Female Sports Journalists See Frat-Minded Joke Set A Lot

By KAREN CROUSE - THE PALM BEACH POST

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - I wish I could undo the top couple of buttons on my blouse and loosen up a little, like ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz recently suggested in so many words that girls like me do.

It would be quite liberating, I'm sure, to be able to slip into the Dolphins' locker room every day and act for all the world as if it were a strippers' pole I was having to straddle and not a standards bar.

Oh, what a relief it would be not to have to wear turtlenecks and worry my pretty little head over the blurring of the line between professionalism and compromising positions.

How convenient it would be to be able to treat entertainment journalism and sports journalism as one and the same thing.

It would be so much easier, inhabiting the same world as Krulewitz and his kind, a collegial place where it's considered perfectly fine to be at once a libidinous sports journalist on an ESPN show and a legitimate sports journalist on an ESPN2 show.

God bless Thea Andrews, the actress whose character comes on to the athletes she interviews on the nighttime drama, "Playmakers," and whose role it is to converse with athletes on the morning talk show, "Cold Pizza."

It takes the range of a Meryl Streep to go back and forth between acting like Madonna and the madonna and be able to pull it off. Everybody's a critic in the locker room, which is what makes it so tricky even to try.

There's a scene I have yet to see in "Playmakers." Lord knows I've lived it enough times I could bang it out faster than my next deadline column. Here's how it unfolds: Andrews' character, Samantha Lovett, follows her male colleagues into the locker room after a game. She is the only one stopped at the door by the muscle bound attendant who insists on checking and double-checking her credential before letting her go with a sneer.

Once inside, she elbows her way into a scrum and dares to ask a question of the athlete who's holding court. Male reporters who have been shouting her down repeatedly grow so quiet you can hear their eyes roll. Her inquiry is informed and the next sound you hear are tens of pens furiously scribbling as the athlete gives an insightful answer.

I know, I know. The scene would fall flatter than Ricky Williams' washboard abs because proficient is the flannel nightgown of comportment. It just isn't very sexy, which I guess is why you don't see Andrews' character

Lovett on "Playmakers" turning her back and counting the water stains on the ceiling so the player she wants to interview can dress with a modicum of privacy.

Promiscuous, on the other hand, is very sexy, which is why Andrews' character Lovett is shown caressing a player's shoulder.

Hey, I get it. I just don't think Krulewitz and his kind get that there remain pockets of people in the world who honestly, truly believe that the female sports journalist as voyeur - a credentialed groupie, if you will - isn't an "exaggerated role," as Krulewitz described it, but an accurate portrayal of women in the profession.