Athletic therapist claim she was fired by Toronto Argos because she's a woman

[Will]

http://www.thestar.com/sports/articl...-she-s-a-woman

By Rick Westhead

A former athletic therapist with the Toronto Argonauts who sued the team for wrongful dismissal accuses the club’s general manager Jim Barker of calling all women “bitches” and saying he would not be comfortable working with female head therapists because they would “mother” players.
Erin Brooks, 36, made the startling allegations in a lawsuit filed March, 2011, in Ontario Superior Court.
In the lawsuit, Brooks sued the Argonauts, Barker and team president Bob Nicholson for $975,000. The litigation has since been settled, Brooks’s lawyer said. He declined to elaborate on the terms of the settlement.
“The decision to terminate Brooks’ employment was made by Barker and Nicholson solely on the basis Brooks is a woman,” the lawsuit said.
Brooks’s allegations were not proven and her lawsuit was settled before Barker, Nicholson or the Argonauts filed a statement of defence.
The Argonauts, Barker and Nicholson each declined to comment, said Beth Waldman, a team spokesperson.
Brooks, a York University graduate, started volunteering with the Argos in June 2000 and was hired as their head athletic therapist two years later. Managing a team of three assistants, she was responsible for the health and conditioning of Argos players.
Before she was fired on Dec. 14, 2010, Brooks was the only female head athletic therapist in North American professional sports, her lawsuit said. During her tenure with the team, Brooks designed food menus for players and introduced to the team some non-traditional healing techniques, such as cranialsacral therapy (CST), which focuses on the fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord.
She is now an athletic therapist at George Brown College.
In 2004, former Argos coach Michael Clemons said he called Brooks the Canadian Football League team’s “First Lady” and praised her organizational skills. “You really don’t realize that she’s a female and that’s the best compliment you can make,” Clemons said at the time.
Barker, now 55 and from California, joined the Argos as head coach in February 2010 after leaving the Calgary Stampeders. He allegedly made his feelings known about female trainers during his first training camp. During the 2010 training camp, Barker told at least two other Argos employees that he wasn’t comfortable with a woman as head athletic trainer.
“It was his opinion that (a woman) would be too ‘soft’ with the players and would be inclined to ‘mother’ them,” Brooks’s lawsuit says.
During a game in October 2010, Argos’ star player Chad Owens was slow to get up from the field after a play. Brooks saw that he might be injured and ran onto the field to help him, according to her statement of claim.
As she ran onto the field, Owens stood up and Brooks and her assistant returned to the sideline.
Under CFL rules, players must sit out of the game for three plays if an athletic trainer attends to them on the field.
Barker began discussing with a CFL official whether Owens would be required to leave the game. During that conversation, he told the CFL official that Brooks had run onto the field too quickly because she was a woman, the court filing alleges.
The agent for former Argos running back Michael Jenkins at one point said Jenkins would miss the entire 2004 season with an ankle injury because of bad advice from Brooks.
“I have a problem with female trainers,” Danny Benjaminsaid in an interview with the National Post, “because they’re female and they don’t understand the male body. Their bodies are different.”
Brooks told the paper she was surprised by the comments.
“I honestly have a little giggle about that because it was just so old school,” she said at the time.
On Dec. 14, 2010, Brooks was fired without any prior warning.
“Brooks’s employment record with the Argonauts was unblemished,” her statement of claim says. “She had never received any discipline, coaching or negative feedback on her job performance. Accordingly, her sudden dismissal came as a complete shock to her.”
After her firing, Brooks contacted Nicholson to seek an explanation. She was told it had been a “football operations decision.”
The day after he fired Brooks, Barker, the CFL coach of the year in 2010, was appointed to the position of head coach and general manager of the Argos. He has since given up the head coach position and the Argos have hired a new male head athletic therapist.
Brooks’ compensation with the Argos was $61,800, plus a playoff bonus, health benefits, four tickets to each Argos game and “a championship ring when applicable.”
Her lawsuit included demands for wrongful dismissal, unpaid overtime, and bad faith, punitive and aggravated damages.
The lawsuit highlights the struggles faced by women to break into the professional sports industry.
On the field and ice, there are more opportunities nowadays for women. There are professional leagues for women’s ice hockey, soccer and basketball. Female tennis stars such as Venus Williams often command more money for appearances than their male rivals.
But the path to success for women in administrative and management roles in pro sports is far more turbulent.
While teams and leagues covet female fans — the Argos have hosted so-called “Football 101” courses to teach women the game — there are few women in high-ranking administrative positions in professional sports.
On National Football League teams, the number of female employees at or above the vice president level increased to 15 in 2011, up from 10 a year earlier, according to a statistics compiled by Richard Lapchick, a professor at the University of Central Florida who has been tracking hiring practices in professional and college sports for years.
The proportion of professional positions in the National Basketball Association that are held by women was 42 per cent during the 2010-2011 season, down 2 per cent from a year earlier. In Major League Baseball’s headquarters, women held 32 per cent of front-office positions in 2010; 18.2 per cent of team vice presidents were women, down 0.4 per cent from a year earlier.
A CFL spokesperson said he didn’t know how many women held senior roles with the league’s eight teams. The CFL’s vice president of marketing, Sara Moore, is one of the few women in Canada’s pro sports landscape to climb near the top.

[DanTheFan]

I like how they have to point out in the caption of the photo which one she is. Beyond that, I really don't know what to make of the accusations.

[argofandave]

Considering that he has four daughters, I doubt that he would call all women "bitches."

[Mulder]

seems the only Argo news that makes major headlines are the negative ones. This was settled out of court. So did she goto the media? Why over a year after the fact? A huge lack of facts here, and the story is pretty one sided.

