Transcript: Leveling the Playing Field with Sally Jenkins, Author, The Right Call -

MS. ALEMANY: Good afternoon, and welcome to the Washington Post Live. I’m Jackie Alemany, a congressional investigations reporter here at The Washington Post and a fangirl of the guest I’m about to introduce. I’m so excited for today’s conversation. Joining me to talk about women’s sports and her career as an esteemed sports columnist is Sally Jenkins, a fellow staffer colleague here at The Washington Post.

Sally, welcome to the Post Live.

MS. JENKINS: Hi, Jackie.

MS. ALEMANY: How are you?

MS. JENKINS: I'm good. Glad to be here.

MS. ALEMANY: I want to talk all about your book, which I have right here, "The Right Call." It is covered in Post-its and underlined.

MS. JENKINS: [Laughs]

MS. ALEMANY: But first, I also want to talk about your revered column about two legendary tennis players and the--being on the eve of the Women's World Cup in New Zealand and Australia, I want to start there. This is the biggest Women's World Cup in its 32-year history. What are you hoping to see over the next few weeks as the tournament takes place?

MS. JENKINS: You know, I'm really excited to see the new young players on the USA team. There are 14 young women who are appearing in their first World Cup for the USA, and I'm always so fascinated at how this team passes the torch. They're going for their third straight World Cup, which has never happened before. If they can pull that one off, it will be truly historic, but they're going to have to do it with a mix of veterans and really young players who have never done this before. So I would say, you know, I'm anxious to see, you know, how a Sophia Smith or a Trinity Rodman performs in World Cup pressure.

MS. ALEMANY: And the World Cup expanded from a 24-team format to a 32-team format with eight teams that are now going to be debuting: Haiti, Morocco, Panama, the Philippines, Portugal, the Republic of Ireland, Vietnam, and Zambia. Why is the expansion from a 24-team format to a 32-team format significant?

MS. JENKINS: Well, it's significant because it's a Johnny Apple seeding of the game. You know, look, the winner's circle is genderless, and the experience of winning something--and as much about this as anybody, having played basketball at Harvard--is that experience shouldn't be reserved for men only. And there's a million statistics that show how important it is for women to have a championship experience, whether it's getting into boardrooms, whether it's lessening--whether it's health issues, whether it's lower unwanted pregnancy rates and higher graduation rates. So, I mean, just the benefits of this experiences are--the benefits are just infinite, right? And it's just really important to see that growth to me.

All you need to do to play soccer is you need some grass and a ball, and it's the most accessible sport in the world, really. And so to see it spread like this is great.

MS. ALEMANY: Do you view this as evidence that there is burdening popularity for the expansion of women's soccer?

MS. JENKINS: I do. I mean, FIFA has--the governing body of world soccer has finally woken up and smelled the espresso coffee sitting under their nose, which is that this is an enormous new field of profitability. The growth of the women's game is explosive financially ratings-wise, endorsement-wise, and for so many years, a lot of the men at the governing bodies--and most of them are men, the people in these governing bodies, whether it's the Olympics or World Cup Soccer--have had this quiet feeling--and this was true in the U.S. as well--that the growth of a women's sport somehow came in some way at the male expense. And finally, we're seeing a shift in perspective where they're realizing that it's just an enhancement for everybody, that there's opportunity for everybody, that growth of the game is good, period.

MS. ALEMANY: And advertisers and brands have invested heavily in this World Cup, yet women's sports are still significantly underfunded compared to men's sports. Why is this, and what would change attitudes and investments to increase those investments in women's sports?

MS. JENKINS: Well, I think it is changing, first of all. I think there's a really--a new sort of evaluation of all that going on. The ratings are going up. I mean, the WNBA has never been a particularly strong TV product, but their ratings are up 20 percent this year. I mean, if you looked--I was just looking at the TV ratings, the sports TV ratings from Saturday, and two of the top seven most watched events were women's events, the Wimbledon women's final and the WNBA All-Star Game, 1.3 million viewers for the Wimbledon women's final, well, about 850,000 viewers for the WNBA All-Star Game. And All-Star Games, frankly, aren't that interesting.

