Family first

This summer’s series of domestic violence cases showed that athletes aren’t exempt from the nation’s epidemic of broken families. But among the 4,000 athletes in the nation’s major sports leagues are many men who take family seriously.

They include Cincinnati Bengals defensive tackle Devon Still, whose 4-year-old daughter Leah suffers from Stage 4 neuroblastoma. Still gained international attention after the Bengals provided health insurance for his family even though he at first failed to make this year’s team because of his commitment to Leah. On Sept. 25 Leah underwent successful surgery to remove cancerous tumors, lymph nodes, and glands, giving her a fighting chance against the disease.

Similarly, Carolina Panthers tight end Greg Olsen welcomed his son T.J. home from the hospital Sept. 20, nearly a month after the boy’s third open-heart surgery. T.J. turned 2 years old Oct. 9, healthy after overcoming a congenital heart defect. “It’s taught me a lot about myself—what it means to have a lot of responsibility as a father and as a husband and as a teammate and a player here, and I take all of those roles really seriously,” Olsen told The Charlotte Observer.

Both Olsen and Still balanced practice with the night shift by their children’s hospital beds. Both started fundraising initiatives to help other families in similar circumstances. The Bengals turned the reserve player’s jersey into the team’s bestseller, raising more than $1 million last month for cancer research. For Still and Olsen, family was important enough to make sacrifices—to miss practice, sleep, money, and even playing time if necessary.

In an odd way, former Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington also valued family before career. The lifelong baseball man left the Rangers Sept. 5 to address a “personal matter,” later telling fans that he had not been faithful to his wife. “I broke her trust. I am here today to own that mistake,” he said. Washington could have kept his actions secret, but instead he chose to resign and try to save his 42-year marriage.

Male privilege

A broken orbital bone, a concussion, and a laceration needing seven staples—those were the injuries mixed martial arts fighter Tamikka Brents suffered last month before the referee called her bout with Fallon Fox after three minutes. “I’ve never felt so overpowered ever in my life,” Brents told WHOA TV.

Disfiguring injuries aren’t uncommon in MMA, where rules protecting defenseless areas like the back of the head do little to mitigate the sport’s graphic brutality. But Fox, 38, has divided the sport since the world discovered last year—after Fox dispatched a woman in 39 seconds—that the fighter was born a man.

Some say Fox’s 5-1 record amounts to assault—and even the sport’s top star Ronda Rousey said recently that Fox has an unfair advantage because the fighter went through puberty as a man.

Fox uses the controversy to promote LGBT rights and mock opponents. In barbed Facebook posts, the fighter argues that body differences between a transgendered male and female opponents are the same as racial variations that make Caucasians taller than Asian women. Excluding races based on bone or muscular structure would be racist, Fox said, adding that those who disapprove of the fighter must be guilty of hate.

As the highest profile transgender athlete, Fox may be a harbinger of worldview battles to come. —A.B.