Megan Rapinoe Says Your Girl’s Sports Career Doesn’t Matter

CLAY: We wanted to make sure these quotes did not miss all of the attention that they so richly deserve. Remember when the U.S. women’s soccer team was so really likable, when they represented the United States, and they waved the United States flag and all of us gathered around? I went to —

BUCK: I watched some of the women’s championship soccer matches back in the day, you know?

CLAY: I did too. I took my family up to Canada. We had an amazing time in Vancouver, watched the U.S. women win. I actually — ’cause Fox was doing the event — went to the celebration afterwards. They were just such an incredibly likable group, and then they bought into, “Donald Trump is the worst human who has ever existed.” They refused to visit the White House. They took the lead from Megan Rapinoe, and Megan Rapinoe came out with some quotes. This is from TIME magazine.

She said, “Hey, I…” This is a real quote from somebody who is involved in athletics. “I would encourage everyone out there who is afraid someone’s going to have an unfair advantage over their kid,” by someone she means a transgender athlete, “to really take a step back and think what we’re actually talking about. We’re talking about people’s lives. I’m sorry. Your kid’s high school volleyball team just isn’t that important.”

Well, hold on a minute, Megan Rapinoe. You’re telling me that if some dude decides that he wanted to compete who is six-foot-five, that he wants to identify as a woman — and that my high school-athlete daughter who spent her entire life working alongside of her teammates to play — that I should just get over it and I shouldn’t care? We’re gonna tee off on that.

BUCK: We’re gonna come back to this. We’re not done.

CLAY: We are gonna tee off on this, because I think Megan Rapinoe is an absolute imbecile for this argument. Get your popcorn.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

CLAY: We agree here on Megan Rapinoe, which I just want to reemphasize, as we went to break, I saw these quotes in her TIME interview, and my head almost exploded. So let me hit you guys again. “We’re talking about people’s lives. I’m sorry. Your kids’ high school volleyball team isn’t that important,” and so she is saying that transgender athletes should be able to compete based on the gender they put out there.

Let me give you this example, Buck. You may not know this. The U.S. women’s team got beaten by a group of 15-year-old all-star boys soccer players in the state of Texas. This is the women’s World Cup-winning team; they got dominated by 15-year-old all-star boys. If men decided to play women’s soccer, they would take Megan Rapinoe’s spot in a heartbeat and there would be no women’s soccer players, period.

BUCK: Her argument is garbage on many, many levels. To your point obviously, the difference between male and female athletes is so pronounced that essentially a good high school male athlete will often outcompete top D1 female athletes —

CLAY: No doubt.

BUCK: — depending on the sort and even up to what would be a professional level. It depends. You have to line these up a little bit, but I would add to this, because we all know that the argument here is pushed by people who think this is an opportunity for virtue signaling and for self-aggrandizement. She’s basically done. Her career in sports is almost over so for her to sneer at people.

I mean, heaven forbid, but there’s another Megan Rapinoe out there somewhere who wants to be the best in her state in track and field, wants to be the best in her state as a striker on a soccer team and you’re gonna sneer at somebody who wants fair competition? I mean, what about if we just said, “You know what? Yeah, let’s just let high school male athletes take steroids. What’s the big deal? It’s just high school athletics! So some people want a little extra edge. Why do you want to stop them?”

Ah, but they say this is all about actualization, self-actualization; this is all about the identity of these individuals. Why is it so important for trans athletes to play on women’s teams? It’s just women’s high school athletics! Why does it matter so much? She says people’s lives are at stake? What, someone’s going to engage in self-harm if they’re trans is they can’t play on the women’s field hockey team? That’s a whole other conversation to be had, isn’t it? So she sneers and her argument doesn’t even make sense.

CLAY: Well, and somebody should have fired back at her because, okay, when does sports start mattering? Does the World Cup for women matter? And if she says, “Yes,” say, “Okay, what if Christian Pulisic decided tomorrow…?” For those of you who do not follow men’s soccer, Pulisic is one of the best players in American men’s soccer history. He’s a young guy who’s going to maybe be the best ever. What if he just decided that he was gonna be Christiana Pulisic and he wanted to play women’s so your because he had decided that he was transgender?

