Even Playboy Magazine is going without nudity now, so Bengals tackle Andrew Whitworth is hoping the NFL Network can follow Hugh Hefner’s daring lead.
Whitworth was one of the players who could be seen naked during the league’s own network’s post-game interview with Adam Jones, and he wasn’t happy about it. But it wasn’t just for the sake of propriety, as Whitworth wants to change the league’s longstanding media policies.
“Being a guy that has been a player rep and a guy that’s always been against this policy, it’s a great example of why the open [locker] room policy is old and needs to change,” Whitworth said, via Paul Dehner Jr. of the Cincinnati Enquirer. “You can’t judge us off who we will and won’t accept into our locker room and then say all these things we have to do, but then also put us in a situation where every single day I have to change clothes and be naked or not in front of media. It’s just not right. There’s no office, there’s no other situation in America where you have to do that. It’s dated, it’s old and it needs to change.”
Locker rooms are closed for a 10-minute cooling off period after games before reporters are allowed in, and the league dictates that media be allowed in for 45 minutes a day on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The rules are not unique to the NFL.
“This is my office space,” Whitworth said. “I shouldn’t have to change in it and be in front of people I don’t know or really don’t have any purpose for being near me other than the fact they are interviewing other people. If I was a woman, this would be a completely different subject, and it would be a complete firestorm. We can’t always just serve women and everyone else. Men deserve a right, too. We have rights. We have privacy. We deserve all the things we want as well. As a man, I think it’s right the policy is changed.”
Whitworth also has a right to a towel, an item which remains readily available in every NFL locker room for the wet and the shy. He said his primary concern was the teasing his 16-year-old daughter had to take at school the next day (it was easier to tease Bengals’ kids in the old days simply for their dads being Bengals).
The league has apologized for the mistake, but spokesman Greg Aiello said there’s been no discussion of changing the rules for years.
But the league clearly dropped the ball twice, once with the camera guy who failed to keep a tight enough shot on his subject to preclude accidental nudity in the background, and again when a producer let it stay on the air.
While Whitworth’s propriety is noble, at a time when access is slowly but steadily moving in the wrong direction, closing locker rooms to reporters would be a step too far.
