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Review of “Training Rules”

If ever there was a film that needed a warning sticker on the package for “inducing possible outrage,” Training Rules is it. A documentary about the infamously homophobic head coach of Penn State Women’s basketball, Rene Portland, and her witch hunts against student athletes she suspected to be gay, it’s a powerful, righteously angry production.

Produced and directed by Dee Mosbacher and Fawn Yacker, it stands as one of the strongest documentaries about homophobia in women’s sports that we’ve ever seen.

During her 23-year reign, Coach Portland’s not-so-secret policies were among the longest standing and most openly hateful in the world of athletics. Her training rules were as insidious as they were simple: “No drinking. No drugs. No lesbians.”

The film wastes no time getting started. After a few quick sound bites from ex-players and Penn State employees, we begin with the central narrative arch that originally sparked Mosbacher and Yacker’s interest. In 2005, Jennifer Harris – then a leading scorer for the Penn State Lady Lions, was unceremoniously kicked off of the team. In 2006, she filed charges against Portland – and the school – for discrimination based on sexual orientation.

We’re not talking about a “benchwarmer” or a lazy player. Harris was a starter – a former track star and basketball prodigy who had been named one of the top 20 women’s basketball players in the entire country as a high schooler. She had a very real shot at the WNBA, until Portland put the kibosh on her hoop dreams prematurely.

Training Rules is basically Harris’ story – but thanks to a legal settlement, she can’t actually be a part of the telling. That doesn’t stop the filmmakers from getting her side. Her parents are interviewed extensively, and they make excellent use of ESPN interview footage of Harris, filmed shortly after she initially filed charges.

“I told her that I thought it was because she thought I was gay.” A soft-spoken, yet defiant Harris tells the camera. “She told me, ‘You know my views on that’ and ‘I’m not changing’, and ‘I’m still going to be the coach of Penn State and you’ll still be gone.'” It doesn’t get much clearer than that.

Harris’s story prompted other former players to come out and share their experiences, proving that the incident in 2005 was far from isolated. Much of the film weaves through Portland’s reign of terror from her early 1980s appointment as the head coach. Interviews with players through the 1980s and 1990s show that she had a long, consistent pattern of bigotry and malicious action against queer players.

The players were specifically told not to talk to any lesbians. And if anyone was a lesbian, Portland would take her scholarship away and ensure that she would never play again. Lisa Faloon, a player from the late 1980s lied about having a boyfriend “back home” and hid her letters and phone calls for four years. Superstar twins Corinne and Christine Gulas were shamed into leaving the team based on their sexuality, as was their friend, Cindy Davies.

In fact, the student didn’t even need to be a lesbian herself to inspire Portland’s foul play. If she did so much as associate with a “known lesbian,” a player would be booted from the program. This happened to Courtney Wicks, a straight player from the mid-90s who befriended a queer woman.

“If I could relate Penn State women’s basketball to any period of time, I would relate it to the McCarthy era”, she says, in an interview that opens the film. Wicks was sickened by the treatment she saw on the team, and she left for Syracuse University. However, she alleges that Portland messed with her medical records, keeping her off of the team in New York.

Sue Rankin, the out women’s softball coach, features prominently as a member of the athletic department who tried to put an end to Portland’s treatment, fighting for a sexual orientation clause put into the school’s non-discrimination policy, and eventually moving into a position at the school’s office for educational equity. She says in an early sequence, “I do think athletics is one of the last bastions in higher education where homophobia, heterosexism, sexism, racism – all of those things are still ok.”

All the while, each interviewee gives Portland credit where it’s due. She was an excellent coach when it came to winning games and signing top talent, a fact that everyone acknowledges. Her win-loss record was impeccable, but actual championships were scant – a fact that a former grad assistant hilariously chalks up to the lack of power lesbians on the team.

The film also briefly touches on the feminization of women in sports over time – a subject that deserves it’s own documentary, for sure. Part of it is tied into the perception (one that Portland held) of lesbians as being less feminine – particularly lesbian athletes. Much is made of the fact that Harris wore her hair in braids, that Faloon felt the need to wear skirts and dresses to games once she became a coach later on, and of the proliferation of ponytails on the court.

As a documentary, the presentation and execution are nearly flawless. Within the relatively short running time, Mosbacher and Yacker present a very clear case for Portland’s pattern of bigotry, using interviews that represent the full spectrum of players she discriminated against.

The Harris case serves as the narrative backbone, while the often poignant and emotional interviews with the Gulas twins; Rankin and Davies offer serious impact. High-energy footage from the court serves as an introduction to each player, backed up with the glossy production values of the ESPN footage and Penn State’s own videos.

It’s impossible not to wonder how many other schools have their own version of Rene Portland (and how many male coaches and athletes face the same issues), but the ending does inspire hope for the future of women’s athletics. One commends Jennifer Harris for her bravery in coming forward — and the filmmakers for taking on such a complicated, heavy topic so successfully.

Training Rules is now available on DVD from Wolfe Video.

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