehm Show,” he writes. “I said don’t blame the victims and I proposed two modest and hardly radical ideas.” He later adds, “Because my effort to candidly address part of a problem fell short of perfection and neglected to deal with all aspects of the rape culture agenda I was abused.”

“Look what happened to me, look at my case,” the woman told Mother Jones. “I’m sure this is happening to other people. With the attitude of people like this, whom we put our trust in, no wonder.”

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Controversial Former College President Mansplains Alleged Rape Victim

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Have We Reached Peak Kevin?

by MauriciEir Posted on August 27, 2014

Mother Jones

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In the Guardian today, Paula Cocozza writes about her effort to hunt down the origin of the phrase “peak X.” She turned to linguist Mark Liberman, who runs the Language Log blog, but he says it’s a hard idiom to track:

There is some good news, though. Liberman remembers the first time he noticed the phrase. It was in 2008, when the US writer John Cole blogged that “we may have hit and passed Peak Wingnut”, a derogatory term for rightwingers.

Cole’s post is nearly six years old, but can he recall what inspired the phrase? “I came up with ‘peak wingnut’ because I was shocked,” Cole says. “The Republicans seemed to get crazier and crazier. The source of it is US blogger Kevin Drum. At the Washington Monthly, one of the things he was always talking about was peak oil.”

This comes as news to Drum, who now writes for the web magazine Mother Jones. He was not the only person writing about peak oil, of course, but he was the one Cole read. “I’m very proud of that,” he says. “I had no idea that I had been so influential.”

So now I have three items for my future obituary: creator of Friday catblogging, popularizer of the lead-crime theory, and just possibly the kinda sorta inspiration for the Peak X meme. Not bad!

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Have We Reached Peak Kevin?

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Quote of the Day: Let’s Just Drop a Few Bombs and See What Happens

by LettieOdum Posted on August 27, 2014

Mother Jones

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From Bill Kristol, during an appearance on conservative radio host Laura Ingraham’s show, bringing his megawatt analytic powers to bear on the problem of ISIS in Iraq:

What’s the harm of bombing them at least for a few weeks and seeing what happens? I don’t think there’s much in the way of unanticipated side effects that are going to be bad there.

You can’t make this stuff up. We liberals often accuse folks like Kristol of mindlessly advocating military action all the time, no matter what. But we’re exaggerating, aren’t we? Nobody literally wants to unleash an air campaign just to see what happens. Nobody just casually ignores the possible drawbacks. That’s ridiculous! Why do we insist on juvenile caricatures like this?

I don’t know. Why do we?

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Quote of the Day: Let’s Just Drop a Few Bombs and See What Happens

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Bonus Sunday Cat Blogging – 24 August 2014

by KarmaSpell Posted on August 24, 2014

Mother Jones

I’ve gotten several queries about how Mozart is doing, and as you might expect, the answer is that Mozart is delighted with his new home. Last night at dusk he was leaping around in my mother’s native habitat garden and chasing all the little things that only cats can see at dusk. Everyone else is doing fine too. So as a bit of bonus catblogging, here’s my mother’s entire brood. From top to bottom, we have Mozart, Ditto, and Tillamook. Enjoy.

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Bonus Sunday Cat Blogging – 24 August 2014

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Mississippi’s Last Abortion Clinic Will Remain Open—For Now

by FrederiDarley Posted on July 29, 2014

Mother Jones

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The last abortion clinic in Mississippi has been on the brink of closure for nearly two years. But the fight to shutter the Jackson Women’s Health Organization may have ended Tuesday, when the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the strict anti-abortion measure that would have closed its doors forever.

The court fight to save the clinic began in 2012, after state lawmakers passed a bill requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a local hospital—or else face criminal charges. Restrictive anti-abortion bills had already closed several clinics in the state, and, had the Fifth Circuit not ruled against the state, Mississippi was poised to become the first state since Roe v. Wade without a single abortion provider.

Attorneys for the Jackson Women’s Health Organization argued that admitting privileges were unconstitutional and not medically necessary for the safety of its clients. (The clinic, after all, already had a patient-transfer agreement with a local hospital for rare cases in which a patient required hospitalization.) A federal judge was receptive to this argument and blocked the law from going into effect; in response, the state of Mississippi appealed the ruling to the Fifth Circuit.

