The WNBA has had a resurgence in recent years with women’s basketball getting some of the spotlight it deserves last season. However, the same player safety issues that plagued the league in the past are still happening today – perhaps to an even greater extent.
It’s not the on-court safety of the players but rather the off-court safety. WNBA teams typically do not have charter flights so as these recognizable players are flying between cities, the general public has unnecessary access to them at airports.
That came to a head this weekend when a right-wing YouTuber harassed Brittney Griner and the Phoenix Mercury at the Dallas Airport.
Former WNBA star and Basketball Hall of Famer Sheryl Swoopes of the Audacy Original Podcast “Queens of the Court” sounded off on the player safety issues in the wake of the Griner airport situation.
“Players being harassed in the airport when we travel isn’t new. That type of stuff has been going on since the league started,” Swoopes said (5:50 in player above). “What makes this situation so prevalent, so out there, is because when it happened, how it happened, who it happened to. So everybody’s like ‘Oh my gosh, how is it that Brittney Griner is flying commercial? She’s going through the airport. She’s being harassed...'
“Well, I can think of a few incidents back when we were playing where players were being harassed and it was just an ‘Oh well, it happens. We’re flying commercial, we got to go through the airport. People recognize us…’
Griner’s Mercury teammate Brianna Turner tweeted about the incident on Saturday.
It’s not new for WNBA players to deal with stuff like that, but that doesn’t mean that it should be accepted or even normal.
“We have to endure so much stuff as female athletes – as women – but as female athletes, we endure so much that we have to find a way to limit the crap that we deal with,” Swoopes said.
Most people know the stress and craziness that can happen before, during, and after a flight at the airport. Now imagine that but you’re a publicly-recognizable figure on the way to work.
“So the thought of ‘Now I have to go through this airport and deal with who knows what?’ Because when you’re on a commercial flight – clearly, this dude, I don’t even want to say his name, knew the Phoenix Mercury were flying into Dallas. He knew exactly where to be, when to be there.
“So you have access to these players that you should never have. Ever. So we dealt with this type of stuff when we played. But for us, first of all, we were just happy that we had a league to play in. So there was stuff we would just deal with. We were like ‘OK, it’s new, we’ve never done it, we’ll deal with it as it comes.’
“But 26 years later, we have to be better. And we deserve better. These players deserve better.”
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