[Will]

You raise a few interesting questions to be answered Mulder. I did a rather informal google search of "erin brooks lawsuit" and this Star article was the only thing that came up. I never even noticed that she wasn't with the team anymore.

[Invader]

Westhead has written a string of anti-CFL business stories over the past several years. I've complained about him in the past. He's always comparing the CFL to the NFL and NBA, where team revenues are 10 or 20 times higher, but he cuts the CFL no slack. Despite the Star commending the NFL for becoming the "first major league sport in North America" to test for HGH, it was actually the CFL who started HGH testing first. The NFL has subsequently rejected HGH testing (like in the NHL there is no problem, so why bother even testing?)

[ArgoRavi]

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You raise a few interesting questions to be answered Mulder. I did a rather informal google search of "erin brooks lawsuit" and this Star article was the only thing that came up. I never even noticed that she wasn't with the team anymore.

Her dismissal was mentioned here shortly after it happened (by Paul Woods IIRC) but we certainly didn't have any prolonged discussion about it. However, it did surprise me considering how long Brooks had been with the team. One would think that Barker, with four daughters, would not make such remarks but it sounds like there were some witnesses. It isn't like male locker rooms are known to be bastions of tolerance when it comes to issues of gender and sexuality. As to why this story got out, that is a good question. Could it be that there is a public record of any lawsuit that is filed (settled out of court or not) and Westhead stumbled upon this? I don't think that anyone can really blame him for writing this article and the reality is that upon the filing of the lawsuit, all anyone could get was Brooks' side of the story as the Argos never filed a statement of defence and refuse to comment - and probably cannot as the lawsuit has been settled - now. As it is news, it would be negligent of Westhead if he did not inform the public of this story.

[AngeloV]

Woman or not, the team needs to hire someone that the players feel comfortable with. It's too bad for her than many players don't feel that a woman can handle that job. I've had women physiotherapists in the past, and think they were quite good. I'm sure she has great knowledge of what she does.

[1argoholic]

I think it's just sour grapes. One of the top athletic therapists in Canada was a woman that I grew up with and she runs a very successful practice in Oakville. She looked after many Argos for years until we had a cheap owner that wouldn't pay his bills. She has also gone to two or three Olympics to look after Canadian athletes.
Everyone sees the love Barker has for his gal after every game. He doesn't look like a cement head who'd call women bitches.

[matchuk]

Considering that he has four daughters, I doubt that he would call all women "bitches."

or maybe the reason he did?

[Wobbler]

or maybe the reason he did?

I'm not sure I understand. Please elaborate.

[ArgoGabe22]

We had a female athletic therapist for our high school team (mandatory by the board) and she wasn't very popular because she refused our best lineman, our left tackle to miss his final game in high school. He's a big guy who couldn't sprint and she sat him him out. Concussion most definitely but a lineman can't sprint is a bit iffy. Lineman don't even need to sprint in a game. He could move his feet no problem just not sprint.

[paulwoods13]

As a wise man said to me more than once, the plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence."

Folks on this and other forums are rushing to judgment (in both directions) based on a single news report about a statement of claim in a lawsuit that was apparently settled out of court. The fact it was settled out of court almost certainly means that none of the allegations in the statement will ever be tested in a public forum. We likely will never know what really happened because the parties agreed to settle and presumably agreed to keep terms of the settlement confidential. Everything else is speculation. Those who are condemning Brooks and those who are condemning Barker and the Argos are basing their opinions on the same (lack of) actual information.

[Argoholics]

seems the only Argo news that makes major headlines are the negative ones. This was settled out of court. So did she goto the media? Why over a year after the fact? A huge lack of facts here, and the story is pretty one sided.

Mulder, that was my thought as well, we went the entire 2011 season without this coming up so why now? Something is rotten in Denmark as they say.

[Ron]

I'm not sure I understand. Please elaborate.

Just because a guy can sire daughters ... doesn't mean he doesn't think women are bitches.

[matchuk]

I'm not sure I understand. Please elaborate.

maybe having 4 daughters caused him to call all women "bitches", after his years and years of dealing with them (this is not my opinion btw, its a joke!)

[argolio]

As a wise man said to me more than once, the plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence."

Folks on this and other forums are rushing to judgment (in both directions) based on a single news report about a statement of claim in a lawsuit that was apparently settled out of court. The fact it was settled out of court almost certainly means that none of the allegations in the statement will ever be tested in a public forum. We likely will never know what really happened because the parties agreed to settle and presumably agreed to keep terms of the settlement confidential. Everything else is speculation. Those who are condemning Brooks and those who are condemning Barker and the Argos are basing their opinions on the same (lack of) actual information.

Best post of the thread -- well said Paul.

[bluto]

i'm with paulwoods13 in the sense that since we'll never know the truth and since the (allegedly) aggrieved party has accepted a settlement then the matter is just that: settled.

Mulder makes a valid point though... the fact that this surfaced so long after the fact and after a settlement fails the sniff test... makes you wonder who is doing the muck-raking and why...

[matchuk]

just thinking about this again, and not taking sides or anything, but why didnt the argos come out with some kind of press release in regards to the issue? i understand from the legal standpoint they wouldnt comment on the situation, but just something like "we at the argos value every fan equally, etc"

[ArgoRavi]

just thinking about this again, and not taking sides or anything, but why didnt the argos come out with some kind of press release in regards to the issue? i understand from the legal standpoint they wouldnt comment on the situation, but just something like "we at the argos value every fan equally, etc"

This will all be forgotten within a few weeks if it hasn't been already. The prudent move for the Argos is to leave it alone.