So, you know, first of all, I think that there's just--there's a growth in ratings and interest, and frankly, male deciders at companies are seeing that. But also, there's a lot more women deciders in the world today who see opportunity and see really good branding opportunities.

MS. ALEMANY: Because you brought it up, I want to pivot to Wimbledon and tennis. It just finished last weekend with two new title holders for both the men's and the women's divisions. You recently published a piece at The Post titled "Bitter Rivals. Beloved Friends. Survivors." It told the story of Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, who were longstanding rivals in women's tennis but have become each other's ally in their independent battles with cancer. The piece has been called a masterpiece and is a masterpiece. If you haven't read it, please do so. What was the inspiration for this piece?

MS. JENKINS: You know, I really came--I knew they had remained friends. I knew they had become friends. They had started out as friends back in 1973 when they first met, and I knew that by the time their rivalry was done, they had become friends again after some real estrangement and tension. And I knew that in retirement that they had gotten to be even better friends.

What I did not know was just how close they are. I took Martina Navratilova to lunch while she was in New York, where I live. She was being treated for throat cancer and breast cancer at Sloan Kettering, and just as a friendly gesture, I checked in with her and said, "Can I take you to lunch?" And during that lunch, it was just clear how much regard she had for Chris, who was also going through ovarian cancer and in the middle of her own treatment, and it just was striking how she talked about Chris.

And so about a week later, I proposed to her, you know, "Would you mind if I tried to do a little something on how you and Chris are kind of lifting each other up during this common experience?" and we started out just chatting on the phone. Martina said yes to the idea, but she said wait till I'm done with treatment. And the first time I got on the phone, I talked to Chrissy about the story first. What I thought was going to be a fairly brief conversation lasted well over an hour, and it was clear that it was a much deeper story than I had realized. And we had a series of ongoing conversations, and then I wound up spending a day with them down in Miami to really get them in a room together talking about each other.

So it was a remarkable experience for me listening to them. They're so bright and self-observant. They have a lot of emotional candor. They're 66 and 68 years old, and they've been through cancer, and they really have no filters anymore. They have no vanity. So it was a reporter's dream to tell you the truth.

MS. ALEMANY: Something about the piece that was so illuminating for me, because of sort of my lack of institutional knowledge on the topic, was just how much they both simultaneously paved the way for female athletes. You write about how it had once been considered unnatural for a woman to contend with such unembarrassed intensity, but that Evert and Navratilova made it more mainstream and sort of got the public accustomed with it.

You started covering sports in 1984. Did they inspire your approach to the craft in any way?

MS. JENKINS: Absolutely. They were a tremendous influence. I mean, I was 24 years old when I really started writing about them for the first time. First off, they were kind to a young female sports writer.

I mean, I'll tell you what a male-dominated profession it was back then. Chrissy and Martina's autobiographies were ghostwritten by men. That's how few female writers there were. Martina's co-author was George Vecsey of The New York Times, and Chrissy also used a former New York Times writer named Neil Amdur. So that gives you an indication of just what a male-dominated business it was.

So they recognized and saw young female sports writers coming up, and they were good to them. And I was one of those, number one. But number two, it's really true. Like, you know, the idea of competing with the fierceness that those two women did--and one of the things I did for the piece was go back and watch, start to finish, three of their greatest matches. And it really is a mother-of-dragons experience. I mean, it's striking even today, the intensity of that rivalry. And that was new, and it was really quite revolutionary at the time.

And as Chris Evert says so beautifully, what she really did and what Martina really did was give women permission to compete that way. They did it from completely opposite ends of the spectrum, of course, stylistically, temperamentally and visually, but that is what they both did. And they did it quite intentionally.

And to wind up as deep, great, soulful friends at the end of that tells you just what a joint endeavor that really was ultimately, even though they were contending for, you know, 18 Grand Slam titles each, often at each other's expense.

MS. ALEMANY: Everyone has to kill their darlings in our newsroom. What did you leave on the cutting room floor from file?

MS. JENKINS: Good question. I mean, you know, a lot of stuff wound up on the cutting room floor, and that's a great way to put it.

