PJ Brown: Racism reared its ugly head during Final Four; there's no place for it in sport or society

Words matter.

I struggle over which words to use nearly every single time I write a story.

Words can describe wonderful things like the scene on the court in San Antonio in 2021 when Arizona beat UConn to move into the national championship game for the first time in UA history.

They can also describe the heartbreak when Aari McDonald’s off-balance, last-second shot bounced off the rim and the Wildcats lost by one, 54-53, to Stanford in that game.

I’m not the only one who understands the power of words.

Broadcasters know that they need to choose their words wisely as they can sway an audience into seeing the action one way or the other.

They even matter when we are sitting in our own homes — whether we are online or offline.

They’ve always mattered.

And while words can be used accurately, all too often they are not. They are used to set an agenda, keep others down or hurt one person or a team.

Some days we just choose not to listen or to look the other way. Other days they hit us square in the face, and we can’t shake it.

This college basketball season, it’s been the latter for me.

I can’t move past a narrative the national media has pushed on us. This past weekend I felt like I got slapped in the face over and over and over again.

It’s about hatred.

Personal experience

Hatred comes in many forms — misogyny, antisemitism, racism, homophobia.

Many of us carry this with us every day. I definitely do; it’s part of what has shaped me into the person I am today.

When my grandfather was working for Western Publishing in the 1930s, he was asked to change his name from Brownstein to Brown. The leaders of his company were afraid that customers wouldn’t buy their products from him because he was Jewish. When he refused, they changed his name for him on his paychecks.

My dad and uncle didn’t want to change their names either. But when they joined the military to fight in World War II, they were told if they died, any life insurance money wouldn’t go to their parents because their last names were different.

There are other instances of antisemitism near and far in my life, as well as misogyny. One of the reasons I go by “PJ” when I write is that I wanted readers to look at my stories first and not think, “Oh, a woman wrote this.” I wanted to be on the same playing field as the men who dominate this industry. I wanted people to take me seriously.

Also, in my many roles from the corporate world to newspapers, I have been treated differently because I am a woman — including being paid less than my male colleagues.

Still, as my father taught me, there is always someone smarter than you, always someone who has had it much harder. While I carry all this with me, it’s important to remember that we are all equal and that I should treat everyone with the same respect.

Unfortunately, as I have learned over the years, not everyone follows this mantra.

We have heard coaches essentially call young Black women thugs because they play tenacious defense.

This happened in our own backyard at Oregon State a few years back. No one called it out — not the Pac-12, not the schools and certainly not the media.

While I wasn’t at the game and didn’t see or hear it in person, I want to apologize to all involved and to the readers for not writing about it at the time it happened.

And that’s why I am writing about this now. Because we have to do better. I have to do better.

Slanted coverage

Many in the national media chose not to follow the story of undefeated South Carolina — a team that over the last four years has gone 129-9, winning one national championship last season and going to three Final Fours. (The year COVID-19 canceled the NCAA Tournament fell within that stretch.)

A team that has one of the best coaches in the game, Dawn Staley, and one of the best players in Aliyah Boston. Boston was the 2022 Naismith Player of the Year and this year’s Defensive Player of the Year.

Instead, we saw plenty of stories on the remarkable season that Caitlin Clark was having at Iowa. To be fair, all should have been written about as it was one incredible season with amazing performances across the board.

(As a side note, I voted for Boston for both the AP and Naismith player-of-the-year awards this season. Clark, who is white, won both honors.)

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However, if you had just dropped into women’s basketball, you would have thought that Iowa and Clark were the only good things in the game.

Case in point: The fans who only watched the NCAA Tournament thought that Clark was saving the women’s game and that she was the greatest women’s basketball player of all time.

This all comes from somewhere. New fans don’t know the history of the game, and the folks who write and talk about it for a living are the ones who have to share this — and they weren’t.

Many in the national media wanted to build a certain narrative, and they did. It was good (a predominately white Iowa team and Clark) against bad (a predominately Black South Carolina team and Boston).

Another example: Toward the end of the title game between Iowa and LSU, the Tigers’ Angel Reese mimicked Clark’s you-can’t-see-me gesture and pointed at her ring finger — basically saying, “Scoreboard.” Some on social media blasted Reese, who is Black. They never said a word when Clark did the same thing.

It goes back even further. Even ESPN, which has done wonders for women’s basketball, has made a habit of displaying a photo of Boston crying on the bench after South Carolina lost to Stanford in the 2021 Final Four. Boston is not the only player who has ever cried when her season was over. Yet why do they keep showing that particular image even when she’s being lauded or honored?

Staley’s stance

Last week things got even worse.

Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said in her news conference leading up to the Final Four matchup against South Carolina that battling the Gamecocks for rebounds was like “going to a bar fight.”

Words like that aren’t typically used to describe opponents in the women’s game. But there’s much more to the story.

Staley responded to the comments on how her team plays — a team some have called “bullies” — and she directed her words specifically to the national media:

“We’re not bar fighters. We’re not thugs. We’re not monkeys. We’re not street fighters. This team exemplifies how you need to approach basketball on the court and off the court. I do think that sometimes that is brought into the game, and it hurts.

“And I’m going to say it because I said I was going to say it whether we lost or whether we won — some of the people in the media, when you are gathering in public and you are saying things about our team ... you are being heard. And it’s being brought back to me. And these are the people who write nationally for our sport.

“You can not like our team; you can not like me. But when you say things that you probably should be saying in your home on the phone or texting out in public and you’re being heard, and you are a national writer for our sport, it just confirms what we already know.

“So, watch what you say when you’re in public and you’re talking about my team in particular. Just watch what you say about our team because it’s wrong. You’ve got young lives who are really — if you really knew them, if you really knew them like you really want to know other players that represent this game, you would think differently. So don’t judge us by the color of our skin. Judge us by how we approach the game.”

I’ve thought about this over and over. It’s on a reel in my mind.

One of the best coaches in basketball had to say this on the biggest stage in the sport.

In that moment, where she should only be talking about the young women in her program who have added to this wonderful game and done such special things over the last four years, she had to address this injustice.

And don’t get this part wrong: They are racist words.

This time, don’t push this aside and decide to look away.

Just sit in it for a while as all the players on South Carolina have had to do. As Staley has had to do.

Sit in this just as the student-athletes at Arizona had to when another coach in the Pac-12 called them thugs or got in their face and yelled at them during a game.

None of this is OK.

Most have moved onto what’s next.

I haven’t. Sometimes you have to call them as you see them.

For us to make real change in our society, we have to call out injustices when they arise. We have to be more like Dawn Staley, who isn’t afraid to stand up for what is right — even if it’s unpopular.

It’s time to do what’s right.

Use your words for good, not for hate.