Reality isn't optional.(The Last Word)

Six years ago, Katie Hnida of Littleton, Colorado, was both the starting placekicker for her high school football team and the reigning homecoming queen. "Is this a great time or what?" exulted Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly, delighted that we live in an era "when a young lady can kick the winning field goal on Saturday afternoon and look drop-dead in her spaghetti-strap number on Saturday night."

The "only downside" to this arrangement, according to Reilly, was that "Katie has to shower and dress in the girls' locker room away from the rest of the team." "Sometimes we'll win a big game and I can hear all the guys whooping it up, and I want to get in there with them," Hnida told Reilly. She also professed not to be put off by her teammates' unrefined behavior: "I don't mind when [my teammates] burp, f**t, and spit around me. It lets me know they think of me as their teammate.'"

Allowed to join the Colorado University (CU) Buffaloes as a walk on, Hnida reportedly experienced much uglier things than unrefined behavior. In a recent follow-up story in Sports Illustrated, Reilly recounts Hnida's claims of being subjected to sexual taunting, threats, physical molestation and even rape by her teammates.

The CU football program has been enveloped in a scandal involving the use of paid strippers at recruiting parties, and numerous allegations of rape and other sexual offenses by players; this reflects the corruption that has become altogether too common in college football. Thus it's entirely possible that some of Hnida's allegations may be true. But she has declined to pursue legal redress, and her former colleagues cannot corroborate her most serious charges.

The February 19 Denver Post cited accounts from several current players confirming that Hnida was verbally berated by some of her teammates on the practice field, and at one point had footballs thrown at her head, but they don't credit her reports of sexual mistreatment. One assistant coach pointed out that special precautions were taken to protect Hnida from unspecified threats. A defensive lineman recalled a lecture by former coach Gary Barnett admonishing the players to treat Hnida "like you'd treat your sister." Hnida's essential complaint, observed the Post, is that "Colorado's players, in a testosterone-filled football climate, didn't adhere to their former coach's instructions." After an unpromising freshman year, Hnida was asked not to return. "She made it pretty well known that she didn't want to leave," recalled former equipment manager Megan Rogers, pointing out that this reluctance is difficult to understand ...