I mean, I think one of the ones that really killed me--and by the way, I snuck a couple of them back in when the editors weren't looking, but the one that got away, really, Martina has a lead quote in the story. She says, "Chrissy knew me better than I knew me," and that was really true. Chris could look at Martina in the locker room, and she knew from Martina's mannerisms and from whether she was talkative or quiet, how nervous Martina was. And she knew that if Martina was very talkative that she was nervous, that she was chatty and sort of over-amped, and Chrissy knew that that was going to be a pretty good day for her, that Martina wasn't as confident, you know, as she might have been.

And she told Martina that years later, and Martina was like, "Great. You know, now you tell me. You know, thanks a lot." But they knew things like that about each other. They could really read each other because it was just the two of them in that locker room, you know, waiting sometimes quite a long time to get on court and play their finals, which usually at a Grand Slam had to happen at the U.S. Open in between two men's semifinals. So they really spent a lot of pretty intense time studying each other in the locker room as well as on the court, and that didn't make the story.

MS. ALEMANY: Well, you got to wonder how much better their biographies would have been had they been written by women.

But I want to get back to soccer.

Share this articleShare

MS. JENKINS: And had they been older. Yeah, they were pretty young when they wrote those books too. I mean, they weren't--I mean, I think Chrissy was 23 when she wrote an autobiography, you know.

MS. ALEMANY: Yeah. I want to get back to soccer for a quick second and sort of in the vein of what you had said that they both sort of have, as Rihanna would say, no F's left to give.

MS. JENKINS: Yeah. [Laughs]

MS. ALEMANY: But Navratilova responded to comments made recently by Megan Rapinoe about trans athletes, and so I want to get your take on this about where you think this debate is going. Obviously, the two of them do disagree with each other, and what is next in line for the debate about which teams that trans athletes should play for?

MS. JENKINS: Yeah. I mean, this is the toughest issue in terms of the intensity of argument on both sides that I've ever encountered in 40 years of sports writing. The feelings run so high, and I've got, you know, longtime acquaintances in sports. You know, Billie Jean King is on one side of the issue, and Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova or Diana Nyad are on another side of the issue. So it's very divisive, and it's--my answer is I don't think the science is settled, and I've written about this.

You know, Navratilova's take on it is that she is a great human rights champion and always has been. She had a wonderful friendship and does with Renée Richards. She was--she had a partnership with Renée Richards, played doubles with her. Renée Richards was her coach. She has a deep, very affectionate history with the trans community. Her issue is not a human rights issue. Her issue is a very, very narrow one. Her concern is that testosterone is a legacy athletic advantage.

I don't know if the science on that is entirely settled. Some people argue that it is. Some people argue that it isn't. So that is where a Megan Rapinoe and a Martina Navratilova, who agree on 99.8 percent of the things in this world, they do disagree on that. And, you know, I really don't know where that issue is headed. I think there needs to be a lot more work done about adolescence and testosterone and legacy and advantage. Is there an advantage left over in terms of muscle mass or skeletal development or any other potential built-in advantages that are unfair? I am not sure, personally, of the answer to that question.

I certainly favor participation in high school for everyone. Everyone in high school is on the way to becoming someone else, quite frankly, and I just think from a basic human rights standpoint, that is the right thing to do.

It is a different question at the more elite level where scholarships and livelihoods are at stake. Testosterone is on the banned list competitively as an enhancer and as an advantage, and so it's a question. You know, that's my best answer. I think the best answer here right now and the fairest answer is I don't know where this is headed.

MS. ALEMANY: I want to dive into your book, "The Right Call," which is such a great read for everyone, sports enthusiasts or not. But you debunk many myths in the book, one of which is that champions are born, and you say that champions, in fact, are made. Can you unpack that a little bit for us?

