By now, most of us have seen the video.
The clip features New Mexico soccer player Elizabeth Lambert violently yanking a Brigham Young player down by her ponytail during a Mountain West Conference Tournament game two weeks ago.
Lambert was also shown elbowing a player in the back and being overly aggressive on a number of plays that ended with members of BYU face down on the turf.
There is no doubt the actions were inexcusable. Lambert let the emotions of an intense, important game get the best of her, and she could have seriously injured her opponents in the process.
New Mexico did the right thing in suspending Lambert, but little else has been handled appropriately in dealing with the incident.
ESPN, the media sports empire with a sphere of influence that extends worldwide, played the video excessively on several of the network’s programs, and its soccer analyst, Julie Foudy, seemingly appeared more in front of the camera in the three days after the incident than she had in the previous three months.
Do we really need a qualified analyst to tell us that Lambert’s actions “crossed the line?” I could do without.
As the reaction to the incident evolved in the days following the video’s release, Lambert became the face of competitive violence in women’s sports, a cross that is unfair for the 20-year-old student-athlete to bear.
In an interview with The New York Times, Lambert said she “deeply regrets” her actions in the game. An all-conference academic player, Lambert goes on to say in the interview that she could hardly recognize herself yanking BYU’s Kassidy Shumway down to the ground by her hair.
“I look at it, and I’m like, ‘That’s not me,’” she told the Times. “I can’t believe I did that.”
As indefensible as Lambert’s actions were in the game, the reactions they have received don’t fit the crime, and the public lashing the young player has received speaks to some of the gender roles that have been unfairly assigned in sports.
Lambert told the newspaper she has read blogs that have made her out to be a cruel monster deserving of severe punishment, including one that suggested she “should be taken to a state prison, raped and left for dead in a ditch.”
The Scarlet Letter that has been thrust on Lambert is largely caused by a mainstream image that has been developed about the way female athletes should conduct themselves.
The increasing nature of the Danica Patricks and Anna Kournikovas as sex symbols has clouded the image of how their comrades in sport are viewed.
But with the requirements bestowed upon a student athlete — the practice times, the travel, the course load, the aches and pains — few are likely involved in the grind with the hope that they can one day grace the cover of men’s magazines as an athlete model.
So why should women’s competitive endeavors be viewed in a different light?
Lambert’s actions can be put in context with another memorable soccer meltdown.
With his team tied late in an overtime period of the 2006 World Cup final, France star Zinedine Zidane threw his head into the chest of Italy’s Marco Materazzi, leading to Zidane’s ejection from the game.
Given the magnitude of the contest and Zidane’s reputation as a savvy veteran player, much was made of the “headbutt heard ’round the world.”
But while the analysts and pundits were shocked by the normally sure-headed player’s blowup that cost his team dearly, the criticisms were confined to the game and what happened within its lines.
The mistakes Lambert made have somehow become bigger than a young girl letting the emotions get the best of her in a competitive game — and that’s been the biggest foul of them all.
Reach Nick at nkosmide@asu.edu.
