After Atalanta

I just love NPR. They are all about women's water polo . Today they covered the team's win over Australia that put them into the gold medal round . And it wasn't just a brief score with two sentences of description. There were actually splashing sounds in the background. They were there--well someone was there. They had an interview with a player. They provided history of the team and recounted the team's road to the gold medal game--a little rocky but successful nonetheless. Makes me glad I donated twice this year.* *OK the second time was motivated by the desire to win the $2500 gift certificate to a bike store, still I like to think that that extra donation maybe paid for the extra bag of checked luggage the reporter had to take to Beijing or maybe a few drinks on the plane.

Not that I have actually seen any women's water polo. I saw a clip of a match in which someone got punched in the nose. Bloody mess! But the NPR story a few weeks ago has engendered a curiousity in the sport and the team. That's why I found this USA Today piece interesting. It offers a few more details about the history of the team and two of its veteran players who are competing in their third Olympic games. The team is doing well, by the way. They have already qualified for the quarterfinals. They tied with defending gold medalists Italy and have no losses on their record yet. They play Russia tomorrow. The outcome will only affect the group standings (US and Italy are tied for the top spot) as the US is already moving on and Russia is not.

In the car this morning I heard a preview on NPR for this evening's All Things Considered which would air a profile on the US women's water polo team. How interesting, I thought. I don't know anything about the team. I should remember to go to the website and listen to it. Of course by this evening I had forgotten all about it. Luckily I happened to be in the car when the segment was running. And luckily there is this really long light in my town where I sat through two cycles which enabled me to hear the whole thing . And I was really surprised by a few things. No, not that some players have such strong legs and good egg beater kicks (it's described in the segment for the uninitiated) that they can propel themselves out of the water to about their hips. Though that did impress me greatly. I was surprised that women's water polo has only been in the Olympics since 2000. That fact I learned today. But what the whole segment got me thinking about was that this team--t...

1. The University of Utah gymnastics team held a "pink out " during a recent meet where they encouraged attendees to wear pink to raise awareness about breast cancer. Those wearing pink got in for free but were asked to donate the usual price of a ticket ($4) to the representative of the American Cancer Society who was at the meet. I've said before that I think such events are part of some weird form of activism (because just wearing pink isn't really doing anything at all especially when only $1 of that shirt you bought for $20 in Target is going to an organization you don't even know the name of let alone what their practices and politics might be) that plays on gender stereotypes. I find it problematic that when women's sports teams engage in such events it's seen as something they're supposed to do. The Utah coach said "since we're a women's sport, it seems like the right thing to do." When men's teams use pink equipment (like...

Because I need to hit my head on it repeatedly after reading this column by Arizona Star sports columnist Greg Hansen. Hansen is down on the decision by University of Arizona to add water polo to their list of women's varsity sports in an attempt to bring their numbers closer to proportional. Hansen doesn't like this idea because water polo isn't played in Arizona high schools nor does it generate revenue. There are plenty of holes in both these reasons (schools might start to add teams if they know they can feed their athletes to their own state university and it CAN be made into a revenue-generating sport with the right financial support and publicity). But the most egregious moments come when Hansen praises Title IX for offering opportunities --especially to Arizona athletes but then condemns Title IX activists for asking for too much saying that we should "stop digging for more." He has even found an alleged Title IX activist who says she thinks, given footba...