Sports and America’s courts: From playing time to Title IX

As a non-practicing attorney who has been involved in teaching sports law at the University of Maine School of Law in Portland, one is continually amazed at the number and diversity of cases that end up in court having to do with sports.

The cases cover far more than the now familiar outlaw athlete charges we hear of daily at every sports level. The continuum runs from ongoing legal issues like Title IX to who gets to play quarterback.

From this week’s jurisprudence log alone, note the following.

. Tucker Brown is a high school quarterback in Oklahoma. In his last game, in the final seconds of a contentious battle, he took a snap and knelt to run out the clock. An opposing player jumped offside, grabbed Brown’s helmet and knocked him to the ground.

Brown retaliated by kicking the opponent. Brown was suspended under state high school rules that prohibit fighting. He could miss one or two games, games that happen to be in the playoffs.

His mother filed suit saying the punishment was uncalled for and unfair, and even if applied, it should be at the start of the next regular season. Brown’s father is his high school coach.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case and delayed the playoff games.

Reaction from the public and the press has ranged from “what is this doing in court,” to “it’s unfair to deny a kid’s dream,” to “what about the other kids in other schools waiting to play.”

The court is going to review the game film, giving a whole new meaning to video reviews.

. FIFA is a world soccer governing body. The WADA is the World Anti-Doping Agency headed by Dick Pound of Canada. FIFA has filed a request with the Switzerland-based Court of Arbitration to review whether it must comply with the WADA two-year ban for first-time drug offenses.

A failure to comply could result in the sport being banned from the Olympics. FIFA says the ban “…does not take into account the offender’s (degree of) guilt.” Pound speaks as though FIFA is a renegade group in the fight against doping.

. The University of Cincinnati has been sued by its women’s rowing team for a violation of Title IX. That much-litigated law seeks equality for men and women in sports at the college level.

The suit says, “The facilities for [the] rowing teams are primitive, inadequate, and far less than any other intercollegiate rowing team.” Further allegations say the coaches are underpaid, the boats too few and the trainers uncertified.

The university has a $3 million boathouse on the drawing board, but that was supposed to be done in 2004. There is a $1 million dollar contribution from an alumnus already in place for the project.

The university says it intends to move forward, but there have been construction hurdles. The women rowers say enough, you had time to act and are treating us as second class athletes.

‘Tis the season for sports lawsuits, a season that, like Christmas sales, never ends.

Old Town native Gary Thorne is an ESPN and ABC sportscaster.