After Atalanta

Since I am all about ice hockey this week and because I just finished teaching about sport and violence in my sport sociology class I thought I would point your attention to this lovely spectacle: http://youtube.com/watch?v=LZAehXzjG0w This is a recent game between the University of Minnesota Mankato and University of North Dakota. I showed it to my sport soc class the day after we had made a long list of violent events in sports 99 percent of which involved men. (The Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan incident was the lone exception.) What was disturbing was that many were laughing while watching the video clip, commenting on the effectiveness of the actual fighting, and referring to them as girls and/or noting that it looked like little kids fighting. Because apparently we don't really want to talk about what it means when women get violent, unless we can paint them as pathological i.e. female serial killers. But we can't do that with female hockey players because then we might hav...

Holley Mangold , an Ohio high school senior, made an appearance on the TODAY show this morning, interviewed by Meredith Vieira. There are other girls who have played high school football--I think there's even a based-on-true-events movie that plays on Lifetime from time to time about a female quarterback played by Helen Hunt. So I am not sure exactly why Mangold is getting national attention. Perhaps because, unlike kicker Katie Hnida who also received a hefty amount of publicity when she was in high school, Mangold is a linebacker. (Also her brother is a center for the New York Jets.) And it should be noted that Mangold has been receiving attention for a while in the national media like the Times . This marks the start of her senior year and she has received from interest from colleges. She still has not earned a starting position on the team and she was quite honest this morning about her lack of speed. I was disappointed though in Mangold's response to Vieira's inquiry ...

UNC and Maryland. The rematch of last year's championship game. Soldout crowd on the Terps home turf. UNC ended up getting their revenge, winning 81-74. In a game many see as exemplifying just how far women's basketball has come, a few moments remind us just how different the "rules" are in women athletics. Some say the game was marked by bad officiating. [Here I should own up to the fact that although I appreciate women's basketball and follow it occasionally, I know very little about the actual game and so cannot really discern the efficacy of the refereeing.] UMD coach Brenda Frese certainly thought so. She was assessed a technical during the first half when she came four feet or so onto the court to scream at the refs. The commentators (I forget who it was doing the game coverage) noted that the refs were letting Frese know that that kind of behavior was not acceptable in women's basketball. That sideline decorum in the women's game is a must. Would th...

Katie Hnida was on the Today Show this morning. I only caught the last bit of Meredith Vieira's interview with her so I cannot comment on whether Vieira actually said intelligent and non-offensive, stereotypical things which is too bad because I so enjoy commenting on such things. But I did learn that Hnida has written a book about her experience, Still Kicking: My Dramatic Journey as the First Woman to Play Division I College Football . No excerpts that I could find on the Today Show website but it may just be that they are not posted yet. But I am still very excited to read it. Hnida's story of harassment and sexual assault has been pretty well covered but her own take on it will be interesting and I am sure there will be many incidents and conversations from throughout her career that never made the news. After I read the book I will weigh in with my thoughts. [Note: the above picture was one of the few that I could find of Hnida in action--most are her in uniform (though...