After Atalanta

That's the Jeopardy version of the answer posed by MSNBC columnist Mike Celizic who asked " Why no buzz about UConn women's reign ?" UConn demolished the University of West Virginia last night. UWV stayed close throughout the first half and a little bit into the second, then I turned my head away for a minute or two and it was pretty much over. I kept the game on for background noise as I finished my dinner. Then I turned on a rerun of the season finale of Glee w which was still more interesting but shared one similarity with the game: I knew how both were going to end. The Big East tournament was pretty much in my backyard and I didn't go because I didn't want to see UConn demolish everyone in its path. (Well I almost went to see Rutgers play Saturday because C. Vivian is my favorite!--but I was tired and cranky.) Absolutely the lack of interest reflects the sexist culture we live in. And while there has been some media coverage of the streak most of it imp...

...from about an Olympic ice rink length away. I missed but definitely heard about Canada's 18-0 win over Slovakia. I saw the US's 12-1 win over China. I watched most of Canada's 10-1 win over Switzerland. And then I saw all the critiques . (And there were indeed more than three.) It is indeed worrisome given that the IOC nixed softball from the Olympic roster because of lack of international worthiness. (Though that seemed to become the official rationale there was all that curious wrangling that is alleged to have happened over whether baseball and softball were the same sport.) And if I were an elite female ski jumper right now seeing these scores, I would be miffed that the IOC hadn't even considered my sport because of alleged international shallowness. But the delve into Olympic hockey's history is important. The men's scores in the early years of the game--even worse. And the women's game needs to overcome even more: namely the sexism and intersecti...

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...

It seems I have gone through March Madness without blogging about it. And it's not as if there haven't been plenty of opinions bandied about about "the women's game" and parity and excitement and promotion/publicity. So on this--the morning of the final--I'll try to address some of these things. In an entry from almost two weeks ago, this guy says that the "NCAA tournament soundly defeats parity." That there are "no surprises" in the women's game. That it's easy to bet on the women's tournament because it is so predictable. Ridiculous for two notable reasons. One, the controversy over seeding was pretty intense this year with Stanford not so subtly hinting that they deserved a #1 seed. And despite the lack of major upsets there were many games that I tuned in for--and others I know did as well--because the outcome was nowhere near a sure thing. Sure, it would have been highly unlikely that any team not seeded in the top 4 would ...

The Hindustan Times has a good article about the utter lack of support for women's sports and female athletes in India. In describing the conditions--lack of quality equipment, poor facilities, no media coverage, and pitiful compensation--I began to think about what state women's sports in the US would be in were it not for Title IX. While Title IX applies only to athletic opportunities within educational institutions and not national teams like those referenced in the article, we all know that colleges and universities provide a training and recruiting ground for national teams in many cases. Of course sometimes the differences are not so exaggerated. Women's sports in the US get very little media coverage and when they are the coverage is often problematic due the sexualiation, infantilization, and general lack of respect for female athletes. And the issue of compensation is also a good one. We all know that athletes on women's professional team sports earn far less ...

ESPN columnist Dave Reed has a very thorough piece on women's volleyball which has grown exponentially at the junior level. This has had a great effect on the collegiate game which, according to those involved, has achieved that magic word in women's sports: parity. Parity is the nice way of saying: generally, you don't suck anymore. It's not that I don't appreciate parity--no one like to see a game where one team or player dominates endlessly. But I dislike that frequently the term is used with no explanation. The people who use it often fail to provide a thorough explanation of the historical, cultural, and economic circumstances that impeded parity for decades. Reed, thankfully, does not do this. His column explains the ways in which the women's game has grown and how that has been helped by more development programs, more money into the sport generally and specifically the attention paid to it by colleges and universities who are intent on turning it into a ...

With the defeat of the US National Team by the Brazilians people are wondering , is the rest of the world catching up? is US women's soccer slipping from its spot of dominance? Before I issue a solid "yes" on this, I have to say that although the US has always been a top or the top team, it is not as if they have won every World Cup or every Olympic gold. There is far more parity in international women's soccer than say in softball where the US has only recently been a little bit challenged by Japan. But anyway, Yes. A columnist at The Harvard Crimson blames it on the youth and collegiate systems which have a model of the ideal soccer player (strong and fast) that leaves out a lot of talented players. Good points, certainly. Because we have to wonder how it is that a team that comes together only for the big events so soundly dominated a team whose image is one of togetherness which includes extensive training before international tournaments. A team that gets excel...

