After Atalanta

I just read about the forthcoming issue of ESPN , The Magazine which is being called the "Body Issue." (Isn't every issue of a magazine that covers sports exclusively always a body issue given that they are talking about and photographing bodies?) The USA Today article makes it seem like a good excuse to get some athletes nearly naked. (Or at least that was my interpretation.) So I was really surprised to see that Mendoza, current president of the Women's Sports Foundations, was featured with some of her team USA colleagues. Plus I also knew that given the date of the magazine, Mendoza was likely pregnant during the shoot. And I was right. I headed to her blog where she wrote briefly about the photo shoot. She presents it a little differently than USA Today. Then last week I did a photo shoot with teammates Cat Osterman, Natasha Watley and Lauren Lappin for ESPN the magazine’s new “Body Issue”. I am really excited about this because I feel the “bodies” young girl...

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...

Throughout much of the US Open I was thinking, "glad I don't have kids!" But the other day I started thinking "I gotta get myself knocked up!" Why the radical switch? Well the former sentiment emerged after hearing, ad nauseum, about coming back from pregnancy and all the emphasis on motherhood in the wake of the Kim Clijsters return. All the attention made it seem like motherhood is some kind of disability. Is it really so astonishing that someone who is a great athlete, is young, and gave birth over a year ago can get to the top of her game again? So what's up with the kid gloves for mommies? Then there is the opposing discourse which cites all the benefits of pregnancy: an increase in red blood cells, the endurance from said increase, the mental benefits, increased flexibility (which could be a bad thing depending on where it is happening and what sport you do), possible muscle increase in the first trimester because of the hormone surge. There have been...

Nothing pleases me more than a snarky comment about ESPN's special women's history month programming. (More on the specifics of that in a moment.) After noting the good: a profile of Paralympic swimmer Jessica Long; blogger Ray Frager of the Baltimore Sun says this: Danica Patrick also will be featured, presumably to show how women athletes have been empowered to sprawl across a sports car in a bikini for a magazine photo shoot even after winning an event at their sport's highest level. Love it! So, yes, ESPN is engaging in some special programming for women's history month. We could say, yeah, they're not going to sit back on the fact that they cover women's March Madness. Or we could say--hey--what about the other 11 months of the year, guys? Pick your level of cynicism. I had been tuning into Sports Center in the mornings in an attempt to get some clue about how to fill out my brackets this year. I never saw a story about women in the line-up. (This was befor...

Brandi Chastain, who's 40 now (!), has been drafted by the F.C. Gold Pride in the Bay Area of California. She was the 45th draft pick. I'm not really a Chastain fan (and it has nothing to do with the "bra incident") and so her going late(ish) in the draft and her inability to even get into tryouts for the national team this past year has brought to the surface a little teensy bit of schadenfraude. After all, Chastain made it to the national team initially as a scab. When national team players went on strike prior to the 1996 games, Chastain happily joined up to play, after previously being shunned. (I also think it's kind of funny that Chastain's Wikipedia entry calls her a "former soccer player." She might want to go in and edit that herself now.) This is all to say "karma's a bitch." Briana Scurry went to the Washington Freedom in the fifth round. It looks like she may get the start because the Freedom's other goalie, a Canadia...

1. Where international players will go in the WPS still remains up in the air though things are getting settled. Looks like Marta will head to LA to play for the Sol. No contract yet so don't count on it. But it appears that anywhere she goes, she will be the top-paid player--in the whole league. The WPS is planning to market the heck out of her. Interesting. First game of the season will be the Sol versus the Washington Freedom. So Marta versus Abby Wambach. Nothing like starting out with a bang! 2. Changing the conversation completely...the 2010 Olympics are only 13 months away! Writer Philip Hersh of the LA Times reminds us of that fact. Then he runs down what's happening in winter sports. Nice to see sports that are rarely covered (luge, speed skating) get some ink (or pixels I guess). Unfortunately he does not mention hockey, not that there is that much happening on the national front. Though it would have been nice for him to note that the US women's national team h...

In a case of strange bedfellows, a Christian conservative editorialist has called the NCAA's decision to prevent member schools from eliminating or reducing a pregnant athlete's aid money a score for women's rights. Yeah, I thought so too but not for the reasons Thomas Ranson states . He's excited because it means fewer abortions. Female athletes win because they don't have to murder their innocent children or risk death and permanent damage by having an abortion. They can avoid, he writes, those blood clots that can afflict young women who get abortions. Not exactly the reasons I was thinking when I heard the news. I was more excited by the fact that coaches and athletic departments and unversities had to start actually following the law that prevents them from not penalizing pregnant women. A victory for women's rights generally but also a small step in curbing some of the insanity that exists in big-time (and more and more, little-time) college athletics and ...

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.