After Atalanta

Since I got a little crap the other day for suggesting that Mark Johnson might not be the best choice for the job of head coach of the women's national ice hockey team, I thought I would post today about mixed gender coaching. I was actually going to do this anyway because I have come across two editorials recently that address the issue. Neither are particularly insightful--or even accurate--but mediocrity often inspires me. In Oklahoma, in a piece focused on the Big 12, John Klein writes about how there has been a trend toward women coaching women in the last twenty years before which coaching was dominated by men. Well, not exactly. First, prior to the passage of Title IX, women dominated the coaching landscape--think over 90 percent of women as coaches of women's teams. When it became more lucrative men began filling the positions. And this is across the board. Part of the problem with Klein's statements is that they seem to refer only to basketball, where, yes, there a...

USA Hockey announced that Mark Johnson , current head coach of the University of Wisconsin women's team--a perennial powerhouse, will be the women's national team coach next season . As in the 2010 Olympic season. So Johnson is the new Olympic coach basically. He will take over the Blaine residency program where current national team prospects (who are not committed to college teams) are currently training. And he will coach the team at the next Four Nations Cup in Finland in November. Johnson certainly has the credentials. He has coached the national team before. He has experience coaching the men's national team and, of course, he was a pivotal part of the 1980 Miracle on Ice team and a former NHLer. But still the choice surprises me for several reasons. First, when long-time coach Ben Smith left the position of head coach he advocated for a female head coach. Yet Johnson was the first replacement for Smith at the Four Nations Cup in 2006. Also, USA Hockey has been trying...

I thought I was going to be able to avoid talking about the Superbowl all together but this story was just too good and it isn't about the Superbowl directly so... In case you are not aware--we are in a recession. Things are not good--even for football. Parties have been cancelled; there is far less swag and booze this year according to reports. But who knew the bad economy would help eliminate sexism. Okay, not quite eliminate sexism but it's definitely a step in the right direction that the Lingerie Bowl is no more. At least for this year. Okay, well it wasn't exactly the economy; more of a red tape fiasco that the producers of Lingerie Bowl VI couldn't get the right permits in time to stage the event (which airs on Pay-per-View during halftime) at their original location. So they were going to put it on at a Caliente, a nudist--I'm sorry--a "clothing optional" resort. Except LB peeps wanted the spectators to be wearing clothes if they attended. Some of ...

Last year at this time I had just started teaching sport sociology. It's a fine class to teach. So many examples at one's fingertips to illustrate various points. Plus I think students really feel involved in the course when they can draw on their own experiences in sport and on what they see and hear as fans and consumers of a variety of sports. Last spring was the Lebron James Vogue cover "incident" which was great discussion material even though my students accused me of "reading too much into it." But I bet those who are teaching sport soc or sport in society are having a great time already. First there is the ongoing "blowout" saga in a high school basketball game in Texas. I heard this story first on Sunday morning lying in bed listening to NPR. Didn't catch the beginning because, well I was lying in bed just waking up. So all I heard was something about a team that had not won in something like 4 years being blown away by another team an...

The Boston Globe had an interview with Tony DiCicco , former national team coach and the current coach of the newly revised Boston Breakers. Fairly innocuous. Interesting to me reminded that the Breakers will be the only professional women's sport in Massachusetts. As a Mass resident, I actually forget that because I seem to go to a lot of sporting events that involve women. There are the Boston Lobsters of World Team Tennis but it's a mixed gender team. There's also semi-professional football. And there used to be fast-pitch softball in Lowell, MA--but I'm not sure it's there anymore. DiCicco is confident the Breakers will do well in Boston noting that the Breakers of the WUSA came very close to turning a profit last time around. Also, he thinks the WPS will so better because of a myriad of business-type reasons, because women's soccer is played Americans want sport to be played, and finally because "they have this girl-next-door-type demographics." I...

Brandi Chastain, who's 40 now (!), has been drafted by the F.C. Gold Pride in the Bay Area of California. She was the 45th draft pick. I'm not really a Chastain fan (and it has nothing to do with the "bra incident") and so her going late(ish) in the draft and her inability to even get into tryouts for the national team this past year has brought to the surface a little teensy bit of schadenfraude. After all, Chastain made it to the national team initially as a scab. When national team players went on strike prior to the 1996 games, Chastain happily joined up to play, after previously being shunned. (I also think it's kind of funny that Chastain's Wikipedia entry calls her a "former soccer player." She might want to go in and edit that herself now.) This is all to say "karma's a bitch." Briana Scurry went to the Washington Freedom in the fifth round. It looks like she may get the start because the Freedom's other goalie, a Canadia...

