Kid-Glove Treatment OK For High Schoolers; WNBA, Griner Delusional To Expect It

We all go through stages in life in which expectations are relative to age and experience. The scale understandably slides as we grow and mature.

When we’re in first grade, we’re not expected to do algebra. When we’re in junior high, we’re not expected to know how to apply for a mortgage.

When we’re in high school, we’re not expected to know how to be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. When we’re in college, we’re not expected to (this is a tricky one…I have two college-aged kids!) act like complete adults 100 percent of the time.

Same idea for athletes and their relationship with the press. Expectations of being able to maturely deal with the press grow as you progress from one level to the next.

Of course, it’s more obvious than ever that the WNBA, which is now in the business of black-balling media outlets (OutKick) from games and shielding grown adults (veteran player Brittney Griner) from tough questions, never got the memo on this. 

READ: WNBA Refuses To Grant OutKick Media Credentials; What Is The League Hiding?READ: Riley Gaines, Clay Travis, And More React To WNBA Shutting Out OutKick

The WNBA is trying to ignore videos of Griner mouthing what looks like ‘f***ing white girl’ while at the same time launching a 10-day investigation into phantom acts of racism by fans allegedly directed at a black player (Angel Reese). At the same time, the league seemingly expects its players to get the same kid-glove treatment from the press that they once got when they were high school athletes. Laughable.

High School Athletes: Handle With Care

And yes. There is a kid-glove treatment by the press for high schoolers, as there should be. High school athletes are tricky, and there is a code that any good reporter who covers high school athletes follows.

High school athletes, for the most part, are minors. They have developing minds and bodies. They make mistakes.

Reporters who cover high school athletes will quote them after games and write feature stories about them. But the reporters, if they are reputable, aren’t out to expose high school athletes or criticize them unnecessarily – even when they mess up in a game, or in life. Much care is taken in the coverage of high school athletes.

College Athletes: Delicate But Not Above Every Tough Question

College athletes, some of whom are still minors or VERY, VERY young adults, are kind of under the same umbrella. Sure, it’s not all kid-glove. There is a little more scrutiny, and a little more latitude in the coverage of college athletes. But, typically, reporters who cover college sports still direct most of their toughest questions and criticisms at the coaches. (Of course, this might change the further we get into the NIL Era, in which college athletes are now basically junior pros.)

Pro Athletes: Bring It (With Class)

Then there are pro athletes. I don’t think any sports reporter ever sets out to be nasty to anyone he or she covers. But at this level, gloves have to be off. As a reporter, you can be polite, dignified, even kind. In fact, I would recommend that approach. Always. But you can’t shy away, like the WNBA reporters of today are doing, when the going gets tough.

ATLANTA – Brittney Griner of the Atlanta Dream reacts to an official after being charged with an offensive foul against the Indiana Fever at State Farm Arena on May 22, 2025.  (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

WNBA reporters of today aren’t asking Griner ANYTHING about what she said on the bench, and when OutKick tried to set that into motion, we got black-balled.

In most circumstances, pro athletes are adults. If there’s a controversy or an uncomfortable moment, it needs to be covered. Reporters should be trying to be a window into professional sports for fans, who essentially pay the salaries of professional athletes. So reporters need to do their jobs, and pro athletes and pro organizations need to expect them to do just that, and cooperate. 

Back In The Day…In The WNBA 

I spent nearly three decades as a reporter and columnist for a newspaper in Chicago, covering nearly every sport from football and basketball to volleyball and softball, covering boys and girls, women and men.

I covered every level of sports, from high school sports to college sports and professional sports.

Each day, I was knee-deep in this sliding scale of media coverage. High school athletes get this coverage, pro athletes get that coverage, and so on.

For nearly 15 years, I covered the WNBA, specifically the Chicago Sky. Let me just say, having had that experience, I am so incredibly disappointed in the WNBA and its handling of OutKick’s request for media credentials to a recent game.

But am I surprised? No. Absolutely not.

This is a league that has always been, and is still, in need of coverage. But suddenly there is no room at the media inn for one reporter from OutKick during a run-of-the-mill regular season game? Um, no. I call BS. Major BS.

This is nothing more than what we all know it is: the WNBA is running cover for itself and for Griner. The league doesn’t want the negative attention that questions about the ‘f***ing white girl’ incident would bring.

The WNBA, long known for coddling its players, is trying to control the media narrative, and couldn’t be more obvious about it.

Back when I covered the league, at least these efforts were a little more covert.

Then again, they often weren’t necessary.

