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Are Lacrosse Players REALLY Rapists?

Are Lacrosse Players REALLY Rapists?

Allow me to answer that question twice:

1) No, ALL lacrosse players are not rapists.
2) Yes, lacrosse players are potentially rapists.

The first answer is obvious to anyone. ALL lacrosse players are not rapists. The second answer may confuse you, but it’s also true. There are lacrosse players out there who are rapists. It’s not ALL lacrosse players, and it’s likely an extremely small percentage of the group, but it’s not NONE either… so the second sentence actually stands as true because it’s impossible to say, “No lacrosse player has ever raped anyone ever“.

Why do I bring this issue up, and frame it in two very divergent ways, when we have dealt with it time and time again?

I bring it up because another lacrosse-related rape event has hit the news wire, and the firestorm for our sport is surely coming again. But to be honest, we have NOT truly dealt with this issue “time and time again”, and when we do deal with it, a lot of the conversation revolves around excuse making, even though rape on college campuses is a consistent topic of conversation. The reason I pose the answers as so diametrically opposed is because that is the dichotomy that often arises from rape cases both on campus and in the media.

Some people say you can’t label ALL lacrosse players as rapists, while others say that some lacrosse players are rapists. And no one takes any steps towards understanding or a positive alliance, even though both claims are quite true. 

In this newest case, Virginia Wesleyan College has been sued by a Jane Doe accuser, and she is seeking $10 million dollars from the school in damages. She alleges that the school knew what was happening, and that they allowed the accused to drop out of school, so that he could enroll somewhere else, instead of kicking him out. It also alleges that the school did nothing to help her, and that she suffered emotional and physical distress.

Without looking at the above case as the example (it is an example instead), we can still look at the culture on college campuses for guidance, and how men’s lacrosse can help make the world a safer place for everyone. The question I have to ask is, when will lacrosse start taking a proactive role with this issue? When will we stop waiting for something to happen, and then reacting? When will we start to make a positive difference in this situation, even if the collective “we” is a good group of people not out there raping anyone?

For me, our sport has become intrinsically tied to rape, especially on college campuses, even if it is not fair to do so. Headlines with “rape” and “lacrosse” get big time attention across media platforms, and people will make the connection even if it is weak, or if the case has little merit. If lacrosse can be tied to rape, the media will take that route. We can not change this by complaining. We can not yell and scream and make it stop. We need our actions to speak louder than anything else.

When college coaches address their teams, they should bring this topic up with their players every single time. Each player should be responsible for themselves AND his teammates. They should all know that bad behavior, and particularly a rape accusation, can kill their college dreams. It can kill the lacrosse program, and it can impact players’ lives forever. Even more importantly, it can absolutely destroy the victim, and one rape can create a nasty atmosphere on campus for years to come. If you want to be part of the college, and a member of the community, this should be a very basic requirement of understanding.

But I rarely hear about anything even remotely like this going down, and it never seems to go further than this. Coaches all give their “don’t F up” speeches during the year, but few programs have truly taken this to heart and become proactive in trying to stop sexual assaults on campus, but I think it’s high time that we changed the current structure.

It’s time for lacrosse programs across the country to take a stand, and take back our sport’s good name. It’s time to create “walk home” programs where men’s lacrosse players volunteer at night to help walk single women (or men) home from parties. It’s time for men’s lacrosse programs to support more Take Back The Night initiatives. It’s time for lacrosse players to STOP rapes from happening by using positive peer pressure, PSAs… really, however they can. THAT is a story I want to see!

We can very easily say, “I have never raped anyone, and no one I know has ever done that either“, and then do nothing. We can view the lacrosse rape stories as outliers only, and continue to shrug them off, because they don’t involve us directly. We can do all these things, but it will get us about as far as an ostrich sticking its head in the sand, which is to say, nowhere.

However, we can also make a difference, but we have to choose to do so. We can support women’s rights marches, and support the women on our college’s team in their efforts to make a difference. We can ALWAYS be the bigger people. We can talk to our sisters, cousins, friends, mothers, and girlfriends. We can learn their stories. We can be better.

Let’s look at Duke for example… most people will say that the lacrosse team got a rough deal in their nationally broadcast rape accusation case. It turned out that all of the Duke players were exonerated at some level, but the story did not die out there. So why couldn’t Duke make an effort to take this hugely negative story and spin it into a positive?

There was certainly some effort taken, but Duke Lacrosse didn’t exactly start worrying about women a whole lot more. In fact, the charity they started to support was The Innocence Project, and while this relates to their own case well, it is not for the benefit of rape victims. Why should Duke help rape victims when they themselves were innocent? I don’t know. Maybe because the case showed the team how big of an issue rape truly is on college campuses and in America in general. Maybe because some of their girlfriends or sisters had confessed that they had been raped at some point in their lives. Statistics say the latter is probably true. I can’t imagine that it didn’t come up. Maybe they even saw how twisted their accuser had been, and how she had been involved in sexual violence before she ever met them. Maybe that should have opened their eyes to the gravity of the issue.

At Duke, where the case was not proved to be true, the firestorm was very real. Everyone saw just how angry even the accusation of rape made the community.

At schools like Wesleyan (the school in CT, not VA), where I went, rape is a huge issue. The lacrosse fraternity on campus has a bad reputation now, and while I never saw or heard anything like that when I was in school, it has clearly become a very real issue. So why aren’t the lacrosse guys trying to prove to everyone out there that they support the women coming forward? Why do I have to receive emails about how it wasn’t “our fault” from some other alumni of the school? Why when I respond to those emails arguing the other side am I removed from the email list permanently?

Because the men’s lacrosse community (and larger community) doesn’t want to talk about rape on college campuses. We want to believe that drunk females are the reason for concern. We don’t want to admit that it is a real issue. We think that just because “I didn’t do anything bad, I shouldn’t get painted with that brush“. Well, you know what? Tough #%$@. Very few people outside our world see it that way. Lacrosse and rape are tied together now on some level. So what are we going to DO about it?

Here’s the deal: we can sit back and worry about ourselves and talk about how a small percentage of the population makes the rest of us look bad. We can do that… OR, we can do something proactive and positive. We can walk women home. We can support rape victims and go out of our way to engage with them. We can help women to Take Back The Night. We can do more… and I think it’s high time we take this latter path.

If you know of a men’s lacrosse team making a positive difference for victims of sexual assault, drop me a line in the comments section! I really want to know that there are groups out there who already do the right thing, and if there are, maybe they can also serve as an example to others who might take the same positive path.

ALL lacrosse players are not rapists. But some are. It’s time we start addressing this issue head on.