SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- David Rosen, historian and author of Sex Scandal America: Politics & the Ritual of Public Shaming, has released his list of Top Ten Sports Sex Scandals of All Time and not surprisingly, Tiger Woods is not on it.

Rosen says, "Scandals serve as a battleground over moral order. Scandals involving interracial liaisons, like the Tiger Woods affair, are especially captivating to the media and the public."

However, Rosen goes on to observe, "When the media spectacle settles down Tiger Woods affair doesn't even merit inclusion on the top 10 list of all-time sports sex scandals."

Here is David Rosen's list of the all-time top 10 list of sports sex scandals:

Scandal #10 - Rick Pitino

While the Woods scandal continues to play out, the Rick Pitino scandal has faded from public attention. Like Woods, Pitino, the head coach of the University of Louisville basketball team, was outed over an extra-marital affair, this one involving the estranged wife of his longtime aide and the team's equipment manager. Abortion and extortion also became factors in this messy scandal which is now the subject of a federal criminal proceeding.

Scandal #9 - Kobe Bryant

In 2003, Bryant, a Los Angeles Lakers basketball player, then 24-years-old, was arrested for the alleged sexual assault of a 19-year-old woman who worked at the Colorado hotel-spa where he was staying. After two-plus years of media hype and pretrial machinations, the charges against Bryant were thrown out because the alleged victim refused to testify.

Scandal #8 - Marv Albert

Albert is a popular sports broadcaster who had a trademark, "Yes!," to emphasize a score. In 1997, he was accused of sexual assault and became the subject of media headlines when the extent of his sexual life, including crossdressing, came out during a trial. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and battery for biting a former lover during a rendezvous-gone-wrong. He was forced from lucrative deals with NBC and MSG Network, but was ultimately rehabilitated.

Scandal #7 - Mark Chmura

In April 2000, Chmura, a tight end for the Green Bay Packers, was arrested for sexual assault and child enticement. His child's former babysitter claimed he raped her in the bathroom at an after-prom party. After a bruising trial, covered on Court TV with tireless commitment to detail, he was acquitted.

Scandal #6 - Richard Seigler

Seigler, a former Pittsburgh Steeler and San Francisco 49er linebacker, was charged with pandering, providing transportation for a prostitute and living off the earnings of a prostitute.

Scandal #5 - Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich

In 1973, two New York Yankee lefthanders, Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich, introduced wife swapping to professional sports and all Americans. They were best friends and lived near each other in New Jersey. In '72, the two athletes and their wives attended a "swap club" at the home of New York sportswriter Maury Allen. The following spring, they showed up at training and announced that they had swapped wives over the winter. Peterson traded wife, Marilyn, two kids and a poodle to Kekich for Susanne, the two Kekich kids and a Bedlington terrier.

Scandal #4 - Viking Love Boat

In October 2005, seventeen members of the Minnesota Vikings football team, including quarterback Daunte Culpepper, Fred Smoot, Bryant McKinnie and Moe Williams, along with some eighty other people, attended an all-day fete on Lake Minnetonka, MN. Apparently, prostitutes from Atlanta and Florida were flown in for the party and some, but not all, of the players performed sexual acts in front of the crew. Smoot and McKinnie pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct and each paid a $1,000 fine and agreed to perform 48 hours of community service; Williams was found guilty on one count of disorderly conduct but was cleared on charges of indecent conduct and lewd or lascivious behavior; and charges against Culpepper were dropped.

Scandal #3 - Duke Lacrosse Players

In 2006, Duke lacrosse players held a bachelor party that captured the headlines for months. They apparently hired two exotic dancers to add some spice for what was to be a group of five male buddies. When the African American women arrived, the party turned out to be forty or so drunken team members of the all-white lacrosse team and their friends. What happened next remains clouded in confusion, forgetting, and falsification. In the end, the Duke players were exonerated of rape charges.

Scandal #2 - Maury Wills

When word got out that Wills, the famed L.A. Dodger base stealer, had an affair with the Hollywood star, Doris Day, one would think the sky had fallen. He was one of the first, post-Jackie Robinson Africa- American integration ball players; she was the queen of virginal white beauty. According to Wills and a Day biographer, the affair took place in the early '60s while Day was married.

Scandal #1 - Jack Johnson

America's gravest sex scandal involving an athlete ruined the life of Johnson, the first African-American world heavyweight-boxing champion. In a celebrated fifteen-round outdoor match in 1910, the black upstart knocked out James the "Boilermaker" Jeffries, the former world champion and "great white hope." The victory led the newly-formed Federal Bureau of Investigation to probe Johnson's sexual relations with white women, often prostitutes. He was prosecuted under the now long forgotten Mann Act -- a law that makes crossing a state line for sex a crime. Johnson was convicted, fled the country, returned and served a year in the Leavenworth penitentiary. When finally freed, his life was ruined.

David Rosen is a culture and media critic based in New York City. In Addition to Sex Scandal America, Rosen has also written Off-Hollywood: The Making and Marketing of Independent Films, as well as regularly contributing to publications and blogs about sexuality, pop-culture and the media. He has written for Counterpunch, Sexuality and Culture, Z-Magazine, Filmmaker Magazine, Mediachannel, and The Hollywood Reporter and San Francisco Focus.

Mr. Rosen is available to comment as an expert on all varieties of sex scandals. Media contact: Jesica Church (jeschurch@gmail.com).

SOURCE David Rosen

Back to top

RELATED LINKS
http://www.sexscandalamerica.com