After Atalanta

Yes, all of those things are connected and I had intended to write about this issue earlier--specifically in June when the Indiana Fever and Phoenix Mercury played on the 24th. It was a...contentious game. There was a lot of chirping, some meme-able finger pointing, and after the game, upon league review, a Flagrant 2 foul for Alyssa Thomas that resulted in a one-game suspension. [I assume a fine as well but not sure how much. A player is assessed a $500 fine for a technical.] And then all hell broke loose when replays and slo-mos and up-close angles that were not available during the game showed Thomas's fist on Caitlin Clark's neck while Clark was on the floor, on her back trying to retain control of the ball.  The vitriol was immediate and completely disproportionate [and I am saying this as someone who still holds Thomas responsible for taking out the star (Napheesa Collier) of my favorite team (Lynx) in last year's playoffs]. The reaction itself became a story. So fina...

How long have you been covering women's basketball?  The weirdness around Azzi Fudd being drafted to the Wings and thus rejoining her girlfriend, Paige Bueckers, is perplexing. The commentators at the draft and the press room afterwards did not mention the relationship, rather they asked Fudd about being back with her teammate.  How was this not discussed beforehand? Was Fudd prepped? It is clear Dallas was not prepped. A team rep at the press conference with Fudd, who was asked about her romantic relationship with Bueckers, shut down that questioning, leaving Fudd with an odd expression on her face. Hope folks figure this out soon--it is not as if they haven't had over a year to prepare.  Also, we should remember that these are 20-somethings.  The Coach of UConn Speaking of the past year...UConn had a stellar season before losing to South Carolina in the tournament semifinals. Will the season be remembered or will it be the loss--which was marked by atrocious behavi...

 I started this post on the plane ride back from a conference in CA in November. Conferences always gave me a spurt of writing energy. But the end of the fall 2024 semester got in the way of its completion and transcription (it was easier to pull out a notebook rather than my laptop on the plane). It is still relevant and so... I have been wondering if the (University of) Iowa women's basketball t-shirt (and sweatshirt) I wore last year now after the end of that 2023-24 run to the final four and the subsequent 2024 WNBA season. Last year, an observer might have wondered if I was a bandwagon fan, i.e., experiencing the Caitlin Clark effect. I am an Iowa alum (PhD 2013). with a complicated relationship to Iowa athletics (see the myriad of Title IX issues, racism within programs, incompetent and violent coaching, etc.) And though I have watched women's college basketball for some time, it's mostly because I want to support women's sports. I understand very little about str...

I ended yesterday's post with a line about female Olympians, who are the minority gender at the Winter Olympics, receiving a greater piece of spotlight. The caveat (in addition to the fact that it actually might not be true if one does a thorough content analysis of media coverage) is that the spotlight they are under highlights their sexuality, or rather their performance of their (hetero)sexuality/femininity. Obviously in most other arenas (pun intended) the spotlight on female athletes and women's sports is pretty dim. So much so that the media sometimes forgets altogether that women's sports exist. Because when "women" gets placed in front of "sports" it has some kind of cloaking effect, rendering women's sports invisible to the world. This phenomenon was on display last year when Andy Murray won Wimbledon, the first Brit to do so since Fred Perry in the 1930s. Except for Dorothy Round Little, Angela Mortimer Barrett, Ann Haydon-Jones, and Virg...

Sometimes one feels randomly inspired to blog even when one has not done so in quite a while and one has a conference paper to finish writing by Wednesday. C'est la vie. But I was a little bit surprised to come across this article "Officials set to reduce women's hoops physicality" which said that "Physical play in the post, on shooters and on ball handlers will no longer be tolerated." The goal, they say, is to increase scoring by creating greater freedom of movement. There is talk, from time to time, of changing the rules in the women's game for this purpose. But the way in which this rule change and the intense focus on enforcement is being presented seems a little odd. For example, an additional rule change is the ten-second back court rule requiring the offense to bring the ball past midcourt in ten seconds. Makes sense. But why make the game less physical? And why do coaches think it is getting too physical? Auriemma called it a necessary st...

