"It’s really shown me that if you believe in something, you should fight for it."
A slightly different take on self publishing, but this is a powerful and inspiring story. From ThinkProgress.com.
A couple of weeks ago, members of the Women’s Cross Country team at Rowan University were running grueling 5:30 mile repeats on the track, when the coach of the football team approached their coach and told them that they needed to cover up.
You see, some of the women on the team were practicing in sports bras, and apparently, that was distracting to the football players.
This did not sit well with the runners at all. On the ensuing Friday, there was a closed-door meeting at the Athletics Department to discuss the matter. The cross-country runners stood silently outside, as a way to show support for their coach, speaking on their behalf.
The Athletics Department’s verdict just heaped further insult on the team.
Not only would the women not be allowed to practice solely in sports bras anymore, they were going to have to move their practices to the high-school track across the street so that their presence wouldn’t upset the delicate balance of football practice, which takes place on the football field inside the track.
By Monday, when everyone returned to campus, word had spread among the 15 women on the team. They were all outraged. Gina Capone, a junior who ran on the Cross Country team in 2017 and remains close with the current crop of runners, knew she had to do something.
“I wanted to speak on behalf of them, because a lot of them were afraid,” Capone told ThinkProgress. “And nobody should be afraid to speak out for what they believe in.”
So last Thursday, after securing the permission of her former teammates — including sophomore Brianna De la Cruz and senior Hannah Vendetta — Capone penned a fiery article on The Odyssey, a self-publishing platform targeted at college students.
Capone did not mince words.
If you’re running in a sports bra, then you must be asking for it, right? Well, according to a football player at Rowan University, this is true.
I’ll have you know the real reason women run in sports bras, and it’s not to show off our hard-earned abs. Women, whether they have a six-pack or not, run in sports bras because, quite frankly, it’s hot outside. We run in sports bras because our workouts are demanding, challenging, and vigorous.
Capone certainly hoped the article would draw attention to what she views as outright discrimination. But she never in her wildest dreams imagined quite how much attention.
In just four days, Capone’s article has nearly 200,000 views, and the story has been covered everywhere from the New York Times to Sports Illustrated. It has been, in one word, “overwhelming.”
Read the complete story at ThinkProgress.com.
