After Atalanta

I know the margin of victory in track and field events is often minuscule. People win by a proverbial hair or nose or something. But losing by a string? Or rather losing because one was wearing a string, in the form of a friendship bracelet? And not just losing the event, but losing the meet and thus the championship for one's team. Oh yeah, and losing because the opposing team pointed out your "jewelry" which required your disqualification and gave the tattle tale coach's team the victory--by default. That's rough. And that's what happened in California a couple of weeks ago when pole vaulter Robin Laird successfully cleared a height that gave her team the win in the meet and the league title. She was wearing a friendship bracelet when she jumped, an infraction (because it is considered jewelry), that cost her team the aforementioned accolades when the opposing team coach, let's call him Coach Machiavelli (since I just finished reading The Prince), pointe...

So this is literally an old story-- this letter from the superintendent of Gill-Montague School District in Massachusetts--was released at the end of 2008. And it's an old story too in that schools with "traditions" involving the degradation of Native Americans are usually loathe to abandon them. But Superintendent Ken Rocke has suspended the district's use--specifically the high school (Turners Falls High school)--of the fight song and accompanying tomahawk chop. Rocke, at his first football game as superintendent, was a little surprised to see the chop and hear the fight song. And since that time he convened a group of students, teachers, and community members, including Native Americans, to discuss the use of the song and chop. Rocke does an excellent job if explaining the reasoning behind the decision without overtly shaming anyone. But it is clear from the way he so carefully goes through the argument point by point that he has gotten a bit a of crap for the deci...

Last year at this time I had just started teaching sport sociology. It's a fine class to teach. So many examples at one's fingertips to illustrate various points. Plus I think students really feel involved in the course when they can draw on their own experiences in sport and on what they see and hear as fans and consumers of a variety of sports. Last spring was the Lebron James Vogue cover "incident" which was great discussion material even though my students accused me of "reading too much into it." But I bet those who are teaching sport soc or sport in society are having a great time already. First there is the ongoing "blowout" saga in a high school basketball game in Texas. I heard this story first on Sunday morning lying in bed listening to NPR. Didn't catch the beginning because, well I was lying in bed just waking up. So all I heard was something about a team that had not won in something like 4 years being blown away by another team an...

When I headed over to Women's Sports Blog recently and saw a post entitled " More football idiocy ," I thought "yeah, no kidding. All that craziness at a high school in New Mexico." But no, that's not what Fat Louie was talking about. And though indeed the advertisements to female fantasy football participants are demeaning (FL makes a good point about why women would want to participate in such an endeavor anyway given the overtly masculinist nature of the whole thing) so is getting sodomized by a broomstick as part of an initiation into the culture of high school football. At a training camp this past August six upperclassmen allegedly (I use the word in the legal sense because investigations against coaches and players are ongoing and no charges have been filed yet) sodomized six younger players over the course of two days. As someone has noted, "hazing" seems to be a little light in significance when we think about what happened here. It's...

A local Utah paper has a nice feature on a man, Grant Cottam, who has supported girls' sports since the 1960s. Back then he attended a high school basketball game with his wife who had pressured him to go with her. While he went reluctantly, he was impressed immediately and became a lifelong fan of not only basketball but volleyball, track, and soccer. He travels to find good games and follow strong teams--though does not have a favorite. I am pleased there is such a devoted supporter in Utah, but is this really newsworthy? I was actually more interested in how his wife became a fan herself in a pre-Title IX era. Or what exactly it was that Cottam saw in the girls' game that he found so compelling. Why is it so interesting that a now 80-year old man is a fan of girls' sports? The writer didn't do a good enough job framing the story to convince me that this man was remarkable in any way besides the fact that she chose to write about his fandom. But a man's following ...

More good news this week about positive trends in sports. Some colleges have dropped the "Lady" from their nicknames of women's teams, and now, it seems, young athletes are coming out as gay in high school and college and not getting the crap beat out of them. The LA Times features the stories of a handful of young athletes who chose not to hide their homosexual identity and to continue to play sports. The article is not especially well-written, jumping from one athlete's story to the next with little transition, but it is important in that it showcases athletes who are challenging the norms set by sport and society about sexuality, gender, and athletic ability. I actually disagreed with a GLADD rep, a former football player himself, who said that he thinks a superstar will come out eventually (I guess he thinks of superstars as men given that Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, Amelie Mauresmo, and Sheryl Swoopes all came out during their playing careers and have...

Twisty at I Blame the Patriarchy writes about the pornification of high school pole vaulter, Allison Stokke, that all started when a sports blog, With Leather, posted a picture of her and entitled a post " Pole Vaulting is Sexy, Barely Legal" in early May. (Actually where and when it started seems to be under debate; there were other blogs and websites posting pictures of her during her high school career. But it definitely exploded with this sports blogger's post, though.) The Washington Post and many other news outlets have covered the story which includes the extent of the internet fanaticism around this high school athlete. Above-linked sports blogger tries to keep saying that he wouldn't be interested in her at all if she wasn't so darn good at pole vaulting. I don't recall Lebron James, when he was an outstanding high school athlete, being sexualized at all--let alone at the level of intensity and perversity that Allison Stokke has faced. Despite the p...

The Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) lawsuit that has been going on since 1998 is finally over . The Supreme Court denied MHSAA's latest appeal thus ending the case. For those unfamiliar with the Michigan saga, Communities for Equity, a group formed by Michigan parents, sued the athletic association because of a variety of civil rights violations which resulted in girls' athletics continually being discriminated against. The biggest battle--as the media reported it--was over seasons. Six girls' sports were being played in the "wrong" season (i.e. not in accordance with collegiate seasons). This made college recruitment more difficult. MHSAA argues that this was done because of facility and coaching issues. MHSAA probably would not have had such legal troubles if they had disadvantaged students in an equitable manner; after all, not every high school student-athlete is going to be recruited. But if this really was not such a big deal, as MHSAA con...

This is what happens when I wait too long to post about an issue I thought no one would blog on: I get scooped. (The fact that the NY Times picked up the story probably was a factor too.) But I am going to post anyway just to create more writing in the blogosphere about the Whitney Point cheerleaders who seem to feel a little icky about cheering for the girls' basketball team. But as I said, others have picked up on the issue already. Check out Ann Bartow's post at Feminist Law Profs and Diane's at The Dees Diversion . You can read about the trials of the Whitney Point cheerleaders here for the full story--or rather the NY Times version of the story. I attribute some of the cheerleaders' dismay, over half of whom quit the squad rather than cheer for the girls' basketball team, to the high school culture in which they live and cheer. If they [and I am speaking only of female cheerleaders, the only type of cheerleader in Whitney Point apparently] want to keep cheerin...

...I just cringe. Which is what I did last week when I saw some football team members standing in front of the grocery store with cans in their hands "begging" for money in their varsity jackets with the leather sleeves. I am not sure how widespread this practice of "canning" is but it brought back my own memories of standing there wondering how much eye contact is really appropriate when you're unabashedly asking for money. Or whether when someone asks your win-loss record (I was on the tennis team knowledge of our win-loss record was rare unlike football which many more people follow--but not in a Friday Night Lights kind of way--it was New England after all) if you should maybe pad it a little less they feel you are unworthy of a donation. Anyway I did not give money to canners because well it's football. I am not anti-football. I actually enjoy it once in a while. I was one of the few people in the band who actually paid attention to the games when we pl...