Amid the legal wrangling, the Jackson Women’s Health Organization attempted to obtain admitting privileges to comply with the law. As Mother Jones has reported, all seven hospitals where the Jackson Women’s Health Organization was eligible for admitting privileges turned the clinic down. This was partly because its providers travel to Mississippi from out of state, and partly because hospitals refused to be associated with abortion.

As Mother Jones reported in 2012:

The doctors’ applications have been rejected by every hospital they’ve approached. Two hospitals wouldn’t let them apply at all. Five others denied the applications for “administrative” reasons, before even completely reviewing the doctors’ qualifications. Their rejection letters cited their policies regarding abortion and “concern about disruption to the hospital’s business within the community.” The clinic wrote follow-up letters to make sure the hospitals understood that the doctors were only seeking privileges to comply with the new law and wouldn’t actually be providing abortions at the hospital, but no dice.

Abortion rights advocates feared that the Fifth Circuit would be hostile to such claims. A three-judge panel on the Fifth Circuit upheld a very similar Texas law in March. Appeals courts in the Fourth and Eighth Circuits have also upheld admitting privilege laws.

But on Tuesday, the appeals court ruled, “Mississippi may not shift its obligation to respect the established constitutional rights of its citizens to another state.” It is not yet clear if the state will appeal to the US Supreme Court. But the decision—short of intervention from high court—means the clinic will remain open for the foreseeable future.

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Mississippi’s Last Abortion Clinic Will Remain Open—For Now

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This Man Fears America Will Have Him Tortured—Again

by ShellieMfm Posted on July 29, 2014

Mother Jones

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Sweden has declined to grant asylum to an American who fears his own country will have him tortured—again.

In June 2011, Yonas Fikre, a Muslim American from Portland, Oregon, was visiting the United Arab Emirates when he was suddenly arrested and detained by the local security forces. For the next three months, he claims, he was interrogated and tortured—grilled with questions that were nearly identical to those the FBI had posed to him just a few months earlier. He believes the US orchestrated his detention, and his allegations are similar to those of other young Muslim Americans who have been locked up abroad and interrogated, often about matters they have already been questioned on by American authorities. In May 2013, Fikre sued the US government for violating his constitutional rights.

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This Man Fears America Will Have Him Tortured—Again

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Wage Stagnation Is No Illusion

by CeliaZeller Posted on July 21, 2014

Mother Jones

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Bloomberg has a long article today wondering whether wage stagnation is mainly due to demographic shifts:

25- to 34-year-olds will make up 22.5 percent of the workforce by 2022, compared with 21.6 percent in 2012….Meanwhile, the share of 45- to 54-year-olds in their best earning years will drop by 3.3 percentage points in the decade ending 2022.

….Hollowing out the middle-aged working population could cut median earnings because such employees bring home the biggest paychecks. The median 45- to 54-year-old household earns $66,400 a year, compared with $51,400 for 25- to 34-year-old households.

Well, sure. Compared to 30 years ago, the theory goes, we have more young workers bringing down the average and fewer prime age workers raising the average. As a result, the average is declining. But all that means is that baby boomers are aging out of the workforce, not that wages are necessarily in bad shape.

That makes sense. At least, it would make sense if it were true. The thing is, in an article more than a thousand words long, we never learn that we can look at this directly. The chart on the right shows the median wages of just 25-34 year olds, and as you can see, they’ve been declining for more than a decade. This has nothing to do with demographics because it’s measuring wages for the same age group the entire time.

Now, these figures don’t include health insurance, and they only go through 2012. So they aren’t of much help if, say, the Fed is trying to gauge the tightness of the labor market in the second quarter of 2014. Nonetheless, they certainly show a long-term trend of wage stagnation that plainly has nothing to do with demographics. This makes it vanishingly unlikely that wage stagnation over the past six months is merely due to demographic shifts.

It’s a nice fairy tale to pretend that wage stagnation might just be an artifact of boomers retiring, but easily available data quite clearly shows otherwise. It’s real.

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Wage Stagnation Is No Illusion

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Friday Cat Blogging – 11 July 2014

by JIGAlyciajpbd Posted on July 11, 2014

Mother Jones

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For a variety of reasons, fresh catblogging just didn’t happen this week. So I’m going to do what everyone else does when they fail to meet an editorial deadline: run some old stuff and pretend it’s an extra-special feature. So here you are: rarely seen archival footage from January 14, 2007, Domino’s first day at home after we picked her up from the shelter. As you can see, she immediately made her way to a book about a magical cat who refrains from eating its shipmate. This was a good influence, I think.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 11 July 2014

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