Photo: Via Patricia Babcock McGraw

For starters, it was a different time. Social media was in its infancy. There wasn’t the daily barrage of content that provided a constant source of potential conflict or controversy to worry about.

WNBA games were mostly just…games, not opportunities for racism to lurk around every corner, or for perpetual lectures on social justice. 

Teams were just trying to be successful teams. Players were often just trying to be really good players, and some were even trying to be role models for little girls.

Back then, the WNBA, specifically the Chicago Sky, never once asked me to write a certain way, or to avoid asking tough questions. Maybe because there wasn’t a lot of controversy to write about.

Yet, and this is what I meant earlier about covert, even back then, there was still a strange vibe around the WNBA in relation to the media.

Breanna Stewart of the New York Liberty talks to the media during practice and media availability at the 2023 WNBA Finals on October 17, 2023 in Brooklyn, New York. Hope those reporters were behaving! (Photo by David Dow/NBAE via Getty Images)

Whenever anything even remotely uncomfortable did come up with a player or the league (and again, that wasn’t often), there was almost a wink-and-a-nod “understanding” that if you went against the grain too much as a reporter, you were somehow in defiance of “the progress, the movement.”

What do I mean by that?

Relatively speaking, the WNBA is a young league. 28 years old. Women’s professional sports in the United States, particularly team sports, are relatively new too.

After years of struggle and no opportunity for women’s sports here, it’s as if we (journalists, fans, Earthlings) are supposed to be so happy that women’s pro sports now finally exist that only happy thoughts are allowed. 

To do anything else, to scrutinize, to criticize, even if warranted, it’s almost as if you are detracting from a monumental, historic movement: the emergence of women’s sports. 

WNBA: Missing The Point With Media Access

But what the WNBA missed then, and is still missing now, is that open and honest coverage isn’t being a hater, or sabotaging “the movement.” Honest coverage is actually what will help the league grow and seem more authentic and appealing to fans. Everyone loves stories of both triumph…AND of struggle/controversy/tough times. That balance is what makes you real.

For the WNBA to shelter its players from tough questions is insulting to fans, and quite frankly insulting to the players themselves. Do we really think Brittney Griner, age 34 and a pro for 12 years, can’t handle some media questions? Even about an uncomfortable topic? Please. 

See, Brittney. Taking questions from the media isn’t hard. You’ve done it before. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

All Griner has to do is take the questions, say that she didn’t say what she’s being accused of (even if she did), say that she has no beef with Caitlin Clark (even if she does) and this whole thing dies. And probably quickly. Easy PR 101 stuff here.

Regarding the reporters: I’m not giving current WNBA reporters a pass for not being tough on the league and its players. They should have been asking Griner the question that OutKick wants to ask her. They haven’t.

But you’ve seen what the WNBA does to outlets and reporters it sees as being problematic and unsupportive of “the movement.” Like OutKick now, you’re left on the outside looking in. So there’s a part of me that gets it.

WNBA: Time For A Change

The main problem here is with the WNBA and the players who want/demand media coverage during the good times, but duck for cover, or fire back at you with indignation, when times are bad or controversy swirls, and you dare to bring it up.

The WNBA is a professional league. Its athletes are professionals. There are already a lot of detractors of the league out there, and there are a lot of reasons people say they can’t take the WNBA seriously. This can’t be one of them. This is amateurish.

So stop hiding, WNBA. Stop hiding, Brittney Griner. Take some tough media questions like a pro.

Even high schoolers have been known to do it.

Look at this! Found a pic of Shaquille O’Neal taking on the media as a high schooler. Here he is as the center for the Cole High School basketball team after the Cougars won the Class 3A state basketball championship on March 2, 1989 at the Steinke Event Center in Kingsville, Texas. (Photo by Allsport/Getty Images)

Quick story: Back when I covered high schoolers, I used to have some coaches shield players from talking with reporters after losses. The coaches would say that the players were just “way too upset.”

I would always remind coaches of the code that reporters typically adhere to with high school players, and I would also tell them that if their athletes are happy to talk with reporters after wins, they should be able to handle talking after losses, too.

Usually, once they thought about it like that, the coaches wound up agreeing with me. They would tell me that talking after a loss was probably a good way for their kids to do “grown-up things.”

Please, WNBA: Grow up.

Will the WNBA ever get its act together? Will the WNBA ever give OutKick another media credential? Will the WNBA or Griner ever address what she said from the bench? Let me know your thoughts: patricia.babcockmcgraw@outkick.com.