After Atalanta

Want a young girl you know to learn more about sports from collegiate coaches and athletes? Well you can send her to Marshall University in West Virginia for their annual sports clinic . It all seems good--the girls learn a variety of skills and there are athletes from all the women's teams present to teach and mentor. Too bad it's called a Sweetheart Clinic. Let's just reinforce the idea that girls playing sports is so non-normative that we have to compensate for this behavior by calling it something really girly. Oh--and the participants get a pink sweetheart T-shirt to take home with them at the end of the day!

UNC and Maryland. The rematch of last year's championship game. Soldout crowd on the Terps home turf. UNC ended up getting their revenge, winning 81-74. In a game many see as exemplifying just how far women's basketball has come, a few moments remind us just how different the "rules" are in women athletics. Some say the game was marked by bad officiating. [Here I should own up to the fact that although I appreciate women's basketball and follow it occasionally, I know very little about the actual game and so cannot really discern the efficacy of the refereeing.] UMD coach Brenda Frese certainly thought so. She was assessed a technical during the first half when she came four feet or so onto the court to scream at the refs. The commentators (I forget who it was doing the game coverage) noted that the refs were letting Frese know that that kind of behavior was not acceptable in women's basketball. That sideline decorum in the women's game is a must. Would th...

Frank Deford, who I go hot and cold on (he's on NPR Morning Edition once a week), published this editorial at Sports Illustrated online on the recent increase in attention to coaching salaries. The gist of it: stop pretending revenue-generating collegiate sports such as men's basketball and football have anything at all to do with education. Like professional sports, Deford argues, these are for entertainment value and the market should determine coaching salaries. I have a healthy amount of skepticism about being able to reform any patriarchal, capitalist system from within and this applies to intercollegiate athletics as well. But Deford's "solution" about separating them out of athletic departments and creating a "department of entertainment" is not the kind of radical system overhaul that I can really get behind. It is a facetious one I realize, but one that just allows Deford to say "stop whining about these salaries" without proffering an...

This weekend women in Bangladesh will compete for the first time in a nationally-sponsored cricket tournament . I know nothing about cricket but I know this is good news because cricket is huge in Asia. A friend reported that people take days off of work during cricket tournaments and spend all day watching matches. Nationalism also reaches high levels during these times which can lead to violence, but I still say it's good news for women cricketers worldwide that another country has decided to sponsor a national team. (The team will be chosen from participants in this weekend's tournament.) Another friend of mine from Sri Lanka told me recently that women's cricket gets very little support. The emergence of another team in the international arena will hopefully garner support for teams that currently exist and raise the profile of the sport.

A serious discussion on coaches' salaries that is. As I mentioned yesterday, the NCAA is looking into ways to control the exponential increases in coaches' salaries that account for a large chunk of athletic department budgets; salaries that cannot be sustained, usually, under current athletic department configurations and thus lead to cuts of both women's and men's teams. Cuts, that Dr. Christine Grant noted, have nothing to do with Title IX but rather poor financial management. This point could not be clearer when looking at the case of Rutgers University . Rutgers has opted to cut 6 athletic teams this year. It is also giving "hefty raises" to its football coaches (plural because football has many coaches). Rutgers president Richard McCormick is not accepting his raise this year--a year where the New Jersey state university is trying to deal with an $80 million budget shortfall. The athletic director defends the raises noting Rutgers football had a successf...

The NCAA is looking into getting an antitrust exemption for college sports. This would allow the association to place caps on coaches' salaries but not limit the money they receive from boosters and athletic wear companies. Apparently this action is one the NCAA has considered for a while now but a meeting (Chronicle of Higher Education--subscription only) of the Knight Commission earlier this week that addressed the issue of coaches' salaries--largely spurred by the recent announcement of Alabama football coach Nick Saban's $32 million contract!!--set the action in motion again. Other happenings at the meeting: discussions about gender equity. Dr. Christine Grant , professor emeritus at University of Iowa and former Director of Women's Athletics spoke, about how the budgets of football and men's basketball have tripled and quadrupled, respectively, in the past two decades. Part of the increase is due to rising coaches' salaries. Also on the agenda, recruiting ...

