A fine profile of Hope Solo

In case you missed it, the June 8, 2015, issue of ESPN The Magazine contains a long, really well-done profile of Hope Solo by writer Allison Glock.

Glock’s piece is sympathetic without being fawning, critical without being cynical. Most important, unlike so much of what’s written about Solo, it isn’t superficial.

The writer seems to have made a genuine attempt to understand her subject. Solo, for her part, seems not to have gone out of her way to be defensive and churlish, as she sometimes is with journalists. And Jerramy Stevens, Solo’s oft-troubled husband, comes across as a real person, not the caricature of a f*ck-up that he’s usually portrayed as.

All in all, it’s a fine job, well worth the time it takes to read.

 

ESPN makes a media splash, but its Hope Solo story breaks little new ground

Teresa Obert tells Outside the Lines that she and her son can’t even bear to use the word ‘hope.’ (ESPN)

If you search right now for “Hope Solo,” you’ll find story after story about a “shocking” Outside the Lines report on Solo’s arrest last June on domestic violence charges.

If you missed the OTL report, you didn’t miss much. Here it is.

The story — which appeared, not coincidentally, on the eve of the U.S. women’s first game in the World Cup — includes new details about Solo’s conduct on the night she was accused of assaulting her half-sister and teenage nephew at their home in Kirkland, Wash.

But the new details are little more than an elaboration of what was already well known to anyone who followed the case closely: Solo was drunk and belligerent (how often those two go hand-in-hand) when she got into a late-night brawl with her relatives.

After her arrest, Solo made idiotic, insulting comments to the police officers who took her into custody, telling one of them, for example, “If the handcuffs were off, I’d kick your ass.” They’re the sort of regrettable, embarrassing statements that people stupidly make when they’re drunk and land themselves in messy predicaments.

This is not to excuse Solo’s behavior. Not at all.

Nor is it to suggest for a moment that domestic violence is not a serious, often tragic crime. It is, and it certainly should be treated that way by police, by the courts, by the press, and by our culture.

My point, rather, is a journalistic one:

As shocking exposés go, the OTL story is thin soup.

Hope Solo was drunk. She behaved like an ass.

We knew that.

The story includes an exclusive interview with Solo’s half-sister, Teresa Obert. OTL treats her every word as gospel, even when it’s obvious that she’s presenting a one-sided, self-serving account of what occurred. (At the same time, OTL goes out of its way to imply that Hope Solo is a liar of Nixonian scale because of the one-sided, self-serving statements she made during a friendly interview with Robin Roberts of Good Morning America.)

Solo, according to Obert, was drunk and out of control. Obert, according to Obert, “had a couple of glasses of wine” and “was not drunk at all.”

Isn’t that what drunk drivers say all the time when they’re pulled over and the cop asks if they’ve been drinking? “I had a couple of beers, officer.”

Reporter Mark Fainaru-Wada treats Obert every bit as gently as Robin Roberts did Solo. His story quickly glosses over some inconvenient but undisputed facts about his interviewee and her son:

• They changed their stories over time, embellishing their accusations against Solo by adding details they didn’t mention to police on the night of the arrest.

• They destroyed evidence.

• They refused to answer some questions when interviewed under oath by Solo’s lawyer. (They answered “virtually all” of the questions, OTL says, which is another way of saying they didn’t answer all of them.)

• And, finally, they failed to show up for a court-ordered second interview with the defense.

All of this, predictably, led Kirkland Municipal Judge Michael Lambo to dismiss the case against Solo.

Fainaru-Wada makes much of the fact that prosecutors have appealed the dismissal.

“Actually,” the reporter intones, posed in front of the Kirkland Municipal Court building, “Solo’s court case is far from over.”

He then notes — rather patronizingly, I thought — that the judge based his dismissal not on “the facts of the case,” but only “on procedural grounds.”

This is true.

Procedurally, in America, a person arrested is presumed to be innocent until the state proves otherwise.

And it’s difficult for the state to proceed with witnesses as flaky as Teresa Obert and her son.

Mark Fainaru-Wada shows that he knows where the courthouse is. (ESPN)

The football files: Bad sportswriting in a few easy lessons

From the vault: Aug. 9, 2012

When the U.S. women’s team won the gold medal at the London Olympics, Bill Plaschke, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, either felt obligated to write about it, or was told by his editor to do so.

Either way, it was apparent from what he wrote that Plaschke knew little about soccer. Having nothing insightful to say, he simply strung together cliches, hackneyed phrases, and trite, wordy observations until h’e’d filled his allotted space:

U.S. women use head, heart and Solo to win soccer gold

By Bill Plaschke

August 09, 2012

LONDON — On a rollicking night when England’s sporting cathedral swelled with their relentlessness, the USA women’s soccer team didn’t simply gain revenge.

They clutched it. They wore it. They owned it.

One goal bounced from Carli Lloyd’s head as she flew, and another soared off her orange-booted right foot as she sprinted. Countless stops soaked through Abby Wambach’s headband as she muscled through every minute. All but one attack died at the end of the long green sleeves of Hope Solo, her leaping saves occasionally knocking the ball halfway to France.

It was redemption for nearly two hours and then, after a 2-1 victory over Japan on Thursday in the Olympic gold-medal game here, it was exhausted relief. A year after blowing two leads in losing to Japan in the World Cup championship game, the USA women’s soccer team was once again the best on the planet, and they wept at the power of it all.

“We weren’t going home without the gold medal,” said a red-eyed Lloyd. “We all said that, and then we did it.”

