What is going on in our world today? Money is worth more than dignity? Here is a story that just boggled my mind, found on FoxSports.

Updated: June 10, 2008, 4:08 PM EST CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - As an aspiring racing official, Mauricia Grant had grown used to working in a man's world.

 

When she finally made it into NASCAR, Grant was appalled at the way she says she was treated beginning from her first day on the job until her firing last October.

Now she's suing NASCAR for $225 million, alleging racial and sexual discrimination, sexual harassment and wrongful termination.

"I loved it. It was a great, exciting, adrenaline-filled job where I worked with fast cars and the best drivers in the world," Grant told The Associated Press. "But there was an ongoing daily pattern (of harassment). It was the nature of the people I worked with, the people who ran it, it trickled down from the top.

Mauricia Grant alleges that she was both racially and sexually discriminated against by NASCAR officials. (Courtesy of Morelli Ratner / Special to FOXSports.com)

"It's just the way things are in the garage."

The 32-year-old Grant, who is black, worked as a technical inspector responsible for certifying cars in NASCAR's second-tier Nationwide Series from January 2005 until her termination. In the lawsuit, she alleged she was referred to as "Nappy Headed Mo" and "Queen Sheba," by co-workers, was often told she worked on "#### people time," and was frightened by one official who routinely made references to the Ku Klux Klan.

In addition, Grant said she was subjected to sexual advances from male co-workers, two of whom allegedly exposed themselves to her, and graphic and lewd jokes.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, lists 23 specific incidents of alleged sexual harassment and 34 specific incidents of alleged racial and gender discrimination beginning when she was hired in January 2005 thru her October 2007 firing.

NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said the organization had not yet reviewed the suit.

"As an equal opportunity employer, NASCAR is fully committed to the spirit and letter of affirmative action law," Poston said, adding NASCAR has a zero tolerance policy for harassment.

In the lawsuit, Grant said she complained numerous times to her supervisors about how she was treated, to no avail. On one occasion, Grant said Nationwide Series director Joe Balash, her immediate supervisor, was dismissive of her complaints, explaining her co-workers were "former military guys" with a rough sense of humor. "You just have to deal with it," she says Balash told her.

On another occasion, she alleged Balash participated in the harassment.

"Does your workout include an urban obstacle course with a flat-screen TV on your back?" she claimed Balash asked her during the week of July 28, 2007 while working in Indianapolis.

Grant told the AP her two younger sisters witnessed racial discrimination against the official while visiting her at Daytona International Speedway in 2006 and encouraged her to document every incident going forward.

 

The lawsuit details a series of those alleged incidents:

- Grant was forced to work outside more often than the white male officials because her supervisors believed she couldn't sunburn because she was black.

- While riding in the backseat of her car pool at Talladega Superspeedway, co-workers told her to duck as they passed race fans. "I don't want to start a riot when these fans see a black woman in my car," she claims one official said.

- When packing up a dark garage at Texas Motor Speedway an official told Grant: "Keep smiling and pop your eyes out 'cause we can't see you."

- When she ignored advances from co-workers, Grant was accused of being ####. She also claimed co-workers questioned the sexual orientation of two other female officials.

After her termination, Grant said she went over her notes and recognized "a pattern of retaliation and discrimination."

"It didn't diminish my love for the sport of auto racing, but the job wasn't always the easiest thing to go to every day," she said.

Grant said she routinely complained to her supervisors. Two weeks after her final complaint, Grant said she was warned during the week of August 18, 2007 at Michigan International Speedway that she had engaged in "conduct unbecoming of a NASCAR representative" and would be fired unless she changed her behavior. She said the warning stemmed from a confrontation with a track official who stopped her as she passed through a gate to use the restroom.

Roughly two months later, Grant was fired, and NASCAR cited a poor work performance in ending her employment. The lawsuit claims other than a previous warning for using "street" language, Grant had never been disciplined for job performance and routinely received positive reviews.

