After Atalanta

Even my cynical, questioning-of-all-things-teleological self was impressed by this report about the increase in the hiring of minority female coaches in women's basketball. Three years ago the group Black Coaches and Administrators began tracking the hiring of minority women* with the help of Richard Lapchick of University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports. Lapchick and the Institute are known for the issuance of various report cards, which detail how well or poorly various sport associations (professional, intercollegiate, etc.) are doing in terms of creating and maintaining racially diverse and welcoming environments. There are now 23 minority coaches in women's DI basketball; up from 8 three years ago when the hiring report cards started. Eighteen of those 23 coaches are women. What the article did not say and I am somewhat interested in is how many of those hirings are of women who were already head coaches at the DI level, versus at diff...

IF I EVER MISTAKE YOU FOR A POEM No body was ever composed from words, not the hipsway of verse, the iambic beat of a heart. Yet inside you, a sestina of arteries, the villanelle of villi, sonnets between your shoulder blades. If I were more obsessive I'd follow the alliteration of age spots across your arms. But I have exchanged my microscope for a stethoscope as I want to listen inside you, past your repetition, your free verse of skin. How easy it is to fall for your internal organs. Your arrhythmia is charming hidden in the ballad of body, your gurgling stanzas, your lyric sigh. Kelly Russell Agodon

I'm an overworked blogger (how that happened on my first official week of summer break is curious) so I am largely re-telling what the Women's Sports Foundation said to some if its constituents this morning: the Washington Post assumes too much. WaPo published a a feature on the status of youth soccer in the US and the debate over whether future national team and professional stars in the MLS should be playing high school soccer and be playing in academies. It's an interesting debate. In case you care, I am for high school sports. The whole full-time, one-sport training thing is a little much as evidenced by the plethora of disappointed former teen tennis players and their parents or even by the successful ones like Andre Agassi. But that's not the point. The point is that in an article about youth soccer, one would think we would read about all of youth soccer. But no. This is about boys' youth soccer--exclusively. And it does not acknowledge the huge youth soccer ...

HYMN TO EROS O Eros, silently smiling one, hear me. Let the shadow of thy wings brush me. Let thy presence enfold me, as if darkness were swandown. Let me see that darkness lamp in hand, this country become the other country sacred to desire. Drowsy god, slow the wheels of my thought so that I listen only to the snowfall hush of thy circling. Close my beloved with me in the smoke ring of thy power, that we way be, each to the other, figures of flame, figures of smoke, figures of flesh newly seen in the dusk. Denise Levertov

Kye Allums, the openly transgender member of the George Washington women's basketball team, has announced that he will not be playing his senior year. It is largely due to the two concussions he suffered this season, according to some sources . He has sustained eight during his career. He noted that he might not have been medically cleared to play anyway. According to the NYT though the university's statement included this passage: "[Allums] has decided it is in his best interest to no longer participate in intercollegiate athletics." That leaves some room for speculation. I would have been speculating anyway given my propensity for suspicion. The statement also included a comment from Allums that he came to this conclusion all on his own . His announcement last fall, of course, drew a lot of attention--both positive and negative. But due to his injuries he only ended up playing in eight games this season, which may have tempered some of the attention. Of course the m...

Pretty interesting interview with Kathryn Bertine over at the Huffington Post the other day. Bertine is a senior editor at espnW and is trying to qualify for the Olympic Games and has written a book about her attempt to qualify in 2008. ESPN sponsored her quest to do so, but she didn't make it for those games. So she's at it again looking to be a cyclist in London in 2012. Here's what impressed me: her clear recognition of the skewed treatment of female athletes with sport itself and, of course, the media coverage. She gives the example of the lack of prize money in women's cycling, but notes that so few cyclists will speak up because of fear of alienating sponsors. Because there's nothing worse, we know, than an athlete who speaks her/his mind. And it's especially bad if that athlete is a woman who is complaining. I mean, she could be a feminist. Horrors! So Bertine, being the only cyclist from Saint Kitts and Nevis (she got dual citizenship as part of her qual...

...but tone-up sneakers for kids?? I'm sorry. For girls . Yep. Sketchers is making and marketing its tone-up sneakers, purporting to tone your flabby ass and thighs, to children. And what is up with the costumed hot dog and cupcake??

The WTA has launched its new advertising campaign: Strong is Beautiful. And the NYT ran an article about said campaign. Let me note first that this is not a post with one coherent point or thesis. It is largely a collection of musings about the campaign. First, strong is beautiful. I said that the other day when writing about Sam Stosur. But is strong alone beautiful? Probably not if you look at the WTA campaign. Makeup and flowy dresses or bandeau bras which reveal a lot of skin are featured in the ad campaign (which consists of several themed videos and still photos). Many of the players were not recognizable to me. In part this is because I have not been following women's tennis as closely in the past year or so. So the newcomers are not as familiar to me. But I do know who Dominika Cibulkova is and I have seen her play--in Paris actually when I went to the French Open a couple of years ago. And I would never have guessed, from her picture in the campaign, who she was. Last year...

