By Kate Fagan
Over the past four years, a certain segment of "fans" in this country have played a silly little game called, unofficially, "What We Say About Brittney Griner."
The way it works is simple. No matter what Griner does -- win the NCAA championship with Baylor, earn national player of the year honors, break her wrist skateboarding, drop 50 points on Kansas State -- the naysayers hop on message boards and social media to deliver a variety of insults, questioning her fierce on-court demeanor, her talent in comparison to male players, even her genetic makeup.
Rather than embracing Griner as a gift from the basketball gods, a player years ahead of her time, they have turned her into a 6-foot-8 lightning rod for all of their complaints and fears about the women's game.
And over the next few weeks, as Griner tries to cap her record-setting college career by winning a second straight national title, it's a pretty good bet that whatever praise she receives will also come with a side dish of scorn -- because her best seems to bring out some people's worst.
Truth is, those ugly things they say about Brittney Griner aren't really about her.
They're about us.
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