In addition, the suit claims official Heather Gambino was fired in 2006 for complaining about a sexually hostile work environment. The suit also claims former official Dean Duckett, who is black, was reprimanded and ultimately fired last November for using "aggressive language toward a white co-worker."

Among those identified in Grant's suit are Balash, assistant series director Mike Dolan, supervisors Alan Shephard and Dennis Dillon, NASCAR's senior manager for business relations, the human resources director and 17 of Grant's fellow officials. All of the defendants are white.

"And I knew that once I was terminated, there wasn't going to be an opportunity for me to find another industry like NASCAR to practice my craft" she said.

Ok well in no way do I condone the behavior of the male officials, if it is true, but I do not understand this one thing about these types of cases. Well 2 things actully. One, why the hell does she need 225 million dollars! For being called racial and sexual names? Hell no! Women in the inner cities are beaten and treated worse then her but when they complain the response is, "Get out." This women in no way is justified to basically win the lottery for being called names. I would go through hell and back in a handbasket, naked, if I could get a chunk of her payday. But the thing is, she isnt even the only one! Anucha Browne Sanders, remember her? The knicks official who sued Isiah Thomas for 10 million because he "allegedly" called her a #### and said the f-bomb. Wow, big nothing! Someone drops the F-Bomb and calls you a name, you walk away! You don't automaticly make more money than one family might make, all sibling combined, in 3 generations! Not in my world you dont!

And my second point, why is it that the women demand reinstatement of their jobs? They don't need the money obviously. They do it to be arrogant, to say that, "I have money AND I can still work here with you knowing I won. Those ####es! Excuse my french, but, those ####es!!! If what they said was soooo bad, then why would they want to work with the same people who according to the women, tried to grope them and made sexual and racial advances on them? They just want to wave their snotty little faces in the air shouting that they won.

Last but not least, I'm bringing up the race issue. Oh man! Here it is! I'm now a racist! Bring it on naive haters! The lawsuit says she was warned by NASCAR officials that she was on warning for provacative "street" language, which to many, is black language. Also, the lawsuit claims a fellow co-worker was fired for making aggresive advances on a white official. Though the prosecution may try to make this informaton work to their advantage, I see a disadvantage. I see a trend here. Maybe it was her, Mauricia Grant, who was the problem. Oh, what a novel idea, "victim" who turned out to be the problem. But in todays world that doesn't happen. Allegations become convictions. And see if you can follow this picture with me. Brown and fellow black co-workers hanging, not doing their work, and a white supervisior comes over and tells them to get to work. They, in turn, repsond in some #### language and it unfolds from there.

All I'm saying is, think about this.

As we come to a close in our NFL regular season games ,we look at the teams that jumped in and were popped out of the playoff bubble. There are teams that should have made it and in many opinions teams that shouldn't have. The latter happens alot in all sports, including baseball and basketball.I think we need to make some urgent changes to out playoff systems, to reasonablalize the format for getting in and how we should determine the winner. I will cover baseball today, and college football and basketball tomorow,along with pro football. Here we go.

Baseball- This past season in baseball we had many close races in all divisions. 4 out of the 6 divisons were decided by less than 5 games and all of them were decided by less than 10 games. In the NL West, what some call the best division, there had to be a playoff to determine who would get a spot in October ball, and they werent even fighting for the division title. There could have easily been three teams from the NL West that could have been championship contenders, while in the NL East or NL Central, there might as well been no team that made it, seeing as none of the teams won 90 games, what I consider to be a benchmark for success. So here is what we should do.

1) Abolish the division system in determining playoff rankings. Why should the Cubs make it even when the Padres, who had a better record by 5 games, didn't? Sure, you can keep the divisions to preserve rivalries, such as Red Sox-Yankees, but this would take out the problems we have every year of complaints that their division was to hard and someone elses was to easy. The Top 5 teams from each league would make the playoffs. The format would be, 1 has a bye, 2 plays 5, and 3 plays 4. Then the winners would play each other in a semi-final game to determine who would play the first seed, with that game finding the league champion.