Well, he would be immediately the greatest women’s soccer player of all time, and there wouldn’t be a close second. Does Megan Rapinoe think that Christian Pulisic deciding to change his name to Christina and identify as a woman should be able to play in the women’s World Cup? If not, isn’t she not embracing her own version? And for whatever level… You know this, Buck. You coached high school soccer. To say sports don’t matter? A lot of kids put a tremendous amount of effort and intensity into trying to win a state championship in soccer —

BUCK: Oh, absolutely.

CLAY: — trying to win a district, trying to win a region.

BUCK: My kids that I coached got to the semifinals of the New York City archdiocese and championship which, at that time, that’s a big deal. New York City’s the largest city in the country. It’s a huge league. There are a lot of different teams. And, by the way, for those kids… Again, for her, for Rapinoe to sneer at other girls trying to make their way? Oh, that D1 scholarship they may get to volleyball, it’s all a big joke now? That doesn’t matter? We don’t elevate these female athletes? We don’t understand that what they do is important? Not as important as the trans agenda, apparently.

CLAY: Yeah, that’s right.

BUCK: That’s what she’s saying, and honestly, it’s just gross. Her whole approach to this shows such a lack of appreciation for, one, what she was able to… The fact we’re sitting here now in the biggest radio show in the country talking about this person who obviously doesn’t have a grasp of politics in any meaningful way, and it shows that she is ungrateful and just brainwashed some of these other people who come forward and say, “Yeah, who cares about the girls who have to change in the locker room with these guys? You know who cares?” Everybody listening to this radio show. That’s who cares. America cares.

CLAY: And I care about all of the teams that are working right now in the summer sweating together, trying to put together the best possible team that they can. Everybody who’s listening to us out there right now either has a kid or has been on a team that put as much effort as they could into winning. And I think your point’s a good one, Buck. She’s 36 now, and suddenly she doesn’t need sports because her career is coming to a close.

So given the choice between women’s athletics or the trans agenda, she is repudiating women’s athletics, which is why she has a platform at all, and saying, “Oh, sports really don’t matter,” and pivoting and trying to become a political person. Well, that’s fine, but she’s completely rejecting everything that she stood for as an athlete. I guarantee you if some dude wanted to play and took Megan Rapinoe’s spot when she was growing up on high school or playing on a travel team, it may have well impacted her ability to have success as an adult in that field. And even if it didn’t, we play sports to teach the lessons of sports, not because most of us are going to go pro. I think what she said is disgraceful for anybody who cares about athletics.

BUCK: Imagine we allowed… You know, I played in high school with a kid who was much better than me, but he did Olympic development growing up and went on to get a four-year full ride for soccer, right? He was my co-captain. He was my Clay Travis.

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: And I just think, imagine if when he was on his junior Olympic development team — I think he was maybe 14/15 years old — they said, “We’re just gonna allow a pro from the best soccer league in the world in Europe play. Whether it’s Serie A or the Premier League, we’re gonna put him on the team and he’s just gonna crush everybody,” and they said, “Hey, that’s not fair,” and they said, “Shut up! Your 14-year-old team isn’t important. This guy wants to play at this level and it’s more important that his emotions are placated than these kids who are 14 and 15 and actually have any respect for the effort that they’ve put into this.” That’s basically what or a talking about here with Rapinoe.

CLAY: That’s a hundred percent right, Buck. And you well know there are lots of 14- and 15- and 16-year-old boys who haven’t put together what life needs for them to be successful as they get older, but they’re gonna stay eligible at school because they can play on a sports team. This is why I fought so hard with everything I had for sports to continue during covid, because sports keeps a lot of kids, especially young boys, out of trouble.

And so when you’re telling them, “Hey, this thing that you care about the most that’s keeping you on the straight-and-narrow, that’s teaching you the importance of being able to compete, and that at some point you may give you an opportunity for an education, it doesn’t matter”? Shame on Megan Rapinoe. I just find her to be utterly unlikable, but also not very smart in her logic. She has gone so far left-wing that she doesn’t even use her brain at all.