A 2005 video of Donald Trump making lewd and aggressive comments regarding women surfaced on Friday, October 7. In response to the video Trump released a statement calling the comments “locker room banter.” Two days later in the Presidential debate Trump would refer to his comments as “locker room talk” on three occasions.
The unwritten rule of locker room talk is that it stays in the locker room. Traditionally, though, this is in regards to the inner workings and drama of the team. Conflict amongst teammates, coaching staff and management is meant to stay in-house and out of the public eye.
Pierce College Athletic Director Bob Lofrano has been around sports most of his life, both playing and coaching baseball at Pierce. Lofrano sees Trump’s categorization of his comments as locker room talk as “a slap in the face to athletes all over the world.”
“Athletes are the ones in locker rooms, that’s their home away from home,” Lofrano said. “That’s pretty tough language to hear and then say that’s just locker room talk. I haven’t been in a locker room where I heard talk like that. Not to say it doesn’t happen, but on a personal level I don’t think it’s something that’s in locker rooms. Every [male] athlete usually has a girlfriend, a wife, sister, mother.”
Men’s basketball coach Charles White agrees with Lofrano in regards to not hearing talk like that.
“I don’t know what kind of locker room talk Trump was talking about,” White said. “In our locker room we talk about basketball. We talk history. Kobe Bryant, Dr. J., sports icons, that’s what we talk about. Every once in awhile we might throw some girls in there, but its sports mostly.”
The negative connotation around locker room talk generally resides in the male locker room. Women’s soccer coach Adolfo Perez sees the difference in the style of talk in the women’s locker room.
“Their talk is a lot different,” Perez said. “What’s going on, social media, the newest trends. That’s their locker room talk.”