There are a lot of stories coming across my Google news alert about the World Cup. Of course none of the ESPN "news" shows that I have seen pay it much attention. I guess they figure just airing the matches for two hours every other morning is enough. But there has been print coverage of the event across the world. And despite the initial trepidations over the poor timing of the event, it has not gone completely unnoticed. Though, again, television coverage has been minimal. The coverage that does exist, however, is pretty good. We're even starting to hear the p-word, parity. Yesterday at SI.com, columnist Mark Bechtel wrote a piece that suggests he is impressed by the teams in this year's tournament. The level of competition has changed for the better. As Bechtel notes only Brazil has gotten out of the first round of play without a loss. Teams are getting better coaching and more attention--in the form of funding--from their national associations and this makes for g...

Most everyone who follows basketball knows of the huge disparity in pay for NBA and WNBA players. NBA players are averaging salaries of about $5 million, while WNBA salaries are capped at $100,000. Smith , in the column I referenced in part I of this post, writes that the WNBA plays in the NBA off-season . Even as she argues for equality she falls victim to the discourse that the WNBA is the awkward little sis of the NBA who only gets to shine when the "real" players are vacationing. Can you imagine the NBA season being referred to as the WNBA off-season. The reality is that many WNBA players have no off-season. They head overseas to play ball--often for a lot more money depending on where they go. This feature from ESPN details the "off-season" lives of Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi who play for a team in Russia owned by a very generous Russian man who provides them perks usually only experienced by NBA players. The women get free housing--good housing: a villa with a...

This column in the OC Register , written in the wake of the the first Wimbledon that awarded male and female players equal prize money, discusses the many professional sports in which pay disparities are common and extreme and some of the reasons behind the disparity. Actually, columnist Marcia Smith cites one reason specifically: the disparate histories of men's and women's professional sports. The two professional sports that offer equal prize money, tennis and beach volleyball, had men and women participating in them from the start, she (and others she cites) argues. Golf and basketball, she says, have different histories in which men had professional opportunities decades before women did. She is correct about the influence of history, but there are numerous other factors as well and certainly history does not explain it all. For example, even though the Open era in tennis came for men and women at the same time, the history of disparity in "reimbursing" players ...

This feature about LPGA golfer LaRee Sugg is very good at chronicling her experience on the tour while also highlighting the absence of black women in the game of golf. Oddly (or maybe not) little attention seems to be paid to the lack of black women playing on the LPGA. There are many women of color playing golf given the international composition of the tour. We see women of color playing and winning and contending in every tournament: Se Ri Pak, Lorena Ochoa, Birdie Kim, and many more. There is the appearance of diversity. And to some extent there is diversity on the tour--a certain kind of diversity. Why aren't there more African-American women on the tour? Because class also plays a factor. When we look at socioeconomic factors alongside race and gender we see the black women in the United States have fewer opportunities to even access the means necessary to play the game, let alone be encouraged to play it. (This was actually not the situation Sugg was in as a youngster. Her ...

I do have some thoughts on the Pokey Chatman resignation and allegation(s), but they are not quite done yet. But I want to comment on some of the things said in this article about the situation at LSU. First, Donnita Drain, head coach at Langston University, when asked if the situation was bad for women's basketball said it was and explained that it makes everyone (and I assume she means female head coaches) suspect. She notes that if you are not married then you are assumed to be gay. Interesting, she was not asked if Chatman's resignation hurt the status of women head coaches--she was asked if it hurt the game. Her response seems to indicate how the situation has brought to the surface long-held assumptions about sports and lesbians that become somewhat buried--especially at this time of the year when we hear about parity and the increasing depth of women's basketball. Perhaps if women's sports created a culture where individuals did not have to hide the fact that the...

...in DI women's ice hockey. Minnesota coach Laura Halldorson, whose team has won three national championships since 2000, noted recently that the growth of the women's intercollegiate game is a sign of increased parity. Unfortunately for her #9-ranked team, this means no trip to the national tournament this year. Despite a rough end to their season, the Gophers probably deserved to make it into the 8-team tournament. (Part of the problem with women's ice hockey is its very small tournament; it only recently expanded to 8 teams.) It's true that the Gophers were ranked out of the top 8 at the end of the season but they play a much tougher conference than Boston College, who wound up 7 in the polls at season's end but lost in the first round of the Hockey East tournament (which, in my mind, should have dropped them to 8). BC went on last weekend, in the first round of the tournament to upset 3# Dartmouth, who probably should have played Harvard who they beat soundly i...