Then it seemed they weren’t going home at all. As many of the 80,203 fans roared from the vast corners of Wembley Stadium, Wambach wrapped herself in the American flag and crumpled at midfield. Megan Rapinoe ran in front of the stands and tearfully opened her arms wide in wonder. Solo hugged anybody, everybody, maybe all 80,203 of them.

“The resilience of this team is amazing,” said Wambach. “We just never, ever give up.”

After the medal ceremony, when the stadium’s huge speakers played Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.,” that relief turned into rejoicing. A team that was truly born in the USA — the symbol of a Title IX-inspired women’s sports culture unmatched in the world — shook their flowers and waved their medals and bounced in front of the goals while mouthing the words.

“Born in the U.S.A., I’m a cool rocking daddy in the U.S.A.…”

“Toward the end of the game I’m pounding my chest and screaming, ‘Guys, guys, this is only about heart,'” said Wambach.

She beat her chest, and her teammates’ hearts listened, and isn’t this what we love about the U.S. women’s soccer team? Isn’t this what makes them, truly, America’s team? When they charged on to sports landscape by winning the 1999 World Cup at the Rose Bowl, Brandi Chastain stripped off her top in celebration, and they’ve pretty much been giving America the shirts off their backs ever since.

America loves them because they seem to espouse the values missing in the most lucrative and popular American team (translated: male) sports. They pass. They don’t preen. They defer. They don’t demand. And when they score a goal, they sometimes do what Lloyd amazingly did when she scored for a second time Thursday night. They don’t run into a corner to slide and showboat; they run to the sidelines to hug the reserves.

“We played tough, and we played till the end, because we knew that was the only way,” said Lloyd.

It’s always been the only way with this team, a tradition handed down from Mia Hamm and Chastain to Lloyd and Wambach, and so while America has embraced its three consecutive Olympic championships, it has also painfully mourned three consecutive World Cup failures, particularly last summer’s World Cup shootout loss to Japan.

The entire team said they’ve been thinking about redemption since the moment they stood on last summer’s silver-medal podium in Germany. They were pondering it even more deeply Thursday when, after taking a two-goal lead after 54 minutes on the header and rocket shot from Lloyd, they gave up a goal by Japan’s Yuki Ogimi at the 63-minute mark.

“At that point we’re all screaming at each other and we’re thinking, ‘This is not happening again; we’re not letting them back in this game,'” said Wambach.

And so they didn’t, quite literally with a bit of guts. In the second half, defender Amy LePeilbet actually made a save with her stomach. And, besides two leaping saves in the first half, Solo made a diving save on a one-on-one shot by Asuna Tanaka at the 82-minute mark.

“This is what the Olympics is about,” said Wambach. “Two great teams, amazing soccer, playing until the end.”

Of course, the Olympics are also about controversy, and the U.S. women directly benefited from a blown call in the first half. During one indirect free kick, Tobin Heath clearly touched the ball with her hand, which would have resulted in a penalty kick for Japan, but the referee somehow missed it.

“It was just an amazing night,” said Lloyd.

And it was a night that ended amazingly, the women being serenaded by one more song as they left the emptying Wembley Stadium field. Suddenly blaring was Katy Perry’s “Fireworks,” the entire group singing and dancing again, fireworks indeed, the Fourth of July in the middle of England celebrated by some of the toughest women in the world, America’s women, America’s team.

The column  inspired me at the time to write an instructive Facebook post for would-be Plaschkes. Its headline could have been, ‘How to Write a Sports Column When You Got Nothin’.’

I was flattered when a friend who taught college journalism told me he’d used my thoughtful analysis in class. I think the topic of his lecture that day might have been how NOT to write a column.

Reprinted with permission of the author, who, after all, was me:

Pay attention, kids. You, too, may be called upon some day to write a column on a sport you know nothing about.

Here, a pro, Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times, shows you how it’s done.

• Include plenty of adjectives: it’s a ‘rollicking’ night, an ‘orange-booted’ right foot, the ‘vast’ corners of Wembley, the stadium’s ‘huge’ speakers. Saves are ‘leaping’ saves or ‘diving’ saves, and they often stop a ‘rocket’ shot. Adjectives will make you appear literary, a writer with a keen eye for detail.

•  Note the titles of the songs playing in the stands, AND the artists. ‘Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA’ takes up twice as much space as ‘Born in the USA.’ Besides, you don’t want your readers to think the stadium’s huge speakers were playing some other ‘Born in the USA.’

• If you want, go ahead and include a lyric from the song, even if it has nothing to do with what you’re writing about. Readers will think you had a reason for doing so. And the desk will set it in italics, with space above and below, so there’s another half-inch. You can find the lyrics on the Internet, using Google.

• Surely, someone during the game showed heart, someone used her head, someone shouted words of encouragement, and someone refused to quit. Throw all of those in there.

• After the game, someone on the winning side will hug her teammates. Someone will weep tears of joy. That’s two more sentences.

• Describe the winning team as gutsy and determined and resilient and unselfish. Don’t be afraid to lay it on thick, even if you don’t know what you’re talking about. The odds are excellent that it’s true. Teams that are cowardly and indifferent and brittle and selfish seldom win.

• If it’s the Olympics, the winners often carry the flag of their country around the stadium, proudly displaying it. They also wave their gold medals. Or, they wave the flag and proudly display the medals. Either way, you just wrote another paragraph.

• Include the attendance. This will be in the handout that the PR kid gives you after the game. In fact, there’s no reason not to include it twice.

• Finally, if it’s women’s soccer that you’re writing about, whatever you do don’t forget to mention Brandi Chastain taking off her jersey.

True, that was 13 years ago, but she did have great abs, and if it’s the only thing you remember about that game, you have plenty of company.

The stadium is empty. So is Bill Plaschke’s bag of cliches.