After Atalanta

A columnist out of Tennessee has a snarky piece criticizing the position of women's bowling as an NCAA-sanctioned sport. Also annoying is that not so atypical "apologetic" pattern that male writers use when talking about women's sports: criticize, make a "but I really do support women's sports and equality and all that" statement, and criticize some more. It's like a reverse sandwich technique. And the author, David Whitley, certainly has the pattern down. Whitley seems to have a problem that bowling now (actually since 2003) has the same status as football. Only in name, I would say. Does any intercollegiate sport really have the same "status" as football? So he makes what he must see as the requisite bowling jokes as he goes off on his quest to find the NCAA Championship bowling trophy which is in defending champion Vanderbilt's athletic department. (Is it in the shape of nachos and beer, he gibes.) And then, of course, he launches in...

The Women's World Cup is not the only women's sport underway this weekend. The World Cup of Rugby began this week as well and is being held in Paris where apparently people are pretty excited about the six-week tournament. And though rugby is even less popular with American audiences than soccer, maybe we should start paying attention. The NCAA has sanctioned women's rugby and it's likely that many of the over-300 club teams that exist at American colleges and universities will consider trying for varsity status. Also, the US Open of Women's Bowling will be taking place over the next several weeks and ESPN is airing the competition on Sunday afternoons. This information is posted on a blog at afterellen.com which I link to largely because blogger Ace14 has included a clip from Grease2 (the superior Grease movie of the series in my opinion) where the Pink Ladies and T-birds bowl and sing and dance--at the same time! Don't forget the Solheim Cup which pits a US ...