The basketball world and the larger world of women's athletics lost a great leader today . NC State women's basketball coach Kay Yow, who earlier this season said she would not be returning to the bench for the remainder of the 2008-09 season, lost her long battle with breast cancer this morning. Condolences to the NC State community.

Writer Sally Jenkins has an open letter to new prez Barack Obama calling for some changes in the world of American sport--including, though how seriously I cannot really gauge--the appointment of a sports czar. She is correct though in noting that "it will be equally important to remake the play of America, because games are a reflection of a nation's health and ours could do with some reform." So she has 10 suggestions. I am not going to go through all of them. The Title IX Blog mentioned today the ones relevant to them, I am going to touch on some others. Reform of the BCS has been on Obama's agenda and there are a lot of complications and people on both sides who talk about true champions and purity of the game and yadda, yadda, yadda. But Jenkins gets to the crux--or what should be the crux--of the issue when she says: The bowls no longer serve any discernable educational purpose -- the participating teams often have graduations rates worse than 50 percent, for wh...

A while ago I said I was going to blog about the golfer who won the women's long drive competition this past year and the controversy over her win because she is a post-operative transsexual. But I never did. Seems like a good time to do so given this recent piece in the Bleacher Report. It is so poorly written and so blatantly and unapologetically ignorant that it's offensive. The author admits to knowing nothing about transsexuality and to not having done any research on it and only knowing about one case of transsexuality in sports: Renee Richards. Very basic questions are posed that rely on essentialism and binary thinking. For example, the writer asks what advantages a MTF would have and what disadvantages an FTM would have in sports. Because apparently all men are always better at everything to do with sports. There are no easy answers when it comes to gender and sport. But they are far better questions than the ones this writer asks. And there is great work being done on...

I know your article about the BCS wasn't really about gender equity or Title IX but when you invoke it--even as a comparison--please get it right. The federal government did not force the NCAA to comply with Title IX by mandating the NCAA given women equal money. It's actually athletic departments that do most of the doling out of the money. And, furthermore, Title IX does not require equal spending on men's and women's sports. It requires equitable treatment. Some fact checkers might be helpful or maybe sports writers that know something about women's sports and how they are funded and treated.

The NCAA has been meeting this week . They decided that 7th graders are now officially "prospects." Only in basketball and only boys; but still. The organization was concerned that college coaches were attending camps for elite 7th and 8th graders, something the NCAA could not monitor or regulate because the former cutoff for a prospect was 9th grade. The DI Legislative Chairman noted that it was "just a sign of the times." What times? Apocalyptic ones? Okay, that's slightly hyperbolic. But, come on--7th grade? This seems almost like the futile performance enhancers war. Someone finds a loophole, an administrative body addresses it, then there's another loophole, another rule and so on and so on. And all the while we do nothing to address the underlying problem(s). Have we learned nothing from the Elena Delle Donne situation? So many times since I started this blog have I wanted to title a post "You big stupid head"--except that's the cleaned u...

If you're sick of hearing or depressed about the economy and the myriad of effects--stop reading here. Because there has been a lot of talk about how the recession is affecting sports. I've already mentioned it here . But it seems sports and the economy are the hot topic so I thought I would run down what I have seen so far. Schools, of course, are going through budget cuts (though doesn't it seem that public schools are always in a budget crunch?) and some of the cuts are in athletics. Title IX Blog has a post about how parents are ensuring that female athletes do not receive the brunt of those cuts. USA Today has a piece about the problems non-major sports are having and includes: some concern over how the WPS will fare in this economy; news of Arena Football's suspension; and the loss of the Houston Comets. Of course not everyone is suffering. Men's professional soccer in North America is expanding. The National Lacrosse League had a soldout crowd at it's cha...

