More on the stinky weasels

Apparently Wolverine cheater-in-chief Connor "Did I really promise not to lie, cheat or steal at Navy?" Stallions has produced a documentary telling "his side" of the story, in which he's not apologetic at all, and just as the NCAA has served a notice of level 1 allegations with a side dish of "repeat offender" for their recruiting violations.

If I were a born Buckeye who became a Spartan by the grace of God (which I am) who wanted to get the Wolverines banned from football altogether for a few years, I don't know what I would do differently.  

Now let's do some math

With regards to the suspected condition of Caster Semenya and other Olympic athletes whose...crotches appear female, but their athletic performance appears to be male...one of the likely causes is something called "5 alpha reductase 2 deficiency".    Interestingly, the list of "intersex" conditions does not list a prevalence, but the other comments about it being a recessive genetic trait, and actual names given to the condition in the Dominican Republic, Turkey, and Papua New Guinea suggest that what's going on is good old fashioned inbreeding--cue "Dueling Banjos", I guess.  

And knowing a touch about what leads to inbreeding--poverty and social isolation--one would infer that as sports opportunities (and wealth) increase, the conditions for this syndrome will decrease.  So for the sake of young people being born, the world's increasing wealth is a boon.

But if we assume that about one in one hundred thousand live births has this, we would infer that worldwide, there are about 40,000 people with this condition, of which about 5000 are of the ages that would translate to Olympic athletic opportunities.  If we assume that 90% of those afflicted never get a chance to participate, we find that maybe 500 would be athletes, of which maybe 2% (two sigma) would be at the level of "good high school male".  This seems to correspond reasonably well with the few athletes that are clearly "male presenting sort of as female".

The thing that scares me, though, is the thought that some people with this disorder would find themselves at the three sigma (0.135%, D1 athlete) or four sigma (Olympic men's level, 0.003%) ability level, and in any sport that involves contact or combat, the size and strength disparity would go from "dangerous" to "lethal"--think Imane Khalif being replaced by Canelo Alvarez.

As far as I can tell, there is a marginal chance of an occasional D1 level athlete, but the Olympic man presenting as sort of female will be a black swan event unless there is a large mutation that greatly increases the number of people with this disorder, or something like that.  

So I would infer that the big hazard in Olympic sport is not intersex conditions, but rather "trans" athletes using the maximum allowance available for available testosterone.  That said, I still think it's time to bring back the cheek swab and take drug testing seriously.  Crazier things have happened than an XY 5 alpha reductase 2 deficient Canelo Alvarez, after all, and we shouldn't be expecting women athletes to die because we're unwilling to act on the fact that XY is, statistically speaking, bigger and stronger than XX.

Now there's some progress

Former Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh has been banned from NCAA coaching for four years,  and his attorney is reduced to insulting the NCAA instead of addressing the allegations.  This is really bad news for the stinky weasel football program.  For comparison's sake, when Michigan basketball boosters were found to have wrongly made large loans to Michigan players, the program was required to vacate all of its wins in which those players participated, but head coach Steve Fisher (who ought to have noticed his star players were living large and asked some questions) was not penalized.  Yes, I personally think that was a mistake.  Players shouldn't need to have monastic vows of poverty, but when they're spending thousands on tattoos, strippers, and the like, I'd have to argue that that NIL money is getting out of hand and preventing them from doing what they're there to do--"study".

I'm hoping that Michigan gets to give up all of its wins--and again, that "national championship"--along with five scholarships for the next five years.  And, again, that the NCAA follows the NFL and finally allows signals to be sent in via radio to the QB and middle linebacker.

Stretch goal is what Harbaugh himself noted in 2007 when he was coaching Stanford; admit that too many college athletes are taking cream puff courses to maintain eligibility, and remind coaches and athletes alike that they are primarily there to learn, not play sportsball.  It's long past time to end creampuff coursework for athletes.

Time to take some data

I saw the coverage of the women's boxing fight between Imane Khelif and Janjaem Suwannapheng, and most of the coverage on the starboard side was more or less "why are they allowing this man to beat this woman?"  I took a look at some of the pictures, and while Suwannapheng is a little bit more feminine-looking than Khelif is, and I understand that "secondary feminine characteristics" can be somewhat more subtle in southeast asian women than among others, I still have to say.....I'm not quite sure what a swab DNA test would find.

