Columnist Dean Juipe: Arrogant S.I. immune to criticism of swimsuits

Dean Juipe

Saturday, Feb. 22, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

ARROGANCE AND arrogant people find their way into all walks of life, and though they're a bit boorish, they are part of what makes the world go around.

Examples abound in sports.

There's Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight, who is arrogant to this extreme: He's downright rude.

There's baseball star Albert Belle, who wouldn't give average people the time of day despite the fact they help pay his five-year, $55 million salary with the Chicago White Sox.

There's football star Michael Irvin, who adds to his schtick by surrounding himself with acquaintances of dubious character.

There's boxer Mike Tyson, who almost always refuses to answer questions with anything other than doublespeak and insultingly simple, mindless responses.

There's boxing promoter Don King, who adds a pompous touch to his self-serving rantings.

From recent eras there were characters like tennis brat John McEnroe and barely approachable superstars like baseball's Pete Rose and football's Jim Brown.

From bygone days there was baseball's first commissioner, Judge Landis, whose all-powerful style was heavy on intimidation and light on compassion. He not only banned eight members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox for life (even though seven were acquitted in a court of law and the eighth was never tried for influencing the outcome of that year's World Series), he had the chutzpah to suspend Babe Ruth (and two others) in 1922 for having spent the winter with a barnstorming team that crisscrossed America.

Each of these people took or have taken a too-bad-if-you-don't-like-it view of their position in life. And crucial toward their snobbish approach, they had the money to be themselves, even if being themselves grated on their fellow man. (For the sake of balance and to point out there is no direct correlation between wealth, fame and arrogance, look no further than basketball's Michael Jordan, a fabulously rich and influential man who remains graciously down to earth.)

Arrogance also long ago infiltrated such power structures as network TV and assorted sports leagues.

It's evident as it pertains to television in how the networks impart their will upon not only their immediate audience but the crowd at a game and the game itself, with regularly scheduled timeouts and longer and longer delays between innings, quarters, etc., all in the name of generating additional commercial revenue.

As for sports leagues, while the NCAA has come down a bit off its high horse, its superior and prejudicial attitude is legendary.

Likewise, Major League Baseball has a serious image problem due to its incredible wealth, its pleas of poverty, its almost continual labor strife and its failure to maintain the low ticket prices that once made the sport the national pastime. (Just Friday, the White Sox announced an increase in ticket prices that jacked bleacher seats to an unprecedented $14, largely in part to pay Belle's immense salary.)

Even the PGA Tour is getting a bit uppity, as its players are talking about banning the press from locker rooms, which will do nothing more than further distance Joe Fan from the golfing elite.

All of which brings us to Sports Illustrated and the arrogant approach it takes with its annual swimsuit issue. The magazine now perceives itself to be so big, so above reproach, that it really doesn't care who or how many take offense at its thinly disguised stab at sexual innuendo.

There was a time when S.I. tread gently in this area, offering only a few swimsuit shots on a once-a-year basis in a February issue ostensibly designed to give snowbound readers a tropical reprieve. That was bad enough.

Now, however, the swimsuit issue runs a full 260 pages and is a huge money maker for its parent company, Time-Warner.

It's not that the photo layouts are offensive themselves; they're obviously tame by modern pornographic standards. No, the complaint here is simple enough: Subscribers to a sports magazine don't automatically want the sleaze of a swimsuit issue delivered to their door.

Worse, while it once appeared S.I. was at least mildly sensitive to criticism of its swimsuit issue, now it all but thumbs its nose at those who disapprove. Check the magazine's Letters to the Editor column next week: There will be a handful with romantic overtones and only a couple expressing complaint.

This isn't a matter of being a prude, it's a question of taste.

The S.I. swimsuit issue is not obscene but it's inappropriate. It's far too accessible for thousands of unsuspecting youngsters.

There's no reason for the issue to exist and no reason that this country's women's organizations haven't cohesively banned together to fight it.

As it stands, the swimsuit issue is ingrained in the S.I. cycle and won't easily be dislodged. For an otherwise great magazine, Sports Illustrated should be embarrassed.

Arrogance, however, prevents it.