I really, really, really though Cal was going to take down the Cardinals last night. And I was rooting hard for that to happen. Sure Cal's trip to the Final Four didn't help my bracket any. But I was deeply distraught that Baylor was beaten by Louisville and I felt so bad for Brittany Griner and all the elbows she took during that game. But the more I observed Cal and heard pieces of their story, the more my cheers were about them winning and less about vindication for Baylor and Griner. Because, admittedly, I was a reluctant Baylor fan. I have always like Griner but not so much the Lady (gag) Bears as an organization. But who else could beat UConn consistently? It was Machiavellian really. But Griner is graduating and I can move on. And I have moved on to Cal. Because I looked at the members of that team and I looked at their coach and I knew exactly what kind of atmosphere is fostered on that team. Clarendon hugs Coach Gottlieb, pic from San Francisco Examiner I have...

It was a pretty gay-focused week in sports. Here's what happened:  Rutgers fired head men's basketball coach, Tim Rice, after ESPN got hold of a video--which then went viral--of Coach Rice engaged in conduct unbecoming of a coach, and that was according to New Jersey governor Chris Christie. In addition to physical abuse, Rice dished out a heavy dose of emotional abuse in the form of homonegative and misogynistic slurs. The Outside the Lines story can be found here . Glad this made news but a few ahem moments that were the topic of discussion in boot camp this morning in between pop squats, long-strider jumping jacks and rainbow deadlifts. First, Rutgers knew about this behavior last fall when they fined and gave Rice a three-game suspension. The power of a viral video...We tell young people--especially intercollegiate athletes to be careful about social media; maybe college athletics administrators should take their own advice. Oh my, I just learned that Rutgers AD is no...

It's never great to be outed. It's probably worse to be outed because you have been arrested for aggravated assault against your ex-girlfriend. That is the situation former WNBA and Tennessee Vols player Chamique Holdsclaw finds herself in this week. An arrest warrant was issued for Holdsclaw who turned herself in today. She allegedly fired a shot into the backseat of Jennifer Lacy's SUV which may or may not have had gasoline in it. Lacy is a current player for the Tulsa Shock. Nike never said anything about whether letting girls play sports would decrease their risk of becoming abusers. What else is going to happen this week?

Summer lovin', happened too fast. Christine Brennan has declared the Summer of Women (in sports) over. And, today, she and I are on the same page. Eternal pessimist that I am, I suspected--as it was happening--that the surge of interest in women's sports that was ignited primarily by the Olympics but also by the concurrent news and (mostly) praise of Title IX during its 40th anniversary year, would dissipate. It's a roller coaster ride. Luckily we only have to go down screeching down that big hill of disappointment once every 4 years (and down a smaller hill of disappointment after the winter Olympics end). Brennan was brought back to her reality after hearing UConn women's basketball coach, Geno Auriemma, discuss his stance on lowering the rim in women's basketball to make it a more popular sport that people (i.e. men) want to watch. People who don't like women's sports are not going to watch them. And inferiorizing the sport only provides the haters mo...

...show your fandom in your feet, females! Fan gear that limits your activity level. This is something to put in my female fandom file for that not-yet-written article. Previous commentary on this issue has been about 1) pink apparel or 2) heteronormative marketing. My last post on the heteronormative marketing of sports gear, trinkets, mementos brought a comment from Sean at sportsBabel about why I would want to be included in the grand capitalist scheme. True, true. And when I saw this little piece of news about how the NBA will be making $250 stilettos, I was mighty glad to not be in the target audience.These things don't seem very practical. I mean, high tripping/slipping hazard when walking around the arena and up and down stairs to your seat. And you definitely don't want some drunk fan to spill beer on these!

