FOOTBALL NEEDS TO TAKE UP ONE MORE CAMPAIGN

Now that the college & professional football seasons are winding down, it is great to see that both versions of football are devoting at least some of their broad media bandwidth to public service announcements. We have seen a number of television ads about an aspect of public health. The Dallas Cowboys coaches wore plaid hats during their game with the New York Giants to call attention to the need for cancer screening. This is the NFL's " Crucial Catch" program. Another phenomenon that I would like to see football address is the issue of sexual violence. Additionally, this is an important time for many young men, because as they head off to college campuses, they will be "living" away from home for the first time. Sadly, many of them will feel certain freedoms that they would have been constrained to even consider, if they were living at home. Sadly, some of their peers will lack the maturity and sensitivity to a number of activities that many of these young men would never experience while living at home. Alcohol and drugs are two things that many young college students may be tempted to "try". Another thing is one that involves social settings where alcohol and drugs is the sexual interaction between 17- & 18-year-olds, who are on their own for the first time, often miles away from home. This might be very good time to send the message that " NO MEANS NO MEANS". No one could convey that message to broader male based audience than football.

I addressed this issue in the pages of THE NEW YORK TIMES

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Rape on Campus: Anna’s Trauma

July 13, 2014

As parents and students prepare for the late-summer ritual of going to college campuses to begin freshman year, you have reminded us that as many as 20 percent of our daughters will be the victims of rape or attempted sexual assault. I went through the ritual several years ago, and in spite of having given much advice to my daughter about situations, usually involving alcohol, to avoid during freshman year, I was subconsciously always at the ready for a late-night phone call that luckily never came. As a former football team leader, football coach and Army officer whose duties at one time included rape prevention, I always emphasized a simple principle: “No means no, means no, means no, means no.” There are simply no exceptions. Men have no “right” to have sex with anyone. When a man has sex with a woman who says no or who is incapable of giving consent, there is only one description of the act: R-A-P-E. Hobart and William Smith Colleges’ response to the plight of Anna, the young woman who reported a sexual assault, is an insult to every 18-year-old woman heading off to college next month

ROLAND NICHOLSON, Jr.

Stockbridge, Mass., July 13