After Atalanta

Tonight's episode of Family Guy , which I usually find funny in its treatment of the government and conservativism, did something very unfunny. They dissed the WNBA hardcore, commenting on low scoring (it was 16-9 at the start of the 2nd half with the two high scoring superstars contributing 4 points apiece). Far more egregious though was the statement from the commentators which went something like "is such stardom worth being so ugly." Pat Griffin, writing about the Imus incident on the It Takes a Team Blog , wondered if the comment was not overtly racist but just sexist (and homophobic--an aspect most have ignored) would it have created such as uproar. Probably not. The sexist treatment of the WNBA on an animated cartoon may not generate any news at all. But if you saw the episode and were also offended get in touch with Twentieth Century Fox which produces the show. I cannot find contact info right now but when I do I will post it.

It has been an amazing week for a feminist blogger writing on gender and sports. And this story just ends it all on a great note. Yesterday in his column LA Times sports columnist Mike Penner came out--as a transsexual woman. Penner told readers that after he returns from his vacation he will be returning as the person he always knew he was: a woman named Christine Daniels. Penner reports that he has gradually told friends and co-workers, including his editor, all of whom were supportive. It was a very brave and heartfelt column--one that Penner (I am referring to Penner as a male as he himself did in the column indicating that when he comes back he will be Christine) didn't have to write. You can read the relief Penner must feel being out and the excitement at starting this journey. And what's very exciting is that now there is another woman sportswriter at a major paper!

This column came out about around the time that Rene Portland was resigning so I was a little preoccupied. But I filed it away because it deserves comment. The writer suggests--actually he insists--that the revival of professional women's soccer in this country will fail and damage the "sport as a whole." In other words, it will hurt the men; all because women actually want a chance to play professional soccer. Column author, Jaime Trecker, doesn't ever use the word selfish, but he's thinking it. I don't know why--given the large numbers of kids in this country who play soccer--the sport remains on the fringes of popularity here in the United States. Maybe we have a complex about actually enjoying a sport that everyone else in the world adores. Maybe liking a sport that the Brits, the French, the Spanish, the Germans, the Argentinians, etc. like would make us seem a little "sissy." After all we are the nation who invented football (with help from Bri...

Remember the other day when I briefly mentioned the inclusion of information, cited in the Times article, that male coach/female student-athlete relationships are much more prevalent than same-sex ones? Well the breaking news out of Boston College seems to corroborate that statement. BC women's ice hockey coach Tom Mutch resigned yesterday to " pursu[e] other career interests ." That is almost the exact same wording used when Pokey Chatman resigned, no? And like the Chatman resignation it seemed highly improbably. Mutch just finished his most successful season at BC bringing them to the Frozen Four last month after being named Hockey East Coach of the Year. He had two hot freshman that were getting national team experience and it looked like the BC women, a fairly new team, were on the verge of becoming a hockey powerhouse, similar to their male counterparts. Something was amiss. And then the news broke that the resignation was amidst allegations of improper conduct , of...

LSU announced a couple of weeks ago now that they had found a new head coach for the women's basketball team. They hired Van Chancellor, a former WNBA, Olympic, and intercollegiate coach. I did not blog about it then because all I had to say about it was this: I am certainly not surprised LSU went with a male coach.* I am pleased that at least it is a coach who has substantial experience coaching women's basketball but I think LSU could have made a strong statement by hiring a woman and I worry about the repercussions the Chatman incident will have on other hiring decisions. But I had nothing else of substance to say about the decision. The New York Times, however, has delved a little deeper . The article examines the decline of female head coaches and cites the big names in the sport sociology/sport management field who all, not surprisingly, agree that the fear of predatory lesbians is a huge factor in the lack of women head coaches in intercollegiate athletics. This is still...

Am I the only person (well me and Carrie , anyway) who had a problem with Nike's "thank you, ignorance" ad that came out last week? (There was a print version in April 15's NYT in addition to the various websites it was posted on.) The impetus for the ad, according to this source , was a self-questioning Nike wondering whether it was doing enough to promote women's sports. Apparently they are according to the Advertising Women of New York who will present Nike with an award called "10 Years of Getting It" this week. Unless "it" means lots of money from women buying their stuff (and in the interest of full disclosure, yes I do own Nike apparel), I am not sure what it is that Nike gets about women's sports. The article cites one of the most well-known campaigns: "if you let me play." That campaign, about which much critical scholarship has been done, does, I suppose, show that Nike gets that women's sports are always subordinat...

I forgot to blog about this year's Billies held a couple of weeks ago in Beverly Hills. In addition to BJK herself, good pal Elton John showed up to entertain, Sharon Stone, Geena Davis, and various assorted sports celebs were on hand. I always thought it was unusual that there's this big awards event whose name is meant to invoke other big-time awards events but they only give out about four awards. The Billies celebrate positive media coverage and representations of girls' and women's sports. For example, this year the MTV series MADE won a Billie in the Breakthrough and Innovation category. This doesn't exactly thrill me because it seems to laud the whole series rather than the few episodes in which girls are "made" into athletes. Some of the episodes are hideous examples of conformist (to heteronormative femininity) behaviors. (See, for example, any of the ones were the outsider girl want to be made into prom queen or homecoming queen or the popular gi...