Brittney Griner, MVP of the DI Women's Basketball Championships, said Baylor officials advised her not to read blogs--because they are mean. Not hard for me to imagine. She does read Twitter though and so she's aware of what think about her, her height, her voice, her abilities; how they perceive her sexuality and her gender presentation. She's used to it, which I think shows an amazing amount of maturity. Her one public incident her freshman year when she punched an opposing player seems to be well behind her now--which is good, because things could have gone an entirely different way. I am not a big fan of Baylor as an institution or Kim Mulkey as a coach, but I think they have done something good with Brittney Griner. Mulkey publicly expressed her anger with the way social media and opposing team fans have treated Griner earlier this week. Of course the kicker is that the woman Mulkey hugged last night after Baylor took the title--Muffett McGraw--didn't do muc...

Brittney Griner's dunk last week in the NCAA tournament made a lot of noise--media noise that is--despite the fact that she's 1) done it before in competition, 2) does it all the time in warm-up, and 3) is the second --not the first to dunk in the women's tournament. (Though, as I believe I noted before, Candace Parker's dunks were not all that exciting.) Some of the press is centered around whether Griner is the gateway dunker. Will more female dunkers follow? Questions have been raised: is the women's game evolving? I would ask: evolving into what? Though I believe the implication is that it is evolving into a game/style that more closely resembles what the men play. Of course, critics of the men's game suggest (often with a healthy amount of racial prejudice) that there is too much showboating and not enough fundamentals on display. This columnis t is one of the "where are the fundamentals" types while also asking why the women aren't leap...

Wish I had known about the trouble at Syracuse before I made my bracket picks! Oh well. I mean I knew about the assistant coach as sex predator issue. But not the steroids. And now the curious and ill-timed and unspecified suspension of the star forward? I didn't have them going all the way, anyway. And it doesn't seem that they will. Which team will take advantage of their weakened state??

WaPo published an article ab out the disparate graduation rates between the men's and women's teams in this year's NCAA tournament. The women have a 89 percent graduation rate; the men are at 67 percent. Also the disparity in grad rates, on the women's side, between white and African American players is much smaller. On the women's side: 8 percent. On the men's side: 28 percent. These disparities are not new. But the numbers on the men's side are improving. There is hope that the NCAA will further raise its standards for the academic performance. Last year the organization decided to ban from the tournament teams with a graduation rate of less then 50 percent. But Dr. Richard Lapchick of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (he's the one the collects all this data and issues "report cards" on the status of intercollegiate and professional sports, and sports media) says the NCAA could probably easily...

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 ...

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.

While I certainly do not support the concept and execution of the Lingerie Football League, I see why it exists. It plays on a variety of sexual fetishes and, of course, makes these female athletes far less threatening because of the sexualization and because what they are doing doesn't look like "real" football. Again, not a fan. Wish it would go away. Will write letters or engage in other methods of discouragement to get that to happen. What did genuinely surprise (ever so cynical) me is the news that there is now a Lingerie Basketball League. I found out about it on some mom blog . Said mom does not seem too upset, after her initial questioning, that the league exists because, once you get past the uniforms, you can see (there's a video) that they are skilled. Yes. They are skilled. But there are a lot of women who are skilled basketball players. They play at all levels: high school, college, professionally, recreationally, in the pick-up games at my gym. They don...

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...

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...

The news you most likely know: Kobe Bryant called a ref a f&^%ot last week. He got fined $100,000. (Which some thought was too much--including Bryant who is appealing the fine.) He offered the standard not-apology, and talked about how the word isn't really discriminatory because it isn't connected to homosexuals anymore. Yep, f*&^$t has nothing to do with gay people anymore. I guess bitch has nothing to do with women either. Geesh. The (as far as I know) only openly gay man (now, not when he was a player) to ever play in the NBA, John Amaechi, wrote a piece in the NYT about the incident: "...he is telling boys, men and anyone watching that when you are frustrated, when you are as angry as can be, the best way to demean and denigrate a person, even one in a position of power, is to make it clear that you think he is not a real man, but something less." And that, of course, is very connected to the stereotypes of gay men. As for the apology, Amaechi said: ...