MS. JENKINS: Sure. I mean, you know--and this relates to what we were just talking about too. One of the things that makes a really great athlete is--it's not muscle necessarily. It's not built-in advantages in height or agility. What makes a great athlete is the efficiency of the messaging system between the brain to the body and the body back to the brain. Everything a great athlete does is, on some level, a decision. There are micro decisions constantly. When you see a Steph Curry in the NBA making a beautiful three-point shot or Patrick Mahomes in the NFL making a great, you know, surprising pass, those things are micro decisions, and they are based--they are skill-based, not talent-based. And that is the sum total of the most knowledge I've acquired over 40 years.

The most profound insight I can offer--and it's simple; it's not profound--is that champions are, in fact, made. Talent is a fractional component in what they ultimately do at the most elite level, and one great example of that is Peyton Manning, who was the son of a great NFL quarterback, Archie Manning. Peyton was a great, you know, early top-draft pick, certainly born with lots of advantages, but by his third year in the NFL, his one-loss record was 32 and 32, and he led the league in interceptions. So it is simply not true to say that Peyton Manning was always destined to be a Hall of fame quarterback. He is a self-made man, just like all the great champions I've ever covered.

MS. ALEMANY: Something I really love about the book is that I feel like it's given me a whole new vocabulary at times in the past when I'm trying to articulate the impact of sports on my adult and professional life. I sort of cringe at how maudlin and cheesy I can sound.

MS. JENKINS: [Laughs]

MS. ALEMANY: But you talk about it in such technical terms and with just very, very quirky and magnetic terms that I love, one of which being a term, a phrase that you write that your dad used with you often, which is what--the "athletic heart." And I'm wondering. You said that your dad used to posit to you, you know, who can best describe the athletic heart, which you have obviously dedicated your life to doing. What--can you define the athletic heart for us sort of in the vein of champions being made and not born?

MS. JENKINS: The athletic heart is just aspirational. It's just highly aspirational, and it's the desire to put all your chips in the middle of the table and possibly break your own heart, disappoint yourself with your performance.

I mean, the great Pat Summitt, I did three books with Pat before--she was the great Tennessee basketball coach. And Pat, you know, told me, just like my dad did, most people are afraid to go all in. Pat said they're afraid to say, "That's the best I can do." And it's an inhibitor that that instinct to say, "I'm going to hold back a little bit because I don't want to disappoint myself, and I don't want to have to say, oh, I failed." And I think the great ones, that's the real separator there.

Champions are willing to break their own hearts. They really are, and that's the best that I can describe it. You know, I see so many people who feign nonchalance about something, and I certainly did that earlier in my career, because if you feel like, well, I don't care that much about this, then you don't have to disappoint yourself, and you don't disappoint other people. And you--but if you go about it with, again, that phrase, "unembarrassed intensity," if you commit to doing that, you can really surprise yourself.

MS. ALEMANY: Which athlete throughout the course of your career have you covered who you think--whose fear of success, as you phrase it throughout the book, prevented them from becoming, getting to that next superstar level?

MS. JENKINS: You know, that's a really good question. I mean, I think that for a while it was Andre Agassi. He was a great child prodigy. No question that for a long time he was afraid of going all in on tennis, maybe resented it because he'd been sent off to tennis camps when he was very, very young. The beautiful thing about Andre was that he flipped the script in mid-career and decided to commit. But that would be one example.

I think--I'm trying to think. I, mean, you know, so many young NFL players that I've seen, you know, thought they had it and thought they knew what they were doing, and they don't stay around in the league very long. They may last two or three years because the team has bet on them, and they just don't study. They don't understand what components really go into curing their bad habits, or they don't understand just how calculating teams are, and they don't understand how calculating they have to be.

I mean, there's innumerable examples actually, but what's really beautiful is that so many of those turn it around. What's great--I mean, you know, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Super Bowl-winning team a couple years ago--this is always my favorite exercise--is to count at the Super Bowl how many players on each team were not drafted coming out of college. There's always a long list of undrafted free agents that have made it onto a Super Bowl team. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers actually had 27 players who had been rated two stars or less in high school, meaning below average in terms of the rest of the talent that was being evaluated. And what's so important about that statistic to me is that what it says is a lot of times the five-star kids, the five-star, the top draft picks, those guys may end up coasting on talent a bit more because they think, "Well, I've got it. You know, I've got the magic." And it's the two-star-or-less guys who wind up being the ones in the Super Bowl.

