Oberlin Baseball Acknowledges Negative Reputation

SPORTS

November 5, 2021 Established 1874

Oberlin Baseball Acknowledges Negative Reputation

A pitcher for the baseball team takes the mound during the 2021 season. Courtesy of GoYeo

Zoe Kuzbari

Sports Editor

Zoe Martin del Campo

Contributing Sports Editor

Editor’s note: This article mentions sexual assault and rape culture.

The reputations of Oberlin men’s sports teams vary greatly on campus. Recently, the baseball team has come under the spotlight for their team culture after Yik Yak posts directly named and accused specific individuals on the team of sexual assault and rape.

Fourth-year baseball player Zander Norris says that he knows his team has developed a negative reputation at Oberlin.

“We are reviled for being an unpassionate group of frat-like individuals with no regard for the rest of the student body and are only really here to play baseball and have a good time at other people’s expense,” he said. “I would vehemently disagree with that thought.”

Norris acknowledges that it’s true that there have been people on his team who have been more representative of a “frat boy” lifestyle, but he believes that they are a small minority of the 57-person team. He speaks highly of most of his team and says his current teammates are some of the best people he’s had the privilege of meeting, and most reflect the ideals of the larger student body.

Third-year on the baseball team Max Anastasio says that baseball is notorious for being a sport with a lot of toxic masculinity and “locker room talk.”

“We’ve been taught that that kind of behavior and that kind of way to talk about people is not appropriate or acceptable,” he said. “We should be above that, and it definitely contributes to rape culture. And although my team isn’t as bad or toxic as some other schools, we are nowhere near the standard that we should be.”

Third-year on the baseball team Yianni Gardner is the Title IX compliance trainer for the team along with Norris and believes that the team’s negative reputation is definitely warranted.

“There have been situations in the past, both while I’ve been a student and before my time here at Oberlin, where harm has been caused by players on this team,” said Gardner. “This being said, we are taking all steps that the Title IX office has told us to follow, and we are doing our best to act within our boundaries.”

Gardner feels the players on his team are taking this topic very seriously and are focused on taking the necessary steps to change the team’s reputation on campus and ensure no future harm is caused by players.

Norris points out that his teammates are certainly aware that harm has been perpetuated within their community in the past and that it continues to be an issue today. He notes that harm does not come out of nowhere; rather, it arises from a sustained lack of accountability.

“It was in the everyday interactions we had with each other and the interactions we had with the larger student body,” Norris said. “I think that was most explicitly expressed through the numerous problems arising from Saturday nights of drunken stupor, but the grounds were laid through a general disregard for how we acted in the public sphere.”

Norris says that there was an ignorance toward the feelings of those the team interacted with, which inevitably ended in harm to others. He says those problems are by no means a thing of the past, but it’s been their goal this semester to buckle down on harmful or toxic behavior.

Second-year baseball player Jay Aghanya describes the steps his team is taking to prevent any further harm to others. He highlights that the team has been working with the College’s resources and that before the fall semester started, they had meetings with the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion to talk about what the team can do to stop perpetuating harm.

“Our first action was to keep each other in check: in public, in our day-to-day lives, and especially during the weekends,” he said. “If we keep doing that as a team, I think this would take us in the right direction while cases are dealt with legally and confidentially.”

Aghanya mentions that the older members on his team have been dealing with issues about their reputation and have had to deal with problematic players on the team in the past, so he looks to them for some guidance.

“The upperclassmen have been constantly keeping the underclassmen in check so that these issues don’t start back up in the future,” Aghanya said. “The most important thing that we can all do now is ensure we’re doing our very best to prevent future harm.”

Norris says that he’s aware his team has had a poor reputation on Oberlin’s campus for years, and the interactions the team has had with the larger community has done nothing to detract from that.

“I like to encourage people to think of individual baseball players they know personally and how they think of them,” he said. “A lot of the time, it is in a favorable light. We as a group have no room to ask for favor, but the individuals that have personal relationships with baseball players I think directly contrasts that thought.”

Gardner says that the team is trying to repair its reputation and striving to make the atmosphere

Volume 151, Number 5

Student-Athletes Face Stigma at Oberlin

Illustration by Clair Wang, Staff Cartoonist

RiverSchiff

Senior Staff Writer

Many athletes take pride in their sports; for many, being recruited and meeting their team was a crucial factor in their decision to come to Oberlin. But for some athletes, all of the cheers and crowded bleachers don’t appear to go much past the field or court for them.

Some athletes feel their fellow students appear to look down on them, as if they’ve taken an easy entry into the prestigious institution and don’t have the academic capabilities of their peers. This stigma leads some student-athletes to keep quiet about their sport, out of fear they’re being viewed as less than or representative of the stereotypes attached to athletes.

Second-year on the women’s soccer team Adrienne Sato feels especially torn on the subject. Sato believes that due to the stigma around being a student-athlete, she puts extra pressure on herself to conform in an academic setting, fearing ostracism should she not prove herself.

“When in a context where I’m the only athlete, I feel more pressure to speak up, which leads to less productive conversation because I’m constantly thinking about everything I say,” she said. “But when I’m with other athletes, I don’t have that pressure as much, and instead I worry about seeming too excited about the schoolwork.”

Additionally, Sato looks to athletics as a source of pride, emphasizing how presenting as a student athlete makes her feel powerful and capable. However, the stigma around athletes being disrespectful invalidates those feelings.

“I feel like a lot of the students at Oberlin, myself included, kind of rebel against things that are more mainstream and popular, and athletics and people associated with athletics have been popular our whole lives,” she said. “People get really invested in sports, and the Oberlin student body doesn’t have a positive view of [athletes], so I always have to make sure I don’t seem like I care too much about the sport even if I do.”

College fourth-year on the women’s soccer team Sophie Payne believes that the perception of athletics has changed during her time at Oberlin in a positive way.

“As a first-year at Oberlin, I was definitely excited to tell people that I was on a sports team because it has been a big part of who I am for most of my life,” she wrote in an email to the Review. “After learning how some people on this campus perceive athletes, I was a little more timid in announcing that I was an athlete. Recently, however, I received a positive reaction in the classroom because people were genuinely interested in how my team was doing which