There has been a troubling component to the post-Imus discourse that centers on all the publicity women's basketball--and some even say, all women's sports--is now garnering. The phrase "they couldn't have paid for this publicity" has been liberally thrown about. The subtitle of this column by Bill Gloede is "Why Imus' flagrant foul may actually help women's sports." Every sentiment of this sort has the requisite, "of course, what he said was wrong" provision but then launches into the lack of publicity women's sports receive. Gloede cites the difference in ratings between the women's championship game and the men's. Of course the men's game gets broadcast on CBS--a basic cable channel; while the women's game is on ESPN--a channel available to people who spend around $50/month on cable. I have seen columnists rather unapologetically admit they didn't even know about the unusual road the Rutgers team took to the c...

Something I have been hearing more about lately: environmentally friendly sport. It makes sense--huge stadiums--to build and to operate--must contribute a great deal of waste and utilize tremendous amounts of energy. Sports not played in stadiums also leave an environmental footprint: golf courses have been cited for being not so ecologically sound. In some sports, like surfing, athletes themselves are environmental activists because of their close relationship to the environment in which they play/compete/train. The two pieces of news I have heard recently deal with making facilities more environmentally friendly. Billie Jean King, at the luncheon in Cleveland over a week ago said that one of her latest projects was taking World Team Tennis--which she founded in the 1970s--green, starting this summer. A March press release talks about the efforts which will focus on two teams and also the WTT champsionship. Also contributing to the greening of sport is Wartburg College in Iowa which w...

I went to the Title IX conference put on by Harvard's Gender and Law Journal yesterday afternoon. It was okay. There were two panels: one on Title IX's application to sexual harassment and assault law and the second on athletics. I did not know all that much about the former so it was a good panel for me. But overall I thought that despite the prestige and experience of all the speakers, the conference organizers could have put together a more diverse group to speak about different aspects of the law or their experience with it. And of course I found the presence of former basketball player, coach and current ESPN analyst Nancy Lieberman a little problematic. She was last to speak and her role was to rev up the crowd to take action. I get it; she was there for star power. But what she preaches isn't exactly the rhetoric I would like to see around Title IX; and she is not the person I really like to hear preaching it. First, she feels the need to mention her 12-year old son ...

What is this strange new feeling I am having? I think it must be success. Don Imus will no longer be doing his radio show. CBS and WFAN have fired him just a day after MSNBC decided to stop simulcasting the program on television. ABC News calls it a "stunning fall"; and I have to admit I am feeling a little stunned. I am sure there were a lot of intersecting factors at play in this situation that resulted in the firing of Imus but I guess I had become so cynical as to believe that a lot of people would protest--and rightly so--and there would be some form of punishment. When the two-week suspension was announced I figured that that was it. When MSNBC made their announcement I figured that was the best we would do and hoped the Imus show would die a slow death with people refusing to go on the show, ratings dropping, etc. But this is better. I think. I do wonder about the backlash. The this-was-PC-gone-amuck backlash. This column and all the issues of racism, homophobia, and ...

MSNBC has decided, during its ongoing review process and in consultation with its employees (probably the ones that can predict how much ad revenue they would lose) to stop simulcasting Don Imus's radio show . Pressure is still on the radio station WFAN and CBS to stop the show altogether. So write to MSNBC and say thank and write to WFAN and tell them to follow MSNBC's wise decision to disassociate themselves from this man.

Imus has been doing the apology tour. I have to say it's far more extensive than any other celebrity-says-something-bad apology binge. And his remarks about the Rutgers basketball team have earned him a two-week suspension . But there is speculation that when one is required to apologize repeatedly and for 13 minutes at a time, one is not long for the public airwaves. So please keep (or start) writing letters. Create enough noise to show MSNBC and others that the privilege of speaking on the airwaves is not one that Don Imus deserves. As always the power is with those who hold the purse strings. If advertisers begin to pull their support of the show MSNBC may be forced to drop Imus. I have only found three of the show's sponsors: The New York Stock Exchange. Simon and Schuster, and Random House. The only contact information I could find for S&S is this link to a customer service form . At Random House you can try emailing customerservice@randomhouse.com . [Ebuz noted the em...

This feature on Kyle Hawkins , a lacrosse coach at University of Missouri, who recently came out makes it seem like things are getting better in college athletics--even for gay men. Although there is plenty of sadness and struggle in the story about Hawkins who started coaching the club team at Missouri several years ago, the story presents Hawkins's coming out as a success and an event that has changed the lives of some of those involved. I am glad for Hawkins and his team and pleased that the University of Missouri did not waiver in their support of Hawkins. I am glad that the referee who called him a faggot and equated gay men with child molesters got suspended for a year. And I am glad this story was done by the AP and picked up outside of Missouri. I am a little concerned with some of the things Hawkins said about gay players--three actually who have decided to go to Mizzou to play for Hawkins--being short-sighted in choosing the program because the coach is gay. Hawkins stres...