So, yes, indeed--Marta is going to LA. It's probably the best place for her given that soccer may have more a following in CA. According to this article , she drew an average of 10,000 fans when she played in Sweden. She has signed a three-year contract . Most of us fans are crossing our fingers that the WPS lasts three years. Which should serve as a reminder that we need to get season tickets! (Okay, mostly it's a reminder to me.) Marta's national team teammate, Cristiane, has been drafted and intends to sign a contract with the Chicago team. Marta also just won the FIFA World Player of the Year Award . Probably pretty ho-hum for her--it's the third time--in a row! The US Women's National Team got a special shout out when the Presidential Award was given to women's soccer. Can't really figure out what the Presidential Award is or why women's soccer generally received it. Guess it wasn't important enough for any media outlet to explain what with all ...

1. Where international players will go in the WPS still remains up in the air though things are getting settled. Looks like Marta will head to LA to play for the Sol. No contract yet so don't count on it. But it appears that anywhere she goes, she will be the top-paid player--in the whole league. The WPS is planning to market the heck out of her. Interesting. First game of the season will be the Sol versus the Washington Freedom. So Marta versus Abby Wambach. Nothing like starting out with a bang! 2. Changing the conversation completely...the 2010 Olympics are only 13 months away! Writer Philip Hersh of the LA Times reminds us of that fact. Then he runs down what's happening in winter sports. Nice to see sports that are rarely covered (luge, speed skating) get some ink (or pixels I guess). Unfortunately he does not mention hockey, not that there is that much happening on the national front. Though it would have been nice for him to note that the US women's national team h...

It's not even 10 and I keep find out new things. First, hadn't heard of the recent controversy in college football where USC player Rey Maualuga who had just helped his team win the Rose Bowl did a little victory sex simulation in back of sports reporter Erin Andrews on his way out of the stadium. Of course, it got caught on You Tube. Some people cheered. Some people booed ( Donna Lopiano , former head of the Women's Sports Foundation), some people booed the booers with the typical backlash rhetoric. The player apologized . Ta-da! End of story. In other words, I don't expect to hear anything more about this. But out of curiosity I wanted to learn more about Andrews. According to this blog she laughed the whole thing off. But really, what choice did she have? She's been sexualized since she first appeared on the scene. Playboy named her the sexiest sportscaster. She doesn't seem to speak out against the sexualization, but that's no excuse for Maualuga's ...

As came up during the recent discussion of Elena Delle Donne's transfer from UConn, it's not as if this kind of thing hadn't happened before. And it certainly wasn't the last incident--even of the 2008-2009 season. LSU announced that first-year guard Crystal Riley will be granted a full release so she can pursue the sport at another university. Riley was not exactly a benchwarmer. She played in six games already this season. Maybe some of my colleagues at Women's Hoops Blog can fill in some blanks??

Bryan Hollister of the Bleacher Report has a " humor" column this week in which he lists and explains the top 15 sports that are not sports. I'm not going to get super uptight about this list. But I do have some things to say about his choices. First, though, it should be noted that the definition of sport is always up for debate--and this is the way it should be. Because a sport does not always involve "blood, sweat, and tears shed through hours of workouts, practices, scrimmages, successes, and failures." Or at least not all those elements all the time. It's a pretty naive definition of a sport, but it's the only one that Hollister offers. I'm not going to comment on all 15 of Hollister's offerings. Check them out for yourself. Here are just some of my thoughts on some of his. Winter sports seem to be especially heavy hit, curling, bobsled, and luge. And if Hollister really thinks that no one has ever said about luge "that's what I wan...

There's a very good article in the Boston Globe about the growth of women's hockey , with specific focus on high school programs in Massachusetts. The state of Minnesota still has the highest number of girls playing ice hockey, but MA is in second place (distant second). The article does a generational sort of tracking noting how players in the game experienced very different versions of women's hockey depending on when they graduated in the last 20 years. For example in the late 80s and 90s there weren't that many public schools with girls' programs which meant that girls who played the sport either went to private school, tried to join boys' teams (rare), or played on club teams. Twenty years isn't really a whole lot of time. But it's been long enough to create the kind of depth in the sport that means even the top scorer at one of the better private high school programs is attending a DIII school--the best DIII school, but still. It illustrates that ...

Okay, so I said I cared very little about all these year in review type columns, but I liked this one by San Fransisco's Bay Area Reporter and besides, it's the first day of the year, there's fresh snow so I am headed out to try my new skis. So check out the BAR and their month-by-month recap of all things gay in the world of sports.