After Atalanta

So I knew the WPS was not in good shape. I retained an unusual amount of optimism about the league's viability throughout the many collapses of teams, losses of coaches, and that whole weird MagicJack fiasco. (OK I started to lose hope during the MagicJack thing, actually.) So now the league is on the verge of non-existence again . It needs to add a sixth team ASAP or it will lose its Division I league status within US Soccer. (The league is actually supposed to field 8 teams but has gotten waivers in the past.) So it's crunch time. And though the league had planned on adding a team for the 2013 season there is no telling whether that would have actually happened or if another team would have folded in the meantime. I kind of buried the lead of the post but here it is: The Women Talk Sports network--of which I am a (somewhat ambivalent) member--has started a grassroots campaign to save the WPS. But they aren't asking money from us regular Joanns and Joes. (Smart--beca...

Thoughts go out to the Oklahoma State community --especially the women's basketball team--which lost their head and assistant coaches last week. The coaches were on a recruiting trip when their plane crashed. Kurk Budke had turned the team around in recent years. Assistant coach Miranda Serna was a former player of Budke's who had been  his assistant for many years.

Because so many were lost in our crazy storm a couple of weeks ago. And because whenever I hear the word "birches" I repeat the first lines of this poem (the entirety of which I had memorized when I was 14). BIRCHES Robert Frost When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay. Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust-- Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves...

Saturday Night Live . And Jon Stewart I don't think the latest crop of Penn State grads will be getting jobs or internships at the Daily Show or SNL any time soon.

Dr. Pants pointed out that the article I raved about yesterday was posted on ESPNW which receives significantly less traffic than ESPN.com. But Mechelle Voepel's contribution to the discussion of Penn State and the connection of the current situation to the Rene Portland situation  did make it to ESPN. And--as usual--it's very good. Here's a snippet: Unfortunately, many universities -- if they're being honest -- need to look at themselves and say, "Do we do all we can to ensure that everyone's compass is directed toward doing what's right, even if that might initially cause some bad publicity for the university or mean sparring with a powerful coach? Do we look out for the powerless? Is our moral code as strong as it needs to be? Where are our true priorities? Who are we most concerned about protecting?" Those can seem like pie-in-the-sky ideals, and maybe they are. Certainly, they're much easier to commit to in theory than in practice. But ...

from "18 Days Without You" Anne Sexton December 18th Swift boomerang, come get! I am delicate. You've been gone. The losing has hurt me some, yet I must bend for you. See me arch. I'm turned on. My eyes are lawn-colored, my hair brunette. Kiss the package, Mr. Bind! Yes? Would you consider hurling yourself upon me, rigorous but somehow kind? I am laid out like paper on your cabin kitchen shelf. So draw me a breast. I like to be underlined. Look, lout! Say yes! Draw me like a child. I shall need merely two round eyes and a small kiss. A small o. Two earrings would be nice. Then proceed to the shoulder. You may pause at this. Catch me. I'm your disease. Please go slow all along the torso drawing beads and mouths and trees and o's, a little graffiti and a small hello for I grab, I nibble, I lift, I please. Draw me good, draw me warm. Bring me your raw-boned wrist and your strange, Mr. Bind, strange stubborn horn. Darling, bring me this an ...

I know it's 11-11-11 but this is not some kind of Freaky Friday, opposite-world post. I am genuinely appreciative of ESPN running this piece: Luke Cyphers has a column at ESPN.com on how there have been other things within PSU athletics that were not quite right--namely the tenure of former women's basketball coach Rene Portland. Glad people in the media are making the connection. Here is a particularly good snippet: Meanwhile, when we examine the Portland era and the Sandusky scandal through the same lens, what we see tells us a lot about institutionalized hate and systems that equate winning with morality, both of which flourished for decades in State College. The administration's failure to step in and do the right thing, the moral thing, created a void in which dozens of young lives, from Portland's players to Sandusky's alleged victims, were disrupted and forever scarred. Read the rest--it's worth it.

Joe Paterno to retire . At the end of the season.  Scandal= "retirement" Scandal = resignation (hmm...) I may actually watch the game this weekend to see what the atmosphere is like. 

Of course Penn State was going to cover up the abuse perpetuated by one of its coaches. Of course the institution that sheltered openly homophobic and not-so-openly racist basketball coach Rene Portland for years--years--would cover up for a former assistant football coach who was engaging in sexual acts with young boys. It reminds me of the stories we hear about corruption within police departments. The denial, the looking the other way behaviors, and the active cover-ups meant to protect one of their own. (I heard Michael Chiklis was very good on The Shield, maybe he would be interested in a leading role on The AD . I think he could pull off Tim Curley. He would have to spend some time practicing being on a witness stand, though.) I read the headlines a few days ago and thought--well, not so shocking that a man would molest little boys or even that a PSU football coach would do so. Then more got revealed about the seemingly systematic cover-up of the actions of said footba...

I know I am a little late to the game here but 1) I haven't been checking my After Atalanta email (if anyone knows an easy way to forward gmail to another account please enlighten me) and 2) sick...sick sick sick. But I did manage to get a copy of ESPN Magazine's third (third, right?) Body issue. Dr. Pants texted me and informed me that it was a must-see. Dr. Pants is a big Hope Solo fan and Solo did grace one of the covers this year. Me, not so much so I didn't really care much about seeing Solo pseudo nude. But the article about testicles was too much to pass up. (more on that at a later date) So I read it. I am getting a little bored of this whole thing actually. (Well except for the testicles article.) And I wonder if ESPN can sense that the Body Issue just isn't that interesting. That it will never draw the same attention as the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Because was what was sent to my After Atalanta gmail: The only magazine that can possibly trump ...

ESPNW has an interview with Mary Wittenberg who is the current president of the New York Road Runners. And by virtue of her position as president and CEO, she is in charge of the NYC Marathon--which happens this weekend. She is the first female president of the organization--this seems to be part of the reason ESPNW chose to interview her. Here is one of the questions: espnW: When you're negotiating appearance fees for male athletes with male agents, does it ever strike you as significant that you're a woman running a major men's and women's sporting event? Here is the first line of her response: No. I don't think a lot about gender at all when thinking about negotiating appearance fees or putting together the strategy for our pro field. Oh god, I thought to myself when I read this. Another person who doesn't see gender. Everything is gender neutral. But here is how she finished the question: What I do think about is always ensuring that we have a really...