MS. ALEMANY: I want to get to a great audience question that we have from Suzette in D.C., and she is wondering, "What toll, if any, does imposter syndrome play in the success of male athletes versus female athletes in sports performance?"

MS. JENKINS: Yeah. I mean, we've all got it, right? And the imposter syndrome is--you know, I think that it's huge for all athletes. I think they're all afraid they're imposters, and even if they do it once, they're afraid they can't do it again. They're really chased by that notion.

I mean, you know, someone asked Peyton Manning, just to use another example from Peyton because he was very good about talking to me for this book, when he signed his huge rookie contract, someone said, "What do you--that's a lot of money. You know, what are you going to do with it?" And Peyton said, "I'm going to try to earn it," right?

You know, Tom Brady was absolutely haunted by the specter of quite good enough in being an imposter out there, and the result was eight Super Bowl rings.

Patrick Mahomes wasn't--he's the greatest quarterback in the league now. Patrick Mahomes wasn't very highly regarded coming out of college. He played at--he wasn't a very prominent college quarterback.

Josh Allen, the quarterback of the Buffalo Bills--Josh Allen didn't have a single scholarship offer coming out of high school.

You know, the imposter syndrome chases a lot of these people. It's very interesting.

MS. ALEMANY: And from a journalistic perspective, I have to ask you a little bit more about your process which you do actually sort of detail side by side, your stories about athletes extensively throughout the book. You open the book by recounting one of the questions you once asked Steph Curry which was, "Can I feel your hands?"

MS. JENKINS: Yeah.

MS. ALEMANY: It's a genius question, and I think one that many journalists would be too embarrassed or afraid to ask. One, can you describe what his hands felt like? And then--

MS. JENKINS: Yeah.

MS. ALEMANY: --can you also give us a little bit of advice on how you approach your subjects and how you craft these questions that elicit such interesting and illuminating answers?

MS. JENKINS: You know, I mean, I think one thing to always be conscious of--my father always told me, you know, "Don't ever forget that there's a million people would love to be sitting in your seat, you know, at that--in that press box at that big game," or, I mean, how many people would like to talk to Steph Curry about his process? Right? And so you try to think of the questions that, you know, anybody who got the chance to talk to him would ask, and, you know, look--"Can I look at your hands?" is just such an instinctive question to ask. "And can I feel them?" Right? And his hands were shocking. I mean, they were the hardest, thickest, flakiest calluses. I mean, they were so rough, and his shot is so smooth, right? And it was just a real--[audio distortion]--contrast. And a lot of NBA teams actually keep big tubs of manicure wax around because their players work so hard and they shoot so many practice shots that their hands really do get super flaky, you know, and calloused. And Steph Curry was telling me, you know, "I try to use that wax, but it really doesn't do much good," because he shoots 2,000 practice shots a day. I mean, he literally--he had the hands of a logger. You know, it was like he was wielding an axe all day long, practically. So that was a real--that was a surprise.

But you try to ask questions like that, questions that anyone sitting in that privileged seat would like to know the answer to. And quite frankly, I think sometimes those people, whether it's a Megan Rapinoe or a Steph Curry or a Peyton Manning, they enjoy those questions too. I mean, they spend a lot of time being asked, "What was the pitch?" or "What was the play?" And that stuff is pretty mundane to them. It's not exactly the most interesting part of what they do. It's critical, of course, but the X's and O's are really kind of the least of it, just like talent.

What's really interesting is the psychology of it and the neurology of it, again, the messaging system between the body and the brain and the super efficiency that they achieve with hard work that's so beautiful, they take something that is so tedious and so granular and they make it in time so beautiful and really, you know, like ballet, right? It's almost magic, you know, and that's the most interesting part. And they appreciate being asked about that stuff, I think.

MS. ALEMANY: Yeah. That's what I always try to remember with subjects. At the end of the day, people like to talk about themselves, but there is a lot of--go ahead.