More or less, it's already extremely unlikely that those with 5-alpha reductase 2 deficiency would, absent performance advantages due to male genetics, score the three top spots in the 2016 800 meter race, or two of 72 women's spots in the boxing competition in 2024.  If it's three or more of those 72 spots in boxing, the odds go from minute to infinitessimal, and we have to wonder what happens to women's sport if we don't fence it off with the cheek swab test they used until 2000.

It's less significant than allowing trans athletes in--that simultaneously allows perverts in to the locker rooms, and exposes women to the effects of full male strength--but if the difference between those with this intersex condition and elite women is even 2% in speed and somewhat more in brute strength, we are talking about lost medals for XX women in all events, and needless injuries or worse in contact and combat sports.

On those boxers in the Olympics

 A lot has been made, really, of the two "women's" boxers in the Olympics who appear to have XY chromosomes as manifested by their testosterone levels, as well as the 2016 Olympic women's 800 meters race, where all three medal winners had XY chromosomes, but presented externally as female.  Wikipedia actually keeps a list of "intersex" conditions and "intersex" Olympic athletes.  There are, interestingly, a fair number of them--I count 15.

So what do we make of this, statistically speaking?  All in all, intersex conditions seem to affect about one in 5000 people, so fifteen people in the Olympics (or banned from them) in the past 88 years seems to be about right--there are probably about 50-70,000 individuals who have competed in at least one Olympic Games since 1976.

But that noted, if one walks through the list of intersex conditions, only a handful are the kind we're interested in; XY presenting externally sort of as female and with male levels of testosterone.   If you've got one of the others, you're not going to the Olympics, and that's because you're going to be like me; just not that good in your sport.

The condition most likely is "5a Reductase 2 deficiency" and it's worth noting that the prevalence of this is unknown, and that its origins, genetically, seem to be a range of conditions as well.  All in all, though, a certain portion of those with this family of disorders seem to have athletic strength and speed about 0.15 standard deviations greater than that of XX women, and about 0.85 standard deviations below that of males.  The advantage may be somewhat greater vs. women, however, as there simply aren't that many of them.  You're simply looking at a different portion of the distribution--there simply aren't that many people (thankfully) with this condition.

It's not a "trans" issue per se, and since it's "intersex", the sexual assault issues of "trans" and more importantly "fake trans" athletes in the locker room are not there.  What does exist, however, is basic unfairness in competition--the best of these athletes appear to be on the level of good high school boys--and arguably a physical hazard in contact sports, especially combat sports like boxing.  

What to do about it?  The current approach since 2000 seems to be to wait until it's abundantly clear that there is a blatant unfairness or physical hazard.  That's merely irritating with track & field, but dangerous to lethal in combat sports.

You're stuck, really, with either administering a sex test (swab for DNA in the cheek), or if one really wants to get some data, let's take some of these athletes to the weight room and compare bench press, squat, and dead lift with the ladies in their weight classes, and then to a medical lab where their bone density and skull thickness can be compared.

My bet is that the differences are not as big as that between unambiguously developed males and females, but it'll be statistically significant anyways.  And the end result would be what we had prior to 2000; if you scored "XY" in your swab test, you competed as a male or not at all.

And the net is drawn in a bit?

Michigan football coach Sherrone Moore, the former offensive coordinator, was apparently in on the arrangement with Connor Stallions to procure opposing teams' offensive signals, indicating that it is almost certain that the defensive coordinators must have been in on the scheme, as well as former coach Jim Harbaugh.  

Was it effective?  Well, the Wolverines went from a 68% win percentage (perhaps a touch above 70% if the abyssmal 2020 season is neglected) to a 92.5% win percentage in those years, building a defensive juggernaut that persisted despite....a change in defensive coordinators in 2022.  So yes, it was effective, gaining them wins against Ohio State and others that they probably would not otherwise have obtained, and recruits that they would not otherwise have gotten.  

I don't know that it's worthy of the 1987 Southern Methodist two season ban, but I do think it's worthy of the penalty Michigan received for their recruiting violations for the "Fab Five"; a vacation of all wins those seasons.  

And really, it's long past time to allow quarterbacks to have a radio in their helmet to receive signals so this sort of thing is no longer possible.  

One final note is that it's appalling that Connor Stallions is a Naval Academy grad, and apparently his memory of the honor code--We will not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate those among us who do.-- has gotten a little bit rusty.  Naval Academy leadership might want to take note and ask if something is going seriously wrong with their students' ethics.