The Washington Post - USA (2020-08-02)

SOCCER

Christian Pulisic scores

early but is injured in

the second half of a

busy FA Cup final. D2

HOCKEY

A non-hockey injury

suffered in Russia is the

reason Ilya Samsonov

is not with the Caps. D3

PRO BASKETBALL

The NBA’s biggest stars

have been at their best

from the beginning in

the league’s bubble. D6

KLMNO

SPORTS

SUNDAY, AUGUST 2 , 2020. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/SPORTS M2 D

BY LES CARPENTER

O

n July 21, her first day of work at the job she calls “better than my dream job,” Julie

Donaldson braced herself, donning invisible armor for what she wasn’t sure. ¶ The day

before she had finalized a contract with the Washington Football Team to become senior

vice president of media, host all the team’s television shows and become the first woman to

have a full-time role in an NFL team’s game-day radio booth. The position instantly made her the

organization’s highest-ranking female employee, despite the fact she had never hired or fired

anyone or held a management position before. ¶ She was replacing Larry Michael, the team’s

longtime radio voice who had also run broadcast operations and was one of the organization’s most

recognizable faces. The team had just stripped itself of its longtime “Redskins” name, and five days

before, The Washington Post had published a story in which 15 female former employees and two

sportswriters accused several past executives of sexual harassment. One of those executives was

Michael, who abruptly retired before the report published. ¶ She was a 42-year-old woman whose

career had been spent on air at regional sports television networks, walking into a powerful job with

a team that had been exposed for a culture hostile to women. What would everyone think? Would

she be welcomed? Would people resent that she was there? SEE DONALDSON ON D8

For Donaldson, accepting

a high-profile job to help

fix culture of Washington’s

NFL team is personal

‘I believe I can make a di≠erence’

ASTRID RIECKEN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

Sports aren’t built
for disruption.
That’s why their
return, though
greatly
anticipated, is also
uncomfortable.
Sports are back
not because they
know it’s safe, not because they
know it’s right, not because they
are evangelical about the value of
their entertainment. They are just
doing what they know: play, make
money, repeat, never quit.

The business of major sports is

tied to this perpetual churn. The

games are ubiquitous because of

the public interest and the

revenue that guarantees. It’s all

hitched to the belief in an

unbreakable fan obsession:

palatial arenas and stadiums,

massive television deals,

seemingly boundless advertising

potential. As long as there is a

functioning economy to buttress

them, sports are a simple,

dependable endeavor.

SEE BREWER ON D6

Leagues trying to save seasons

when they should save futures

Jerry
Brewer

opt out of this season and retain

their scholarships. But just a

handful of players at top schools

have done so, preferring to skip

the season and preserve a year of

NCAA eligibility rather than risk

infection.

Caleb Farley, an NFL-bound

cornerback from Virginia Tech,

said this week that he lost his

mother to breast cancer and

couldn’t stomach the idea of

SEE SEC ON D3

gle team in the SEC. That’s a

given. And we can’t prevent it.”

As the 2020 season barrels

closer, several high-profile pro-

grams already have grappled

with outbreaks. Some have had

to temporarily suspend work-

outs, including Michigan State

and Rutgers, which are both in

isolation after several players

tested positive.

Players in the SEC and other

conferences have the option to

ficials — keen on keeping a

multibillion-dollar industry

afloat amid the novel coronavi-

rus pandemic — are and aren’t

reassuring the athletes they need

to make the season a reality.

“There are going to be out-

breaks,” one official told players

on the call. (The official didn’t

identify himself, and the SEC

spokesman declined to identify

him to The Post.) “We’re going to

have positive cases on every sin-

a dozen SEC football players,

members of the conference’s

medical advisory board and SEC

officials, including Commission-

er Greg Sankey. It was designed

as a “confidential free exchange,”

an SEC spokesman said in an

email, in which the league’s med-

ical advisers could “hear ques-

tions and our student-athletes

were able to hear answers.”

But the recording offers a

window into how conference of-

were a “given,” according to an

audio recording obtained by The

Washington Post.

The meeting, which took place

Wednesday, included more than

BY ROBERT KLEMKO

AND EMILY GIAMBALVO

College football’s most power-
ful conference, the SEC, an-
nounced Thursday that it plans
to forge ahead with a season this
fall. But a day earlier, in a private
meeting with conference leaders
and medical advisers, several
football players raised concerns
about their safety, only to be told
that positive cases on their teams

On a call with SEC leaders, football players voice safety concerns

‘Not good enough,’ one

says after their questions

yield few firm answers

Julie Donaldson, hired last month as
the senior vice president of media, is
the club’s highest-ranking woman.

BY KAREEM COPELAND

Aerial Powers wasn’t interested

in excuses Saturday night. The

Washington Mystics had just suf-

fered their first loss of the season

in a lackluster manner that was

quite different from the brand of

basketball that has come to define

the defending WNBA champions.

The Mystics rode a wave of en-

ergy and the league’s best offense

to become the last remaining un-

defeated team. A third game in

five days, however, seemed to take

its toll as the Mystics lost, 88-86, to

the Chicago Sky in Bradenton, Fla.

Cheyenne Parker made a layup

with 5.9 seconds remaining for

the game-winning basket after Di-

amond DeShields drove the base-

line and drew a help defender off

Parker. The Mystics failed to get a

shot on their final possession

when Emma Meesseman declined

to shoot and turned the ball over

trying to force a baseline pass

instead.

“Honestly, we beat ourselves,”

Powers said. “I don’t think Chica-

go beat us. We didn’t start off with

the energy we usually do... and

that’s on us.

“I’m not one to make excuses.

We just have to bring [the energy]

SEE MYSTICS ON D6

Mystics run

out of steam,

fall just short

of 4-0 start

SKY 88,

MYSTICS 86

ASHLEY LANDIS/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Bench seats are spaced out at an arena at the ESPN Wide World of

Sports Complex, where the NBA season restarted Thursday night.

BY JESSE DOUGHERTY

Dave Martinez is used to tap

dancing around his opinions pub-

licly. In two-plus seasons as the

Washington Nationals’ manager,

he often has fought the urge to go

off on an error, a misplaced pitch

or a walk that made his blood

boil. He rarely offers unfiltered

thoughts. Resisting is part of the

job.

But that changed when he sat

for a pregame news conference

Monday. The room was empty

aside from a few laptops and a

public relations staffer. His tired

face flashed onto a Zoom call with

reporters. Martinez, 55, who has

spent more than three decades

marching in baseball’s tight-

lipped culture, was ready to show

the emotional toll of playing

through the novel coronavirus

pandemic. And then he did.

“You know what? I’m just not

going to hold it in anymore,”

Martinez said Friday in an inter-

view with The Washington Post.

“This is different for everyone.

This is scary for us, even if our job

is to play a game. I feel like that’s

something I have to say.”

SEE NATIONALS ON D5

Martinez

steps up,

speaks out

about crisis

Nats’ manager garners

national attention

for emotional remarks

Mets at Nationals

Tuesday, 7:05 p.m., MASN2

Inside: Cardinals’ outbreak widens,

creating more trouble for MLB. D 5

Mystics vs. Aces

Wednesday, 8 p.m., NBCSW, NBA TV