After Atalanta

I was compelled by the lure of being in the NYT to think critically about the comments play-by-play announcer Brent Musburger made about the girlfriend of Alabama QB AJ McCarron during the BCS Championship earlier this week. But since my comments didn't quite make the cut, I shall them--and more!--here. I didn't watch the game, didn't hear about the comments until I got queried by a reporter. (And admittedly did not know Musbuger by name--I did recognize his voice though.) I think the reporter wanted me to make some kind of direct link to the status of women's sports and female athletes. And I couldn't do that. Because there isn't really one that can be made. All I could say was the somewhat derivative "well, it's all the same patriarchy." When Musbuger encouraged little boys in Alabama to be throwing the football around with dad so that they too could land a beauty queen like Katherine Webb, he wasn't saying anything new rather he was simpl...

So of course the tennis world is all atwitter with Justine Henin's not-so-surprising announcement last week that she would be returning to tennis. And so begins an even more fervent discussion of the player sabbatical or the non-retirement or the mental break or the recharge--whatever you want to call it. It's an important discussion to have given the recognized intensity of the sport. (Both the men's and women's tour are making concerted efforts to reduce the playing schedules to offer more down time to players.) But the concept of the sabbatical--an official one--is not one on the table at either tour's next organizational meeting apparently. This means that the current practice of retiring and staging a comeback remains the only option for players who need a break. Pam Shriver finds it wrong--of course. She told USA Today : I'm tired of them announcing retirement when what they are really doing is leaving the tour for a period of time. Well, Pammy, what choic...

Ok so I have decided to address the Serena Williams incident in the context of all the other interesting gender stuff that occurred at this year's US Open. We had all the "women's game sucks" comments from the print and television media. Commentators of course were not saying such things--preferring to highlight the interest that comes with not knowing who is going to win any given match. The men's game, at times in the not-so-distant past, have been subject to similar criticisms. But much of the "lousy women's game" discourse entailed some problematic blaming on fragile minds (and a little on fragile bodies). The Serena situation and Melanie Oudin's amazing run quelled some of that talk. But it has re-emerged with Kim Clijster's win last night. In the end, though, this was not--obviously--the big issue. Which I will get to--hold on. First, let's talk about smiles. I heard a lot about them this tournament. In addition to the usual talk ab...

I thought I could just subtly overlook this story and let bloggers like Diane take care of it, but the story about Justin Gimelstob's sexist, misogynistic comments seems to making more news a week after it broke somewhat quietly across the pond. I didn't have anything profound to say when I read about Gimelstob's trashing of female tennis players generally, his sexualization of a few specific ones, and his violent comments toward Anna Kournikova (all his comments, in my mind, inflict a certain amount of violence, but his one about hitting Kournikova was most explicit). And I don't suppose I have anything especially profound to say about it now either. Am I surprised a male athlete who only had a so-so professional career by modern standards and has been given a mouthpiece by the media so easily dispenses with misogynist rants? Nope. Am I surprised that the apology he issued (or Tennis Warehouse issues--hard to tell) wasn't really an apology? Nope. Am I surprised th...

Last year at this time I was in London and getting ready to head to Wimbledon. This year I am at my usual place--the couch--watching it on television. *sigh* Oh well, can't be there every year. I don't have too much to say about who's going to win, prospects, potential upsets, etc. Diane at Women Who Serve provides that kind of detail. Mostly I just complain. I think I will start with the score graphics on ESPN2. I don't like them. The horizontal banner across the top of the screen is poorly laid out. Now on to the commentators. I heard John Feinstein this morning on NPR giving a preview of the Championships. He mentioned that defending champion Venus Williams is only seeded 7th because that is the position she currently occupies in the rankings and Wimbledon chose not to alter the seedings as they sometimes do to reflect experience, or rather, success, on grass. Feinstein seemed to think this meant she only has some outside chance of winning the title--or at least that...

Yep, I just heard from Beth Mowins, who is the lead commentator for the championship games of the WCWS, that the three man pitching staff of the US national team contains two lefties. How would those two lefties, Monica Abbott and Cat Osterman, and the rightie Jennie Finch feel if Beth Mowins came up to them on the street and called them men? Right. Then don't do it on television either.

ESPN columnist Bonnie Ford has a good piece about the return of Lindsay Davenport to active player status after giving birth early in the summer. We learn a little more about son Jagger's delivery--it was early and done by c-section to avoid complications; and that she started playing only two weeks later! Another example of how being in good shape going into a pregnancy helps you on the other side of it. Ford also uses the column to pay tribute to newly retired Corina Morariu, Davenport's former doubles partner and good friend. According to Ford, Morariu has been doing commentary. I haven't heard her yet but I am eager to hear her take on things and hopeful that she is better than, say, Pam Shriver. And, by the way, the event Davenport and Morariu were playing, Smash Hits, an annual event organized by Billie Jean King and Elton John, raised $400,000 for AIDS causes. And John paid great tribute to King when he commented that she should be coaching...men.