Retired WNBA player says she was bullied by her bull ? peers because she was straight...
Options
stringer bell
Members Posts: 26,212 ✭✭✭✭✭
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/sd-sp-wigginsside-20170217-story.html
Wiggins: WNBA's 'harmful' culture of bullying, jealousy
Candice Wiggins had what many would consider a dream career in the WNBA.
She was the No. 3 overall draft pick out of Stanford in 2008. She was named the league’s Sixth Woman of the Year as a rookie. She won a championship with the Minnesota Lynx.
The success, Wiggins says now, hid a darker reality.
“It wasn’t like my dreams came true in the WNBA. It was quite the opposite,” said Wiggins, the former La Jolla Country Day star who is being inducted into the San Diego Hall of Champions’ Bretibard Hall of Fame on Tuesday.
For the first time in an extensive interview, Wiggins described what she said was a “very, very harmful” culture in the WNBA – one in which she contends she was bullied throughout her eight-year career. She also described the discouragement she felt being a part of a “survival league” that she said still struggles for attention and legitimacy after 20 seasons in existence.
Wiggins, who turned 30 on Feb. 14, abruptly announced her retirement last March while considering a contract extension from the New York Liberty – her fourth WNBA team.
“I wanted to play two more seasons of WNBA, but the experience didn’t lend itself to my mental state,” Wiggins said. “It was a depressing state in the WNBA. It’s not watched. Our value is diminished. It can be quite hard. I didn’t like the culture inside the WNBA, and without revealing too much, it was toxic for me. … My spirit was being broken.”
Wiggins, a four-time All-American at Stanford, asserts she was targeted for harassment from the time she was drafted by Minnesota because she is heterosexual and a nationally popular figure, of whom many other players were jealous.
“Me being heterosexual and straight, and being vocal in my identity as a straight woman was huge,” Wiggins said. “I would say 98 percent of the women in the WNBA are ? women. It was a conformist type of place. There was a whole different set of rules they (the other players) could apply.
“There was a lot of jealousy and competition, and we’re all fighting for crumbs,” Wiggins said. “The way I looked, the way I played – those things contributed to the tension.
“People were deliberately trying to hurt me all of the time. I had never been called the B-word so many times in my life than I was in my rookie season. I’d never been thrown to the ground so much. The message was: ‘We want you to know we don’t like you.’ “
There is no published data on the percentage of WNBA players who are ? . In a 10-team league that employs 120 players annually, at least 12 current and former players have come out publicly in various forms of media.
Wiggins said she was disheartened by a culture in the WNBA that encouraged women to look and act like men in the NBA.
“It comes to a point where you get compared so much to the men, you come to mirror the men,’ she said. “So many people think you have to look like a man, play like a man to get respect. I was the opposite. I was proud to a be a woman, and it didn’t fit well in that culture.”
Of the league as a whole, Wiggins said, “Nobody cares about the WNBA. Viewership is minimal. Ticket sales are very low. They give away tickets and people don’t come to the game.”
The WNBA, whose teams are subsidized by the NBA, said after the 2016 season that the announced average attendance of 7,655 was its highest in five years. (Attendance peaked at 10,800 in 1998.) The league boasted of an 11-percent increase in viewership on ESPN channels in 2016 — to 224,000 per game. NBA games on ESPN in 2015-16 averaged eight times more — 1.6 million viewers.
Wiggins enjoyed a strong start to her WNBA career, averaging 15.7 and 13.1 points per game, respectively, in her first two seasons. But in only the eighth game of her third year, in 2010, she suffered a torn Achilles’ tendon that knocked her out for that season.
Wiggins returned in 2011, and her Minnesota team captured its first WNBA championship, but she was limited to a backup role and averaged only 5.9 points per game.
In her eight seasons, Wiggins averaged 8.6 points per game after averaging 19.2 at Stanford.
The Achilles injury was one of eight for which Wiggins required surgery. She has attributed some of the physical breakdowns to an arduous schedule of playing in Europe in the offseason to supplement her pay in the WNBA.
The current collective bargaining agreement caps the top WNBA salaries at $109,000 per season, while the average player makes about $75,000. Players could earn five to eight times that in Europe.
Wiggins played on pro teams in Spain, Turkey, Israel and Greece, and won the Euro Cup with the Grecian team that she counts among her career highlights.
“It was incredible,” she said of her experience in Europe. “It shaped my entire world view.”