MS. JENKINS: I would say like frank curiosity is pretty disarming, you know. People, they take more kindly to that than you beating around the bush and trying to ask a--couch a polite question because then they're like, "Well, what is she really after? What's she really doing here?" And so I think just a straightforward, curious question can kind of win the day, you know, in interviewing people.

MS. ALEMANY: There is a lot of speculation about how artificial intelligence is going to transform industries writ large, but the sports industry is obviously not exempt from this. Can you talk quickly a little bit about how the industry is expected to change in coming months and years because of AI?

MS. JENKINS: Well, I mean, you know, qualitative data, you know, data has been an increasingly interesting subject for all teams who are trying to make decisions under pressure, whether it's baseball, trying to evaluate talent, or whether it's NBA teams trying to look at shooting efficiencies for players. AI has even helped free-throw shooters in the NBA. I think they've used some virtual reality, at times, devices to try to help players and improve their shots. And so there are applications of it that are interesting.

You know, I also--look, let's face it. AI is inherently plagiaristic, okay, from my standpoint, from the standpoint of people who are creative. Its applications on things like infrastructure or efficiency, form efficiency of free-throw shooting, things like that could be really, really interesting. So, you know, I think it--I think it's going to grow, but the bottom line to me is that even then, what happens so much of the time is that the human factor, it can be so unpredictable. Humans aren't data, especially on a playing field. And so a fourth down situation in the NFL for a coach, AI may tell a decision X, but then human beings have to go out there on that field and execute decision X. And they may do Y, you know. They may do Z. And so it's ultimately, you know, you have to have rapport with your people, and your people have to understand your intentionality and what you're doing and why, so that they can execute it with real faith in the decision. And I don't think AI can give you that.

MS. ALEMANY: And I can't let you get away without answering a question about golf.

MS. JENKINS: Yeah.

MS. ALEMANY: PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan had returned to work this week after a health-related absence. His future with the tour is unknown due to an agreement he signed with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. What do you think his next move should be?

MS. JENKINS: Resignation. I think Jay Monahan needs to resign. I think he betrayed his constituency. I think he violated his duties as a commissioner of the PGA Tour when he didn't consult his players who he allegedly works for, purportedly works for. I think questions need to be asked about what he and the two other policy board directors, who clearly have something to gain from this deal, which is seats on a new for-profit company board. I think there needs to be serious questions asked about what their compensation will be, what the understandings are about what advantages they will gain if this deal goes through. That's just for starters.

I also think there's a big fallacy out there that the Saudis were ready to continue to lose money hand over fist in golf. There is no evidence, as a reporter, to suggest that the Saudis take kindly to losing or just dropping a billion dollars at a time. They got wiped out. Their stake in Credit Suisse got wiped out, and the head of the Saudi National Bank actually resigned as a result of that loss.

They have lost well over that in LIV golf. They have put--they put a billion dollars into it for absolutely nothing. They--another at least $700 million and counting has gone into it this season. They've got no television rights. They were unable to sign a TV deal. They've got no endorsements to speak of. It's strictly pouring cash into a black hole, and if this deal doesn't go down, it will be a complete loss. And so there is just real serious questions as to why the PGA Tour would ever make this deal with the Saudis when there's no evidence that it really had to happen. They didn't seek any other capital. They didn't seek any other bidders. It was a completely closed process, and the entire deal absolutely stinks to high heaven.

MS. ALEMANY: And on that note, Sally, we are unfortunately all out of time, and we're going to have to leave it there. Sally Jenkins from The Washington Post, thank you so much for joining us today.

MS. JENKINS: Thank you. Glad to be here.

MS. ALEMANY: And thanks to all of you for coming to watch us today. I’m Jackie Alemany, and to find out more about our upcoming programming, please head to WashingtonPostLive.com. Thanks so much, and see you all soon.

[End recorded session]

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZMSiv8eipaCsn6N6sbvSrWSloaaafHN8kWxmaW9fZ31wwNGapaybop69tXnLnq2epJmjtG68y5qwoqaXYrOqscudZLChpJ16tK3LpbBmopWjuKq60maYrqyYpL9uvsign61lk5a5rXs%3D