...some of the history of African Americans and especially black athletes in the United States. Because maybe if he knew the history that included the equation of black athleticism with African Americans' "animal-like" natures, allegedly honed in the jungles of Africa, he would not have used the words "primal" and "thoroughbred" (as in the horse) when talking about Serena Williams during her win over Nicole Vaidisova. He meant to be complimentary and certainly not offensive, but his comments reflect a level of ignorance that continues to perpetuate the various myths that still exist about the black athlete.

The NY Times article about cheerleaders in New York being required to cheer for both girls' and boys' basketball games has generated a lot of letters and editorials (more than just the one I referenced yesterday). So I thought I would put this letter into the mix. From the Letters section of Ms. magazine, May 1978: Last night I attended a high school basketball game. I felt a sense of pride watching the young women on the court displaying their abilities as athletes and finally sharing some of the "glory" that goes along with interschool competition. Suddenly, in the third quarter and with our team only four points behind, one of our top players ran from the court. "Where's she going?" I cried. A student turned around and explained that she had to change into her cheerleader's uniform for the upcoming boys' game As I left the gym, I was stopped by several students in the stands. "You're not leaving before the boys' game?" the...

In an editorial in response to the recent ruling in New York state that requires cheerleaders at both girls' and boys' sports, this cheerleader states her resentment that the adults are telling her and other cheerleaders what to do. She does acknowledge that, having seen a girls' basketball game, she agrees that girls' teams should get support too. But she still does not want the powers-that-be telling her where, when and for whom to cheer. It seems a fairly typical teenage response to authority. But additionally I think the writer fails to see what her role really entails. Why I have always had a problem truly considering cheerleading a sport--despite the obvious athleticism involved--is because its purpose is to support another activity. Cheerleaders are basically service workers of a sort--without pay of course. They support athletes. This aspect of their activity, I think, is part of the cheerleaders' discontent over the ruling; it highlights their service role....

Feminist scholar and activist Dr. Gail Dines has been receiving some vicious hate mail after her appearance on CNN's Paula Zahn Show. She recounts and analyzes the past few days in an article at Common Dreams . Dines, a sociologist, was asked to comment on the Duke lacrosse case and the media coverage of it (her area of research is racism and sexism in the media). Her five-minute segment has generated many emails from disgruntled men attacking her and her views and defending the members of the lacrosse team, presenting them as the victims of the black female "stripper." At the end of fall semester, a female student at University of New Hampshire (my alma mater) wrote a letter to the editor of the university's student paper, The New Hampshire , that a poster on safe sex, displayed in her dorm, was offensive.* It featured a male pitcher and a female catcher with the tag line: "whether you're a pitcher or a catcher, always wear a glove." The student made ...

...according to columnist Shelly Anderson who believes football should be exempt from Title IX and thus prevent the cutting of men's teams. Unlike the advocates of free reign for football in the 1970s and 1980s who wanted their huge squads and huge budget to be taken out of the Title IX equation, Anderson has suggested some stipulations. She believes teams operating in the black that can show some of their revenue goes to supporting women's athletics should not have to be part of the equation that mandates equitable opportunities for female athletes. Unfortunately that solution violates the very spirit of Title IX that Anderson herself lauds. Title IX is not supposed to be about money; it's about the opportunity to play sports. Exempting football, even in special cases, shows that some athletes and some programs are more important than others. Second, even if Title IX was changed to follow Anderson's model, very few institutions would meet the standards. So few football...

Yes, that's the childish reaction I had to this "review" * by Larry Pratt of National Review editor Kate O'Beirne's new book on how feminism is ruining the country. In part because it contained this passage on sports: "The feminist attack has led schools to do away with entire sports teams because they were all male. The teams might have remained if standards could have been lowered for say, the wrestling team. But with not enough women interested in the team – either on a segregated or integrated basis, and if the offending teams violated the school’s overall politically correct gender ratios – the teams were abolished." Pratt seems to be referring to Title IX here but in a very abstract and, of course, incorrect way. Where to begin? Where to begin? First, "the feminist attack" is problematic in part because most of the complaints filed citing discrimination in athletics come from individuals who probably do not consider themselves feminists--...

