Analysis -- Little Has Changed, Even After Lisa Olson's Battle

AFTER NEARLY three years, some aspects of the New England Patriots harassment case still haunt reporter Lisa Olson. And more creeps remain in the locker room than we'd care to admit.

MINNEAPOLIS - To see her last Sunday was to realize that pragmatism, if not total acceptance about what happened to her, has finally settled in. Lisa Olson, the former Boston Herald sports writer whose 1990 sexual harassment case against the New England Patriots exploded into a nationally reported trauma, made her first public appearance in America since settling her civil suit against the team, then embarking on a self-imposed exile to Australia to resume work, and to mend.

The occasion was the national convention of the Association for Women in Sports Media (AWSM). As part of a three-day program in Minneapolis, University of Minnesota professors Mary Jo Kane and Lisa Disch presented their research-paper analysis of the Patriots' incident. Two Boston Globe staffers came to defend their 1992, four-page special investigation of Olson's case against criticism that it was, in the words of one conference attendee, tantamount to "a smear campaign."

And Olson, for nearly 90 minutes, calmly took questions and talked. She touched on the ways the incident still haunts her, the things she misses about America (such as ESPN). She spoke of the good people she's met along the way, and the modicum of peace she's finally made with herself since leaving her family behind 22 months ago, thinking: "I just can't deal with this anymore."

To her it was simple

You can tell she realizes she's become a symbol of something - but what? She certainly wasn't victorious and she's not eager to assume victim status. She just seems to reside in some netherworld, trying hard to resist the idea that taking a stand wasn't worth it. To her it was this simple: She was accosted by some players, she went to Patriots management seeking assurances that it wouldn't happen again, and the rest was a nightmare. Olson became a lightning rod for everything that is wrong today about relationships between women and men - particularly in the workplace. No wonder when she's asked if it seems surreal to see herself the subject of serious academic papers or more than 1,100 published stories, she nods and says: "When I see my name like that, it doesn't seem like that's me anymore. It's like I stop being Lisa Olson."

The controversy began Sept. 17, 1990, when Olson told New England officials that some Patriots players - later identified as Zeke Mowatt, Michael Timpson and Robert Perryman - made indecent comments and lewd gestures to her that afternoon as she conducted a practice-day locker room interview with cornerback Maurice Hurst.

The National Football League's subsequent investigation, led by specially appointed counsel Philip Heymann, resulted in a 108-page report that concluded that Mowatt was seen fondling himself an arm's length away from Olson and asked her: "Is this what you want?"

Patriots media relations director James Oldham told Heymann that he saw Perryman - also naked - gyrate his hips behind Olson and echo some of Mowatt's remarks. Timpson and other unidentified players chimed in too, according to Heymann's report. (The players were fined by the league a total of $22,500, none of which was ever collected.)

A media feeding frenzy

While Olson and her editors were still seeking a behind-the-scenes resolution, the Boston Globe broke the first story four days later. Once the Patriots' oafish owner, Victor Kiam, got into the fray - calling Olson's complaint "a flyspeck in the ocean," and later saying Olson was "a classic bitch" - both sides hardened. The media feeding frenzy and public debates all intensified.

At first Olson tried to keep working. But before long she was being spat upon by Boston sports fans, followed home by strangers, pelted by garbage and beer at games. She was tormented by obscene phone calls, death threats, and two break-ins into her apartment. One day all four of her car tires were slashed and the note she found fluttering on the windshield read, "Next time it will be your neck." Others promised to carve her up with a screw driver or throw acid in her face.

The last hurled stone - the one that Olson says persuaded her to sue - was a ribald banquet joke that Kiam told about her months later, during the Persian Gulf War. She filed her civil suit and accepted her publisher's offer to relocate. Once in Sydney, though, a rival newspaper noted her arrival and bellowed: "How long before the token female sports writer screams harassment for being kept out of the change room?" One day a rugby coach asked her, "Do you know the bitch who broke into the locker room" in America?

Olson, now 30, says: "I was naive to think it would go away." She eventually found her incident lumped together with Anita Hill's charges against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, and Patricia Bowman's rape case against William Kennedy Smith. For all the talk about those cases touching off the "Year of the Woman," the fact remains none of the women prevailed.

Leaked documents and memos

The absurdity was that Olson, Bowman and Hill are nothing alike. The only trait they shared was bringing sex-related charges against more powerful men. Something else is striking about Olson's case too: Nearly 1,100 published stories later, we've been shown next to nothing about Mowatt, Perryman and Timpson - not even in the Boston Globe's highly unbalanced series, which was based on information no one else had: more than 5,000 pages of leaked documents, sworn depositions and private memos from Heymann's investigation and each side's attorneys.

A frequent insinuation - from folks including Globe columnist Will McDonough, who wrote that Olson sometimes wore skirts "above her knees" (!) - was that Olson was a walking provocation for what happened to her.

That's akin to saying there are conditions that justify harassment or sex-based terrorism against women.

And that's an idea that deserves to be ground beneath the heels of our shoes.

She wouldn't take it

Ninety-nine percent of the time, female sports writers work without problems. Athletes are gracious, coaches are cooperative, management is supportive and open locker rooms work. Teams understand we need equal access to gathering information. Most days, it's no big deal.

When things do go wrong, it's always a quandary. But Olson has been unfairly diminished by wrongheaded assertions that she "couldn't take" what other women sports writers go through. The fact is, she wouldn't take it. Rather than weaken, her spine stiffened.

But the rest of us don't kid ourselves either. Stories of harassment float up among women sports writers all the time. When we commiserate or warn each other about certain players, we often we find we've been harassed by the same men. Last weekend at the AWSM convention, I told a baseball writer I know about a player who had propositioned me. She told me the same player had been unsuccessfuly propositioning her for months, ignoring her irritation and refusals. Finally he asked her: "If I raped you, how much money would it take to keep you quiet?"

Women aren't making these things up.

Olson's case cracked the lid the harassment issue. But the lid hasn't completely blown off yet. Our silence, or ethical concerns about what's fair game to report, ensure that details continue to go unmentioned. The Big Lie of sports journalism is that the behavior attributed to Mowatt is somehow unique. But in reality there are more creeps in locker rooms than anyone wants to admit.