Good job Rick Reilly. You just used your national celebrity to (try to) publicly disgrace a 15 year old boy on espn.com. Why? Because he decided to hold to his beliefs and refused to wrestle a girl. It might be one thing if his reason for not wanting to wrestle her was because she broke his heart in middle school or even because she has cooties. No, his reason is that he personally chooses to see women as something nobler than sweaty, Lycra-clad opponents whose body parts he will be groping in front of large crowds. Yeah, shame on him.
You’re a sports writer, which probably means you were never very good at sports. And if you couldn’t make the tennis team, you sure as hell didn’t even bother with wrestling. Let me help you out: the objective of the sport is to forcefully pin your opponent flat to the mat. Your opponent, in case you don’t know, Rick, resists this attempt. And the very best wrestlers tend to be very mean in the way they go about their business: knees in the thigh and calf muscles, thumbs up the tuccas, foreheads ground into noses, elbows in the ribs, and don’t forget the ever-present cross-face. These are just the basics, by the way; meanness can get pretty technical. Enter you and your logic. You have now made a statement to the entire English reading world that Joel Northrup is less than a man because he chose not to do that for sport which would have earned him five years in prison anywhere else. Brilliant.
What about Northrup’s fundamental beliefs regarding women in society? What about yours, Rick?
Here is a young man, hardly more than a boy, who has made the conscious choice to hold for women the utmost respect . . . whether they respect themselves or not. I think it’s fair to assume that this is a young man who would rather hold the door for a young lady rather than to blast nude texts of her to all of his pals. Imagine that. Hell, imagine trying to publicly humiliate such a young man for having such a mindset. Oh wait, you did.
I don’t know you world-view Rick. I think, based on your ignorant actions regarding Joel Northrup, it’s highly likely that you worship at the feet of Obama. But, that’s just an assumption. At any rate, the one statement you’ve made is that you’d rather see a young man, against his personal convictions, wrestle a young lady woman where, by all probability, he would have readily bested her and, as is an ever-present possibility, may have seriously hurt her all to the roar of the crowd. With this you have no problem. But you take issue with his refusal to do so. I wonder if you’ve ever held to a conviction. Perhaps you haven’t and the impetus for your attack on Northrup is based on some jealousy-infused anger for those that have the spine you lack.
Then again, your attack could simply be a barrage in what you believe to be an equality issue. Okay, she should have the same chance to compete in the sport regardless of her gender. I got it. Let’s set aside Northrup’s decision to abstain from participation – which is his prerogative – for just a moment. Assuming this is an equality thing for you, Rick, where are your articles decrying the federal government for giving preference to women for jobs and contracts? They should be treated like the men and compete fairly, right? Where are your articles criticizing Islam for treating women like fecal matter for the past fourteen-hundred years? Where are your articles highlighting the horrors of abortion as 1.2 million babies were hacked to pieces last year . . . more than half of which were baby girls? Or your articles exposing the black American culture that sees teenage girls dropping out of schools and getting pregnant at eye-popping rates? Where are your articles defending female politicians from unfair media attacks? Oh, none of these are sports-related? An easy cop-out and you need to expand your analytical side a bit but okay. Where are your articles calling for a repeal of Title 9? Women should be able to compete fairly, right along side of the men, right, Rick?
Where are all these articles, Rick, you bastion of women’s equality? Hard to fight those battles when you are so busy writing books about caddying for famous people. Very insightful. Earth-shattering, in fact.
Take the log out of your eye, Rick. Maybe write a new article in which you apologize to Joel Northrup and thank him for being a real man in a world where there seem to be fewer and fewer of them.
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