OR

2) Another option would be keep the divisions and instead set a benchmark on wins-losses to determine playoff teams. With a 90 win benchmark, this would allow in the teams that deserved it and again, end the controversy of weaker divisions being easier. Luckily with this year, no team that had 90 wins was shut out of the playoffs. But teams like the Cubs and Phillies had less than 90 wins and still got in. With a benchmark win total, it would allow only the best clubs in.

 

Since it's creation in 1948, Nascar, or stock-car racing, has become a popular entertainment sourse of our culture. People enjoy the fast-paced, unpredictable action that takes place on roads where men drive past the limits and exceed speeds of 200 mph. Yet today, there seems to be a decline in the popularity of Nascar. Nothing to be super alarmed at, but if it continues, it could prove very costly to one of today's top commercial businesses. In this post, I'll discuss my 3-point plan to help make Nascar the most dominationg forces of sports entertainment.

1. Get sponsorships with Nike, Reebok, and Adidas. On almost every football or basketball comercial you see on televison, the sports star is always wearing a pair of Nike cleats. The fact that Nike is a big sports brand is embedded into our minds. When we think of basketball shoes we think of Nike. If Nascar would just get some sort of sponsorship with one of these companies it would enhance it's name on the sport's world and give an even bigger bonus: more viewers and fans. When we see the majority of black kids playing sports, its either basketball or football. I never see balck kids wearing a Dale Jr. hat. I usualy see them with a Kobe or LeBron jersey or a football jersey. This is why Nascar only appeals to a smaller audience. It doesn't show itself as a sporty type of action. It gives a more classy kind of look (hard to do in the south, just kidding) and doesn't present it's races as bid sports showings that the majority of African Americans would watch instead of playing a basketball video game.~
2. Create drama between drivers and teams. Is it just me or whenever I turned on ESPN in the morning the first thing I see is something about a feud on IndyCar Racing. In my opinion it's great. It puts IndyCar on the average fans sports map. I love seeing drivers feud, it's fun to watch. If Nascar were to create some drama it would get the average fan intersted. Who wouldn't love to see Jimmie Johnson and Dale Jr. to go toe to toe and slug it out? I know I would. We need to see Gibb's Racing and DEI become some rivalry for the ages. They should become mortal enemies. We could go inot a race wondering what would happen next or if DEI would crash one of Gibbs's cars.
3. Hire women drivers. This again would help expand the audience of Nascar.  Their saled among women drivers would skyrocket due to the increase in women watching. I've surveyed some women and their opinion was that if women became Nascar drivers they would look up to them as role models and hope their kids did too. Look what Danica Patrick has done for IndyCar. She hasn't even won a race and yet if you asked a person to name an IndyCar driver they would immediatly say Dancia Patrick.

I know NASCAR is expanding greatly (with a minor exception to the "declining" ratings) but I think there are ver good ways to grow the popularity of the sport throughout all types of fan bases. NASCAR needs to take a page out of World Wrestling Entertainment's shows. No, I don't mean stage fake races and pick the winners (like Tony Stewart said they were doing), I mean create the drama. Start up a feud. Throw out some insults. I bet fans would want to see Dale Jr. go punch for punch with Tony Stewart. You have to make the magic if you want the fans to see it. You saw what Danica vs. Dan did for Indy Car Racing. It was all over ESPN, FOX Sports, etc. The point is, it got me for one interested in Indy Car. I acctully watched a race for once. This is what NASCAR needs. They have to attract the on-the-brink fans like me. The ones who might have something better to do that watch a race. Those are the fans that could keep the sport going for decades to come. Also, I think NASCAR needs to follow the WWE path and creat romances. Alot of wrestlers have at their side girls. Always kissing them and the whatnot. They would tune a wider audience in because now guys would have something like cheerleaders to watch if they don't feel like watcing the race. Then, NASCAR could create more drama when the girls feud with each other. They could have two girls liking one guy and then fighting over him. Use the racers wives to make it more authentic. That would spark NASCAR popularity among the non-fans like me.