LOVE IS NOT ALL Love is not all: It is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain, Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink and rise and sink and rise and sink again. Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone; Yet many a man is making friends with death even as I speak, for lack of love alone. It well may be that in a difficult hour, pinned down by need and moaning for release or nagged by want past resolutions power, I might be driven to sell you love for peace, Or trade the memory of this night for food. It may well be. I do not think I would. Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 – 1950)

Inside Higher Ed ran a piece last week about the experiences of gay intercollegiate football players based on a preliminary research study. I have been meaning to post about it but things in Title IX land last week kept me pretty busy. (Not to mention those piles of papers in need of grading.) But it's still worth noting, even a week later. I am, as many know, generally skeptical of progress narratives. (For a related skeptic's take see Diane's recent experience at Starbucks .) And this study illustrates that things are not necessarily getting better, even as we hear more people come out and talk about positive experiences playing sports. I had the pleasure of hearing former Bloomsburg University football captain Brian Sims speak positively of his experience coming out to his team. But it seems, based on this study, that for every Sims-like experience there are many more troubling ones. Like a player who "mangled" his own legs so he could no longer play and thus ...

From the Globe and Mail , an article that touches on why there are not many women in executive positions in sports. It begins with the story of and commentary from current Women's Tennis Association CEO Stacey Allaster but goes on to mention Canadian hockey player Hayley Wickenheiser who aspires to a position in an NHL franchise front office but recognizes the impediments her gender presents in achieving that goal. That there are so few women in leadership positions in sports is not shocking, of course. There were, though, two surprising moments for me in this article. Wickenheiser said she doesn't believe that if women gain more ground in the area of sport management that they will make "sweeping changes." The example she gives: women won't take the fighting out of hockey. Is this a real fear? That women who gain positions of power in sport are going to de-masculinize them? I see that as an excuse. I think it's more simple than that. Sports continue to be a ...

Sam Stosur currently ranks in my top three of athlete crushes. And so her success this past year has made me happy not just for her but for me--because I get to see her more when she is winning. She obviously gets more press as well. Including this article * by Malcolm Knox, which appeared in an Australian publication. It's a lengthy piece that chronicles her career, her sidelining illness, her resurgence, as well as a one-on-one interview with Stosur herself. Knox relates his encounter with her: When she stopped to speak to me, what was most remarkable was Stosur's stillness and clarity. She looked you in the eye. Neither as muscular nor as deep-voiced as she appears on television, she was strikingly normal, if that makes any sense. READ: She doesn't seem like as much of a lesbian (I was going to use the d-word but I'm holding back) as I thought she would. Criminy. Stosur's muscles are amazing. Her shoulders make strong and broad-shouldered like myself a little les...

OH SUMPTUOUS MOMENT Emily Dickinson Oh Sumptuous moment Slower go That I may gloat on thee -- 'Twill never be the same to starve Now I abundance see -- Which was to famish, then or now -- The difference of Day Ask him unto the Gallows led -- With morning in the sky --

...and a loooooong badminton racket. Yep. New rules for female badminton players. Skirts are now required. REQUIRED. Despite my occasional equivocation over skirts because I wear them myself when playing tennis, this is just wrong. The official peeps at the Badminton World Federation say that aren't trying to sexualize female players, they are just trying to create a standard of dress that will enhance the popularity of the sport. One professional who is opposed to the new rule says she understands the federation's desire to raise the game's profile but that skirts are not going to accomplish this: "If people want to see women in skirts, they will go elsewhere--they won't go to watch badminton." So very true. It should be noted that the BWF is accommodating various religious beliefs by allowing anyone to wear tights, track bottoms or shorts underneath the required skirt. Small points for that, I guess.

Because I said so. I know that is the mom response. But it is actually true. Last week's NYT piece about the ways in which schools not-so-subtly manipulate their roster numbers to make it appear that they are closer to providing equitable opportunities than they really are has generated a lot of response. One such response is the suggestion that we not count football in order to make things more equal. This is not in any way a novel "solution." It was proposed when Title IX was passed and football supporters feared for their sport when they realized supporters of women's athletics were going to use the new gender equity law to claim their fair share. Title IX will be the death of football, people claimed. But the fear was never realized. Football, however, has been the death of other sports and silently hides (a shocking ability given its massiveness: stadia, rosters, coaching staffs, etc.) while other male student-athletes lose their opportunities and everyone turns...