The only reason I know Aranxta Sanchez-Vicario is getting inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame this year is because I read feminist blogs. In fact I knew about her induction long before I found out Pete Sampras was getting inducted, too. Problem is that most are reporting Sampras's honor first and Sanchez-Vicario's as an afterthought--if at all. During coverage of the Australian Open last night, Sampras gave a live interview which was boring, drawn-out and filled with inane questions like the oft-repeated: who would win Wimbledon if you and Federer were playing in the final, both at your prime? [Sampras is not the most articulate man, either. Lot of stock responses; lot of repetition.] Oh, yeah, by the way--Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario is being inducted in the recent player category too, we hear after the interview ends. At least Cliffie and Patrick gave mention to her honor. On the ESPN ticker last night under tennis: "Pete Sampras to be inducted into Hall of Fame." That...

You have to hand it to the students at James Madison University --they certainly are not the apathetic bunch of young adults most college students are characterized as. Well, at least when it comes to sports. Since the announcement this fall that JMU would be cutting ten sports team from its roster. JMU carried the most varsity teams of any division I institution and could no longer support them all financially. Unfortunately Title IX has been the scapegoat for what administrators' continued ignorance of the problem and their fiscal irresponsibility. Men's team bore the brunt of the cuts but women's teams have been eliminated as well. JMU students rallied against Title IX earlier this year and have continued to fight against and publicize the cuts. Their latest battle was in front of the university's Board of Visitors who were not swayed the by students' pleas. Not surprising given that the board was responsible for making the cuts in the first place. It was unlikel...

This is what happens when I wait too long to post about an issue I thought no one would blog on: I get scooped. (The fact that the NY Times picked up the story probably was a factor too.) But I am going to post anyway just to create more writing in the blogosphere about the Whitney Point cheerleaders who seem to feel a little icky about cheering for the girls' basketball team. But as I said, others have picked up on the issue already. Check out Ann Bartow's post at Feminist Law Profs and Diane's at The Dees Diversion . You can read about the trials of the Whitney Point cheerleaders here for the full story--or rather the NY Times version of the story. I attribute some of the cheerleaders' dismay, over half of whom quit the squad rather than cheer for the girls' basketball team, to the high school culture in which they live and cheer. If they [and I am speaking only of female cheerleaders, the only type of cheerleader in Whitney Point apparently] want to keep cheerin...

Christine Brennan duly noted the lack of respect women's sports get yesterday in her USA Today column . The particular slighting she wrote of was the perpetual use of "women's" as modifier to any sports coverage while lack of an adjective is read as male. What brought on this column was the coverage of Florida's win in the BCS Bowl that prompted sports broadcasters to note that Florida was the first school to hold national title in both football and basketball at the same time. What should have been noted was that by basketball they really meant men's basketball. I am glad Brennan pointed it out and got UMaryland basketball coach Brenda Frese to comment on the slight. Brennan was also able to plug the #1 Terrapins and note the success in terms of the title and of revenue (MD is selling out games this season). But it's a pretty basic argument. You don't even have to know anything about sports to know that men and the things associated with them are alwa...

When I went to Salt Lake City in 2002 my prime motivation was to see women's hockey, not just because I am a huge fan but because University of New Hampshire, my alma mater, had quite a few former players on the team. Well at least it did when I bought my tickets. By the time the games had rolled around most of the UNH contingent had been cut--all of the players who were my contemporaries had been axed. Later I heard that the whole cutting process was pretty contentious and actually led to a lot of team tension that could have possibly affected the team's overall performance. Since that time, UNH players have been shut out of places on the national squad. And I had thought that trend was continuing when I heard at the UNH-Harvard game that Harvard coach Katey Stone, a UNH alum herself, and also coach of the U-22 Select team had cut quite a few UNHers from her squad in August. [The US squad ended up losing 2 out of 3 games to Canada in their series.] But I recently discovered (a...

I have been catching up on my TENNIS magazines this week and am on the "Special Report" issue from November/December about the demise of American tennis--an issue the tennis media likes to trot out every few years. Running across the bottom of the special report section are factoids about the history of American tennis including these two juxtaposed on one page: 4: Times in the U.S. Open's 125-year history in which no American made the singles final 13: Times in Open history in which no U.S. woman made the final, including 2006 You see this language all the time in sports media. Basketball and women's basketball; soccer and men's soccer, etc. Usually coverage of tennis does not fall victim to the same habit of othering the women's game. Also, in another article about the history of American tennis, author Stephen Tignor writes that "any list of the sport's legendary names begins and ends here." And then he proceeds to list all the names. Missing ...