I have never been a huge follower of extreme sports and the X Games, but I remember that when they began, however many years ago now, there seemed to be women competing in them in events like skateboarding and rollerblading. But when I caught some of the action a few years ago there seemed to be no women in the Games. The women's events had disappeared. I guess not too surprising given that the games are owned by ESPN--not exactly an exemplar of gender parity. I don't think this marks a resurgence necessarily, but it is promising that women's surfing will be incorporated into the Games this summer to be held in Mexico. I really like women's surfing actually. (I am not ashamed to say I own Blue Crush and thought Kate Bosworth looked far better as in-shape surfer than she does now as anorexic waif.) I also liked the few reality shows that came out a few years back on surfers. One was on MTV and was about female surfers trying to win a spot in a professional competition ...

What a week! Illinois retires their Indian mascot and Wimbledon has finally agreed to award equal prize money to women players . Now every grand slam has equal prize money for the winners. (The French Open still maintains a disparity in prize money up until the finals, though with the Wimbledon decision many believe the French Open will have to follow suit soon.) As happy as I am to hear the news, I am a little disappointed that it appears the decision was not really due to any feminist activism. This is in part because there has been little feminist activism around the issue. Venus Williams wrote a good editorial about it last year before the tournament began and every year the media gets a quote or two from a female player who says something along the lines of "yeah, it's not fair; we should be paid the same as the men." No one takes it any further or even discusses the possibility of taking it any further. Gone are the days of Billie Jean King organized boycotts. It ap...

I have only recently become a fan of women's golf. So I don't know much about its history. I do, however, know a lot about women's tennis which I see as similar to golf in some respects. So I always am using the status of women's tennis as the marker against which to measure women's golf. Perhaps this is not really fair, but it's the only frame I have right now. But it's an interesting frame because I see the disparities as huge especially as they relate to how the women's game has fared compared to the men's game. In tennis the women's game, I would argue, has as much visibility as the men's game. This is of course a recent development--5-10 years--and the visibility isn't always ideal (see my previous complaints about the characteriziation of the women's tour as "drama-filled"). But it's there. And sure there are many people who would rather watch the men's game any day--why I don't know--but there are plenty (...

I am so glad the Olympics are right around the corner because I need to write about something other than tennis.* But given my current state of bogged-downedness in a myriad of projects the only thing I have had time to read of late (besides academics) is the aforementioned back issues of Tennis . And I noticed the other night while skimming the year in review issue that the magazine seems--or at least this issue seemed--to be a little slanted towards all things male. This was particularly suprising to me because 1) I am usually hypervigilant about media bias in sports coverage and I have been reading Tennis for years without noticing anything and 2) because last year on the men's tour was BOR-ING. The year in highlights had 4 "gray" boxes, one for each Grand Slam. Only one featured a woman, Venus Williams at Wimbledon. I was surprised the US Open box did not feature Kim Clijsters (who got mentioned elsewhere though) in her first Grand Slam win. I am not advocating for s...

The women's crew team at the University of Cincinnati is bringing suit under Title IX (and the equal protection clause) against the university for failure to provide adequate funding . This is going to be a fascinating case to watch. Title IX does not mandate that equal funding--dollar for dollar--go to men's and women's team--it mandates equity. The crew team notes that they had been promised a boathouse to be completed by this year and it never happened. University officials claim the original estimate of $3million doubled to $6million and made it less feasible. Yet the baseball stadium is a brand new 11 million dollar complex and the football stadium also underwent substantial renovations. And, it should be noted, that in NCAA re-accreditation reviews of gender equity which look for the completion of proposed action items,"it was too expensive" is not an acceptable excuse for failure to complete a project. Additionally, there is a million dollar differential be...

Casually surfing around some of my favorite internet sites this morning, I headed to USA Hockey's site just to check in and see if anything interesting was going on this summer in development camps, etc. USA Hockey's home page seems to provide a range of stories about all aspects of USA Hockey from juniors to collegiate, inline leagues and I was very impressed that there was a home page story about sled hockey and the tryouts for the 2006 Paralympic Games in Turino which will take place immediately following the Olympics. I also noticed a story on Hobey Baker winner Marty Sertich being nominated for an ESPY for Best Male College Athlete and a link directly to his category (versus having to vote in all categories) so one could, presumably, vote for him. I scrolled down some more looking for a similar story about Harvard forward Nicole Corriero who is nominated for Best Female College Athlete. Not there. I was somewhat miffed. So I clicked on the link for just girls'/women...