Back home, Wiggins kept on playing in the WNBA, she said, more for the people around her and the fans. She played her final three seasons for three different teams — Tulsa, Los Angeles and New York.
“There were horrible things happening to me every day, and that connection to the outside world kept me going,” she said.
Wiggins said, “I want you to understand this: There are no enemies in my life. Everyone is forgiven. At the end of the day, it made me stronger. If I had not had this experience, I wouldn’t be as tough as I am.
“I try to be really sensitive. I’m not trying to crush anyone’s dreams or aspirations, or the dreams of the WNBA. I want things to be great, but at the same time it’s important for me to be honest in my reflections.”
Wiggins said she is writing an autobiography with the working title, “The WNBA Diaries,” based on her journals as a player.
Wiggins has her sights set on a new athletic career: pro beach volleyball. She is working out with her former club coach who prepared her for volleyball at LJCD and has been mentored by current women beach players.
She aspires to play on the pro beach volleyball tour and possibly the Olympics. She touts the sport’s camaraderie and its “celebration of women and the female body as feminine, but strong and athletic.”
“I don’t know what I can accomplish in volleyball, but this is fun for me,” Wiggins said. “Volleyball has always been an outlet, and it’s something I can pursue on my own terms. It’s really the culture I’m signing up for. This is really who I am.”
Comments
-
https://sports.vice.com/en_us/highlight/candice-wiggins-thinks-98-percent-of-wnba-players-are-? -says-she-was-bullied-for-being-straightLos Angeles Sparks forward and players' union president Nneka Ogwumike told VICE Sports in a statement: "Our union is only as strong as our loyalty to and support for one another. What is key to that loyalty and support is our commitment to diversity and inclusion. As a union, we should and we will continue to celebrate the diversity that makes us special and lead by example. We must respect the rights of those we don't agree with when they speak their mind. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the comments made recently by a former player or whether one has seen or experienced anything like what she has described, anything that impacts an inclusive culture should be taken seriously."
-
Last thing them girls need to be doing is bullying each other.
They are literally in the Struggle League playing struggleball. -
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/sd-sp-wiggins-20170221-story.htmlAmid backlash, Wiggins stands by controversial WNBA comments
Candice Wiggins refused to back down Tuesday after stirring a national controversy following her assertions that she was mistreated by ? players in the WNBA because she is heterosexual.
Saying her comments “freed my spirit,” Wiggins told the San Diego Union-Tribune that she received positive reaction from those close to her, as well as private thanks from other WNBA players who Wiggins said experienced what she did.
“There’s nothing that I would take back. I’m not really in a position of taking things back right now,” Wiggins, 30, said. “I’m going forward.
“I know it sounds heartless, but I don’t care. I understand what my purpose and the intent of my words are, and I’m responsible for my words. I’m not responsible for how people perceived them.
“I’m not sorry for saying what needs to be said,” Wiggins said. “And I’m not patting myself on the back. It wasn’t brave, but it would have been cowardly for me not to do it.”
In an interview with the Union-Tribune published Monday, Wiggins said she experienced a “toxic” and “very, very harmful” culture during her eight seasons in the WNBA, where she asserts other people were driven by jealousy and resentment to bully her.
"Me being heterosexual and straight, and being vocal in my identity as a straight woman was huge," Wiggins told the Union-Tribune. "I would say 98 percent of the women in the WNBA are ? women. It was a conformist type of place. There was a whole different set of rules they (the other players) could apply."
There is no data on the number of ? women in the WNBA, and some commentaries about the story questioned Wiggins’ “98 percent” number. She said Tuesday that she used that figure more to be illustrative than factual.
“It was my way to illustrate the isolation that I felt personally,” Wiggins said. “I felt like the 2 percent versus the 98 percent. It felt that way to me. And it’s not just the players. It was the coaches. It was the leaders.”
The WNBA has declined to respond to Wiggins’ comments.
Nneka Ogwumike, president of the WNBA Players Association, said in a statement: “Whether one agrees or disagrees with the comments made recently by a former player, or whether one has seen or experienced anything like what she has described, anything that impacts an inclusive culture should be taken seriously.”
Current WNBA players took to social media to express themselves about Wiggins’ opinions.
Imani Boyette, a WNBA Chicago Sky player and married daughter of former USC and WNBA player Pam McGee, wrote an 842-word open letter to Wiggins on her website.
“I was sad because that was your reality,” Boyette wrote. “I’m sorry you were bullied and felt that way during your career. Bullying is serious and no one deserves it. I hope you know that says more about the people who chose to mistreat you than you yourself.”
