VIDEO Today Show piece on Elizabeth Lambert the soccer ponytail puller

Elizabeth Lambert

University of New Mexico women’s soccer player Elizabeth Lambert made headlines during a tournament match against Brigham Young University when she grabbed the ponytail of a BYU player and pulled her violently to the ground. The incident went unpunished during the match, but after reviewing the video afterward the New Mexico head coach suspended Elizabeth “indefinitely.” Here is a piece on the incident from the Today Show:

Here’s just the raw video footage from Youtube:

Further instances of Elizabeth’s propensity for gratuitous violence were uncovered after looking closely at the rest of the video, including a double punch to the head and a punch between the shoulder blades administered to an opponent who slipped Elizabeth a slightly less gratuitous elbow to the chest.

Lambert’s response to the incident:

“I let my emotions get the best of me in a heated situation. I take full responsibility for my actions and accept any punishment felt necessary.”

There has been a lot of discussion over whether or not there is a gender-based double standard in sports when it comes to what is too much violence, mostly stemming from the recent incident involving University of Florida football player Brandon Spikes, who was caught on tape during a game against the University of Georgia trying to gouge out the eye of opposing player Washaun Ealey. Spikes received a half game suspension.

I don’t know about a gender bias – I see this as more of a financial issue. Brandon Spikes is an All-American linebacker for a football program that generates hundreds of millions of dollars for the University of Florida, so of course the head coach and school are going to go a little easier on something like this. (I don’t know how much revenue the University of New Mexico’s women’s soccer team pulls in, but I’m guessing it’s not enough to cover the negative publicity from an incident like this.) That being said, I do fault the NCAA for not being more severe in their punishment of Spikes. He was trying to gouge out the eyes of a defenseless player! He should be suspended for the rest of the season and be forced to twiddle his thumbs until the NFL draft, at which point he can start making his $5 million a year salary.

Here is video of Brandon Spikes doing his best non-self-inflicted Oedipus impersonation. (The quality is kinda bad, but that’s because someone – I don’t know if it’s the NCAA or CBS – is doing a big time crackdown on this video on youtube.)

I can’t imagine Elizabeth Lambert won’t be permanently removed from the team eventually. Perhaps she should also look at entering the NFL draft – she definitely seems to have the appropriate amount of aggression and there are a surprising amount of long hair to pull in professional football!

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