Hello, Flamethrower, Shereen here. I'm joined by Dr. Brenda Elsie, and we're here, a hot take on the horrifying story that Meglynhan and Katie String reported in The Athletic on Thursday,

September 30th, which was about former coach Paul Riley of the North Carolina Courage and

the allegations of sexual coercion that have emerged. We're also going to talk about

the response from the league and as well as

a response from players. Brenda, initial thoughts. Well, reading the story is harrowing. Like,

anytime you really delve deeply into these stories, it's not like the headline indicates.

It's not, it feels like more than the word harassment. It feels like more than the word, you know,

these players were groomed, they were manipulated, there were patterns of abuse. So it's great

reporting the way in which it's written really highlights that

fact that we know is the case in almost all of these situations, but just doesn't get conveyed

when there's like these brief, you know, these very brief headlines that just don't delve

into the story. And that's why, you know, really good journalism can can help,

you know, elucidate all of this. So initial reaction was that came across so clear to me that

this was over the course of years. This was an entire manipulation of a culture on a team. He would

take them out drinking. He would build up their confidence, crush their confidence.

There was a total lack of professionalism on his part any way that you see it, any way that you see

it. And it affected the entire team. It affected these women's lives tremendously. And, you know,

it's really frustrating that he was allowed to continue to

coach. That's one of the things that I think is really important to note and is that he was hired.

He was hired immediately after the Porns, the Thorns let him go to the Portland Thorns.

And I think this is something that needs to be said. And in a statement

yesterday, the Portland Thorns actually said, we take all complaints about harassment extremely

...