Boyette continued, “Your article hurt me Candice, both as a fellow WNBA player and as a little girl who looked up to you. You chose to typecast an entire league instead of speaking your peace, telling your truth. You chose to put all of us down, fans included. How can you turn your back on the entity that gave you your career, your upcoming book, and your worldwide acclaim? I think that’s selfish.”
Boyette concluded, “I have never experienced the bullying you spoke about, and I hope no one else ever does. Thank you for telling your truth.”
In a blog, San Antonio forward Monique Currie wrote that in her 11 seasons in the WNBA she has never experienced or witnessed the bullying that Wiggins described.
“Although this interview caused quite a stir, maybe, just maybe, these experiences were real,” Currie wrote.
Currie said of the “pink elephant in the room” in regards to Wiggins’ “98 percent” comment: “It’s fair to say that’s a stretch, however, it’s fair to say that during a span of eight years in the WNBA there were possibly more ? players than non-? players. Does this matter in the grand scheme of things? No. But it does matter to someone who’s not in the majority. Perception is real.”
Currie also said, “Wiggins needs to check her privilege at the door, and not group her very unfortunate personal experiences on an entire group of women.”
Wiggins was a four-time All-American at Stanford and set school and Pac-10 scoring records there. She was drafted No. 3 overall in the WNBA in 2008 and spent most of her career as a backup. She won a championship with the Minnesota Lynx in 2011 and retired before the 2016 season.
On Tuesday evening, Wiggins was among the 2017 class that was inducted into the Breitbard Hall of Fame at the San Diego Hall of Champions.
In addition to her contentions of mistreatment, Wiggins ripped the 20-year-old WNBA as a “survival league” that “nobody cares about.” Her critics Tuesday claimed she was hurting the very entity that supported her career.
“I don’t think the league is any more damaged than it already was,” Wiggins said.
Wiggins is currently writing a book based on what she documented in journals during her WNBA career. She said her current comments are merely the “first layer” of what she has to say. -
Bullied by ? ? I can believe that...
I assumed that would jus be the cost of doin bizness tho -
98% of WNBA women ? ? Damn, so what only like 4 ? in the whole league are straight?
-
? can be very sexually aggressive towards straight women in their advances,so I believe it, I've seen it plenty of times.
-
lol @ bulldykes and basketball. -
It’s not watched
Imo thats the elephant in the room. No one watches that ? . Why have a league if no more watches. Its basically a charity case. -
lord nemesis wrote: »98% of WNBA women ? ? Damn, so what only like 4 ? in the whole league are straight?
I hope Skylar Diggins ain't a ? though I think she's engaged to a dude -
lord nemesis wrote: »98% of WNBA women ? ? Damn, so what only like 4 ? in the whole league are straight?
All bs aside, that number seems high. I doubt its that. -
-
98%?! Then the wnba logo should be changed to a broad eating another broads ? lol
-
This just goes to show that people are ? all around. Whatever group is disenfranchised will be quick to do the same thing they bash others for when they are in a position to do so.
-
stringer bell wrote: »
U can have a baby n still end up bein a ? . But whatever. None of my bizness, jus sayin -
stringer bell wrote: »
Coppin pleas. The damage was done. Homegirl named four people like thats going to undo the ether... -
I can believe that she was bullied. The school I'm at the ? be manhandling the girls.
-
This reminds me of one of my girls old jobs where a lot of ? were working. Damn near everyday talkin ? to her for liking ? while having to use a fake one to please their partner.
? just dont make sense
-
? be doing too much, like they feel they have to be extra hard to come off masculine
-
stringer bell wrote: »
U can have a baby n still end up bein a ? . But whatever. None of my bizness, jus sayin
-
I can believe that she was bullied. The school I'm at the ? be manhandling the girls.
When I was a freshman in undergrad, I lived in an on-campus apartment building next to a building that was used to house the woman's basketball players. Those chicks went after other females way more aggressively than men. The chick might have been exaggerating her percentage, but the idea that the league is vastly ? or at least bi isn't at all out of the question. -
-
sounds like the plot of Players Club
-
-
stringer bell wrote: »stringer bell wrote: »
U can have a baby n still end up bein a ? . But whatever. None of my bizness, jus sayin
There's a girl I went to high school with that's a ? and she's the one that got pregnant though she's the "man" in the relationship. Smh and they baby is so light skinned -
Lbgt will b silent about it period
