“You failed,” said the legendary basketball player and coach. “It’s not just the weights. It’s the thought process. “
DALLAS – The NCAA was so proud of the sprawling weight room built for the men’s March Madness tournament in Indianapolis. A time-lapse video showing construction was posted on Instagram.
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The women who made it to the tournament – the biggest event in college basketball – were treated very differently.
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Her exercise room consisted of a set of hand weights.
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Images and videos of the differences coaches and players were experiencing in San Antonio, particularly that of Oregon’s Sedona Prince, went viral on social media.
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Let me post it on Twitter as well as it needs your attention pic.twitter.com/t0DWKL2YHR
– Sedona Prince (@sedonaprince_) March 19, 2021
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In a TikTok video that has been viewed a million times, Prince said, “If you don’t get upset about this issue, you are a part of it.”
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Nancy Lieberman is a basketball legend.
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And she’s more than upset.
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“It is unfathomable. It’s disrespectful, ”she said.
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When Lieberman coached a member of the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Development League, she was the first woman to coach a professional men’s team.
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RELATED: WNBA Icon Nancy Lieberman on Kobe Bryant: “Everyone who met him was a better person for it.”
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She became the second female assistant coach in NBA history with the Sacramento Kings.
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She had built a career as a dominant player and coach in the WNBA.
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She is an Olympian, a member of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, and now a broadcaster for the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder.
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She was preparing for a Thunder game when the WFAA reached her on the phone on Monday.
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“You failed,” said Lieberman of the NCAA. “You get a big fat F.”
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When asked what tournament organizers must have thought to make these discrepancies occur, Lieberman said they continue to think the way people always thought.
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The equal treatment of male and female athletes is not automatic – not even in 2021.
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“It shows that the NCAA has not come full circle to understand what equality is,” she said.
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Oregon’s Prince and others also reported lower quality food and smaller goodie bags than the men’s players.
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Trainers say the type of COVID tests done on women’s teams are different from the tests done on men.
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Antigen tests performed on women were considered less accurate by medical professionals than the PCR tests performed on men.
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The NCAA apologized and admitted that they had “missed out” on organizing the women’s tournament this season.
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Social media is powerful. Thanks for your support pic.twitter.com/YR5ZNwywv6
– Sedona Prince (@sedonaprince_) March 20, 2021
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Since then, they have built a larger weight and exercise room in the Alamodome, the venue for the women’s tournament.
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Prince and other players showed the new amenities in videos and thanked the NCAA for listening.
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Lieberman applauded the courage of young players like Prince and called them their “sisters in the game”.
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RELATED: ‘Embarrassing’: No March Madness Branding on NCAA Women’s Tournament Grounds
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“I greet you, I honor you, and I am extremely proud that you had the strength, the courage, and the essentials to use social media and technology to not only capture and share these pictures with your friends, but also with them to share with the world. ” She said.
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“You forced America to see the inequalities in real time. Each of you get a high five. “
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But she added that this episode revealed issues far beyond convenience.
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“It’s not just the weights. It’s the thought process, ”she said.
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