When Rick Burns, coach for the Mount Holyoke women's soccer team, referred to an opposing player as a "tall woman," he was reprimanded, since the word "tall" implied denigration of those women who are not tall. He was instructed to call tall players "vertically endowed." Burns was also told that using the word "subs" (for "substitutes") was "hierarchical," "demeaning," and implied differences in skill among the players. He was told that the word "others" was more acceptably neutral. His team captain told him there was "some concern" that at halftime he was mentioning one player, who was scoring 60 percent of the goals, too often, at the expense of other participants. When Burns wrote an article about his experiences coaching at Mount Holyoke for a sports journal, it set off a firestorm of controversy, and Burns was denounced as being "sexist."

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