After Atalanta

I know everyone is posting about this, but I would be remiss not to at least post a link . The concept that her diagnosis is not going to affect her, though, as some quoted in certain articles seems to suggest, is a little optimistic. Even if she can temper the disease medically, I am sure it will significantly affect her ability to recruit. Because it is uncertain how long she will be able to continue, I would imagine recruits and their families would be hesitant to commit. Of course, when and if she leaves, there will be a long line of excellent prospects waiting for that position.

The University of Tennessee announced last week that it will be merging its formerly separate men's and women's athletic departments. Tennessee was one of the remaining DI institutions that had retained separate departments. Most schools combined departments years and years ago as a way to cut costs. And most schools, in doing so, made the male athletic director the head of the merged department and the women's athletic director--who was almost always a woman--got demoted. This was not always the case. When my own alma mater, University of New Hampshire, merged athletic departments in the 1990s, the female athletic director took over the whole department. And now Joan Cronan, head of women's athletics at Tennessee, is taking over the merged department. Well, temporarily. She is the first female AD in the SEC. But Cronan doesn't want to the job permanently. She's just going to oversee the transition. Her title is interim director. She will later serve as an advis...

Well it came from a lady. Gloria Ray. She was the first female athletic director of women's sports at the University of Tennessee; a position she took over in 1977 after coaching women's tennis at UT. Here is what she said about creating the Lady Vols brand: "It was fun being in on the very beginning and coming up with the name, 'Lady Vols' which at that time was controversial. I came up with a bumper sticker that said, 'Lady Vols, too.' There was a fear that a women's team would hurt the football team, so we wanted to put out the message that it's Lady Vols, too, in addition to the men, not in place of the men." Still controversial--well maybe just among the people I hang with--but for different reasons of course. Then it was the mere existence of women's sports that was controversial, today it's having to differentiate them arguably in a way the makes them seem inferior. And as we all know now--nothing has hurt big-time football, cert...

NCAA basketball has begun. Now admittedly basketball is a sport that I have never truly embraced. It is probably the American sport I know least about. But I follow the women's collegiate game out of a sense of loyalty to female athletes. And, of course, I find it interesting from a sociological and cultural studies perspective. So here it is the first week of play and I am trying to jump in and be supportive right from the start this year. (This also serves a more solipsistic end: I know a little more when I fill out my bracket in March!) So last night, knowing the Tennessee/Texas Tech game was on, I kindly asked the bartender to put it on the big screen tv. And other people at the bar appeared to be watching. I was ready to have to fend of complaining whiners, but I didn't have to. Of course they may have changed the channel when I left at halftime but I did what I could. And this morning on my very early drive to the gym I caught the score of the UConn game on my local NPR a...

OK, so the NCAA championship game was two weeks ago. I really meant to finish this post that week. It just didn't happen. So here it is. Hopefully still somewhat valuable and/or interesting. -------------------------------- It's a good thing the food was good at my championship party Tuesday night because the game was just so-so. This does not mean there is no parity in the women's game or that the tournament as a whole was boring. The coverage before, during, and after was littered with "they're not quite there yet" sentiments or, conversely, "they're there and now they have to deal with all the evils of success" type comments. This article from the Tampa Tribune falls into the latter category. Signs that women's basketball as made it? The "feud" between Pat Summitt and Geno Auriemma, recruiting violations, cheating scandals, exorbitant coaches' salaries. What a lovely view to take of the sport. How about sellout crowds? How a...

USA Today has a column on the best sports books to give as gifts this year. It's a little disappointing to see that only two are specifically about women. (I haven't read Dave Zirin's Welcome to the Terrordome, which is on the list, but I suspect he mentions women in there somewhere.) The first is Baylor basketball coach Kim Mulkey's memoir, Won't Back Down , which columnist Carol Herwig describes as "rambling" and most appropriate for young adults and young athletes looking for inspiration (at least she didn't say young female athletes!). Pat Summitt has written the foreword of the book. The second is Fast Women: The Legendary Ladies of Racing by Todd McCarthy. Herwig mistakenly refers to it as "revisionist history." Revisionist history is when one changes the "facts" of history to meet an agenda. Those of us who do women's history are not changing the narrative but rather adding to it the stories of women who have been ignore...

I know everyone's watching college football, or professional football, or the pennant race. Some of us are watching the World Cup. But it's hard not to think about college hockey which is gearing up for season openers. The Boston Herald ran a brief column today on the Hockey East conference, in which my alma mater UNH plays. Both the men's and women's teams have been voted first in the coaches' pre-season poll. (The men tied with rival BC.) Alas, reporter John Connolly called the women's team the Lady Wildcats. Grrrr.... I have written previously about the problematic use of the term Lady to designate women's teams and expressed my continued disappointment in Tennessee basketball coach Pat Summitt for her support of the practice. But at UNH, we don't even use the term. (I would have to look into whether we ever did.) So that means Connolly is just using to distinguish--and by distinguish I mean demean because of course "Ladies" can't play...

I came across this very interesting story about Elena Delle Donne, considered the number one high school basketball player in the country and the top class of 2008 recruit. Burnt out by all the attention from recruiters and the media, who suggested that the battle over getting her was at the center of the recent decision by Pat Summitt to end the UConn-Tennessee regular season match-up, she has decided to take a 2-month hiatus that will end in early September. She is not taking calls, text messages; she is not playing; she gave up the opportunity to play for the USA U19 team. She is spending the rest of the summer volunteering at a school for children with disabilities. Her decision, and her willingness to talk about it, sheds some light on the craziness that is college recruiting--especially when we are talking about high profile sports and players. And perhaps it will lead to stronger and/or more specific regulations. Of course, this story is only news because Delle Donne is the numb...

As previously noted, as part of their week-long celebration of women's sports and commemoration of Title IX, CSTV will be airing the Collegiate Women Sports Awards. The five finalists for Women Athlete of the Year were announced recently. The five were taken from a larger list that is comprised of an outstanding athlete in each sport. Oddly I did not see a representative from ice hockey. Not sure what sports get counted. There was no bowling or water polo either. Tennessee has two of the five finalists in b-baller Candace Parker and softball pitcher Monica Abbott. The winner will be announced June 25.

I was up late last night watching a very tight game two of the WCWS championship series. Tennessee had won the first game and so this was an elimination game for Arizona. Tennessee pitcher Monica Abbott was on and though a few Arizona batters got hits off her, she was able to keep her no runs against streak going through regulation. She has not allowed one run in the entire world series. Arizona pitcher Taryne Mowatt doesn't have Abbott's velocity, but she does have a very effective change-up. And she, and her defense, got out of some sticky situations including a bases-loaded, one out, inning late in the game. Tennessee had more chances in extra innings (of which there were 3) to get a run across the plate and take home the championship--the first in school history. But they just couldn't do it before Arizona finally was able to execute their small ball game plan and use their speed on the base pads to get a runner across home plate. This is all to say that Game 3 is tonig...

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...

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.

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.