The toxicity in the WNBA has reached unprecedented levels.
We’ve got former NBA players making ridiculous statements and drooling for attention, while others grifters are pushing an anti-trans agenda.
And now, media members receiving death threats.
The consequences of such unhinged attacks on social media are usually unseen as victims suffer in silence. However, Grant Afseth, a beat writer covering the Dallas Wings, addressed the recent threats against his life and will step away from covering the team.
Life is precious. We only get one. And even capitalism, with its infinite resources and human intelligence mixed with scientific achievement, hasn’t changed that fact. To threaten a life for anything that has to do with basketball is not only inexplicable but reprehensible.
During a recent pregame presser, Wings head coach Jose Fernandez made a strong statement in support of Afseth. Here’s what he said:
It’s really disappointing.
I’m 54 years old, father of five. I have a great agent and a team of people that look at stuff. We have incredible security here with the Dallas Wings organization. I told Pam [Flenke, senior vice president, chief communications officer], I gave her a joke, maybe after the season it’ll be take the trash out Tuesday and I’ll print out everything that’s very similar to what Grant went through. Even some of my social medias got hacked.
So if that’s happening to coaches in this league, just imagine what players are getting. Which is very, very disappointing.
Grant was at every road game, as you know he’s always in here, not biased at all. Did his research. So I wanted to share that because he will be missed. Hopefully with y’all’s support and with our support we can get him back in here doing what he loves to do because he really cares about the Dallas Wings. And nobody should have to go through what he went through.
While players, coaches, media members and others involved in the basketball world may deal with these threats regularly, that does not make them any more acceptable.
This toxicity has to end immediately, and Fernandez isn’t the only WNBA coach using his voice to raise awareness. Recently, Indiana Fever head coach Stephanie White made a bold statement of her own.
The Fever are a team where molehills turn into mountains.
Somehow, when the Chicago Sky’s DiJonai Carrington fouled the Fever’s Sophie Cunningham, which led to the ejection of Carrington, the whole incident became an opportunity to condemn White? Fever fans were booing White loudly at the team’s next home game.
Before the Fever played the New York Liberty on Tuesday, she used all of her pregame availability to address the nonsense that surrounds her team and the league, declaring:
The reality is, with me, I will always lead with love. I will always lead with grace. I will always lead with humility and I will always lead with integrity. Doesn’t mean I’ll always get it right. I’m also human.
The hate, the fear mongering, the divisiveness, the stuff that’s trying to hijack our league will not win. It won’t win. We are united. We are connected. We will not be divided. Every day, these women put their ass on the line. Every day. When they go low, we go high. Love will win. Grace will win. Humility will win and kindness will win. I stand by them. I will always stand by them.
Everybody else can go to hell.
Both White and Fernandez are doing what you want head coaches to do, and that’s lead. It’s something Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve also has done this season and throughout her career.
Usually, the leadership of coaches is contained to on-court things, but in this era of off-court insanity, they’re doing a great job using their platforms to push back on problematic developments with the wider WNBA community.
Of course, it’s going to take more than a couple of press conferences to make an impact. If we want a women’s basketball culture that is safe, supportive and welcoming, it’s going to take all of us to fix this.
Sometimes, that’s going to mean loudly calling out unacceptable actions, just as Fernandez and White did. At other times, it’ll be about NOT giving attention to bad-faith actors who desperately want to take the WNBA’s popularity and use it to amplify themselves in nefarious ways.
We won’t always get it right, but it’s important to keep fighting back against those trying to derail this era of growth and great basketball. That’s how inclusivity will win. That’s how we silence a loud minority that parades around as the consensus as they seek to sow divisiveness.
The WNBA grew to garner this great level of love for the sport and the women who play it. And it’ll continue thriving with those same people lifting it up.
