Unsportsmanlike Conduct

July 1, 2016
Investigative reporting that uncovers the rape culture surrounding college sports, particularly football.Drawing on the sports playbook idea, where one play combined with another and another leads to a single, unified, successful act, Luther writes about the prevalence of rape and assault on college campuses as a combination of many factors. She discusses the role coaches, universities, sponsors, the police, and other authority figures play in perpetuating a subculture in which the aggressive acts of sports players, particularly gifted football stars, are often ignored because "boys will be boys." She delves into many cases, giving graphic details from victims of the abuse, often from multiple attackers, and then discusses the lack of support for the victims, the fears they often have after the attack, and the dismissiveness of so many toward the victims, which allows the perpetrators to continue as if nothing had happened. Luther explains how many schools turn the other way when confronted with a possible assault case even though they have a legal obligation to investigate the attack under federal Title IX laws. "The idea that universities don't care about victims is perceived to be worse whenever the accused is a high-profile athlete," she writes, "someone the school has a serious financial and emotional stake in." As Luther, who helped break the story about sexual assaults on the campus of Baylor University, points out, college sports (especially football) generate billions of dollars in revenue, and the idea of the game often unifies many small towns that would otherwise remain divided. Distressing to read, even more so when one learns how many college abusers have gone on to join the NFL, Luther's research into rape on campuses is an important expose demonstrating that the problem still lies within the male locker room. The book is particularly timely in the wake of recent allegations at Baylor and Stanford. Highly relevant, hard-hitting, much-needed information that reveals the widespread existence of rape by sports players on college campuses.

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Starred review from September 1, 2016
Of all the many problems facing college football, the most severe by far is the shocking number of rape cases involving athletes. And, as Luther makes abundantly clear in this impeccably researched volume, those numbers are only the tip of the iceberg, thanks to the contagion of cover-ups instigated by coaches and university officials, often with the support of police. Luther organizes her book around the metaphor of the playbook, arguing that, in addition to the playbook that drives what happens on the field, there is also a playbook in place for how colleges can cover up sexual abuse, dictating such strategies as allowing an accused athlete to transfer to another school, where he often goes on to commit further violence against women. The data Luther presents in detailing the plays in the playbook serve as a powerful indictment of both individual universities (including her own Florida State) and the do-nothing attitude of the NCAA. She also addresses carefully but completely the racial component of rape culture in college football, noting the fact that, in the preponderance of cases that do gain national attention, the accused rapist is black and the victim white, reinforcing abhorrent but persistent stereotypes. Most important, Luther devotes part two of her book to changing the playbook, offering specific suggestions like fire people and hire women that throw down a gauntlet to those in power. Unsportsmanlike Conduct is not always easy to readthe text necessarily relies on numerous statistics and detailed summaries of court casesbut, nevertheless, it is almost certainly the most important sports book of the year.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)