Usually I appreciate it when Google--clearly smarter than myself--corrects my searches because I have a typo or spelled a name wrong, etc. Usually I am quite thankful, "Yes, Google, I did indeed mean to search for Sheryl Swoopes and not Cheryl Swoopes. Thank you." (I actually know how to spell Swoopes's name I just needed a quick example.) But the other day when I was actively seeking out information about the WNBA draft which happened earlier this week (because one must actively seek it out; it is hard to just come upon it), I got a little ticked off at Google. I searched "WNBA draft 2007." And I got: "did you mean NBA draft 2007?" No, I certainly did not. I was surprised that it thinks the W is a mistake given that the WNBA has been around for a decade and that the draft was mere days ago and that there were plenty of hits for my intended search. Not to mention that fact that the W is nowhere near the N on the keyboard.

I beseech anyone who listens to Don Imus--and I know most regular readers of this blog do not but....--to stop immediately. Better yet for any of us: email, phone, write, picket to the powers-that-be why Don Imus is an affront to the human race. Because it is beyond conservative political discourse and can in no way be construed as funny to call the women "nappy-headed hos" and then, in the next breath, compare them to men (consistent discourse has never been the conservative's strength). This is what Imus did a few days ago when he brought up the women's championship between Rutgers and Tennessee. It was the women on the Rutgers team to which Imus directed his misogynist, racist, homophobic remarks. I know these sentiments exist and I know Rutgers with its predominantly African-American team has been the target of racist remarks. I actually saw them play against a predominantly white team in a very white state. The old white man next to me wondered how we were suppo...

Now that the intercollegiate basketball season is over much of the discussion about Pokey Chatman has died down. No more recaps at the start of every game. Or graphics which list the timeline of the "Pokey Chatman incident." When LSU announces its new coach of course these things will be hauled out again but that's to be expected and we will likely have the whole summer and much of the fall to "forget." Phrases like "moving forward" and "looking ahead" will be bandied about at the start of next season and then it will suddenly "all be behind us." Because this is being treated as a singular event. Well actually, Pokey Chatman and Rene Portland are being spoken of in the same breath: two incidents, but both, if you believe what you read, anomalies. A recent Hartford Courant article frames the two stories as one comment on homosexuality. And though the writer acknowledges the difference between the two situations, comments from others...

Christine Brennan takes on a not-too-popular issue in her USA Today column : naming practices for women's teams. And Brennan comes down on the right side of this argument somewhat making up--in my mind at least--for her closing remarks at the Billie Jean King luncheon last week. As I mentioned the other day, I rooted for Rutgers for a myriad of reasons, one of which was that Tennessee persists in calling itself the Lady Vols. Brennan's article actually points out that when coach C. Vivian Stringer took over at Rutgers she took the "lady" away from the Scarlet Knights. She told Brennan: "...with all due respect, I just believe that basketball is basketball and you don't need to make a distinction. ... I think that it's time to just drop the 'lady' thing. Let's play basketball." My level of respect is significantly less than Stringer's. I think it's just wrong. I think teams that persist in this "tradition" are a little s...

The Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) lawsuit that has been going on since 1998 is finally over . The Supreme Court denied MHSAA's latest appeal thus ending the case. For those unfamiliar with the Michigan saga, Communities for Equity, a group formed by Michigan parents, sued the athletic association because of a variety of civil rights violations which resulted in girls' athletics continually being discriminated against. The biggest battle--as the media reported it--was over seasons. Six girls' sports were being played in the "wrong" season (i.e. not in accordance with collegiate seasons). This made college recruitment more difficult. MHSAA argues that this was done because of facility and coaching issues. MHSAA probably would not have had such legal troubles if they had disadvantaged students in an equitable manner; after all, not every high school student-athlete is going to be recruited. But if this really was not such a big deal, as MHSAA con...

Rutgers versus Tennessee tonight. This NBC Sports article shares the history behind this games which pits two of the winningest coaches against one another. The sentimental favorite has to be Rutgers headed by C. Vivian Stringer but those going for more of a sure thing will be rooting for Pat Summitt of Tennessee. I am a Rutgers fans myself. I find it difficult to root for any team that persists in calling itself the Lady ___. What's worse is that they have it written all over their uniforms. Regardless of who you are rooting for, it is bound to be a great game.

...but some of the sentiments expressed in this Cleveland paper are nice. Men who are excited about women's basketball; who can appreciate the game and not sexualize the players are welcome fans. I don't know enough about the men's versus the women's game to know if the sentiment expressed below is correct but it is a nice counter point to all the excuses we hear about how the women's game just isn't fast enough or exciting enough: "Any guy who refuses to watch women's basketball just doesn't know what he's missing," Mitchell said. "Women compete harder, and they're more unified as a team. It's not just about dollar signs and contracts. They still have love for the game. They still have heart."

This article from a Dayton, OH newspaper does a good job chronicling the growth in women's basketball and contains a good story about Tennessee head coach Pat Summitt driving the team van.

Yep, it's me (and my travelling companions who actually got her attention by saying thank you for her great talk at the conference on Friday). BJK was eating a burger and fries and commenting on the dunk contest being aired on ESPN--in case anyone wondered what one of the most famous female athletes of all time does when she's waiting for her plane.