ABSTRACT
Given the extensive amount of violence associated with sport both on and off the playing courts and fields, it is surprising that any one isolated incident of violence between two men would attract much media attention. Yet the amount of mainstream media coverage surrounding men's National Basketball Association (NBA) player Latrell Sprewell's attack on his coach, P.J. Carlesimo, has been quite remarkable. In the 3 months from the altercation (December 1, 1997) to the arbitration decision (March 4, 1998) not a day went by without several media stories about Sprewell in newspapers, magazines, and on television sports channels and news shows. The ways these stories were constructed revealed various meanings of violence within our society. In this paper I examine the way that violence is understood in sport in relation to the Sprewell/Carlesimo altercation and to the normalization of violence against women in American culture. This media analysis reveals how portrayals of the Sprewell/Carlesimo incident differ from descriptions of anti-woman violence committed by male athletes and coaches and what these differences in representation tell us about the cultural valuing of men over women.
