After Atalanta

I am teaching an article this morning on the reluctance to talk about racism and the cultural transmission of racism through the lack of exposure to racial minorities. It reminded me of a poem I read by Countee Cullen when I was in high school. But I couldn't find that one. So I am posting this one instead. To Certain Critics By Countee Cullen Then call me traitor if you must,    Shout treason and default! Say I betray a sacred trust Aching beyond this vault. I’ll bear your censure as your praise,    For never shall the clan Confine my singing to its ways Beyond the ways of man. No racial option narrows grief, Pain is no patriot, And sorrow plaits her dismal leaf    For all as lief as not. With blind sheep groping every hill,    Searching an oriflamme, How shall the shepherd heart then thrill    To only the darker lamb?

That was in the subject line of the email I received from JB (minus the exclamation point--I added that myself). There was a link to an article about how the IAAF is changing the rules on what races women can earn world records in. This is the article I saw initially . Here is what went down: the IAAF decided that women could not set world records in mixed gender races because of issues over being paced by men. They can only set "world bests." (P.S. The rule is retroactive!) This seems to be an issue primarily in road races, especially marathons. And various marathon organizations have come out in opposition to the IAAF's rule , which is scheduled to go into effect in January. But even their collective stance is less than ideal. They suggest having two world records--one for mixed gender races and the other for single sex races. They do argue though that the IAAF's new rule does not, among other things, "respect the history of [the] sport." Right? Road ru...

I promise I will post more this week. On the docket: more on the Atlantic article, including commentary on the concept of amateurism, and the socialism no one wants to talk about the ridiculousness of the new rules governing records (past and future) set by female runners

So I've been thinking and discoursing a lot about this Atlantic article about the "shame" of college sports. And I have a lot more to say--it's forthcoming (I think). Since it seems like the corporatization of college sports isn't going anywhere and given the desire of so many corporations to put their names on everything--including just regular, non-post-season, non-bowl games--my father and I decided that one contest in particular needed such a sponsorship. This weekend's game between Ohio State and Miami: The Scandal Bowl. Sponsored by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. We're open to other sponsors too. Enron? Goldman Sachs? Bank of America?

Intercollegiate sports are played all year round--except for a couple of those "summer" months where there are no official contests--but it's always around September, or probably more accurately, mid-August, that the talk of misdeeds among college athletics comes to the fore. Why? Because it's football season. So we get to hear about the suspensions issued at the end of last season or in the off-season ( a la the Ohio State ) and then whatever findings were made during off-season investigations into various programs (a la Miami ). That is what stays the same--the perpetual/annual misdoings. Here's what seems to be different. And note that I am not a longtime close observer of college football--I'm more of a foul weather observe; like a tornado chaser--but less thrilling, more disgust-inducing. So I might not be the best person the make these observations. But here's what I think I have seen. There is more widespread attention to the athletic programs as...

At Summer's End, Persephone parted the overgrown hedge. There stood the tree she remembered— still on its last limbs and still "self-pruning," as the tree-surgeon called it— still the largest sweet gum in the underworld. From the dogwood, berries dripped, bright as blood. A frog called out for company. The owl that hunted it rowed the deepening dark with muffled wing. Clinging to the front door of the house, a moth tried to disguise itself as wood. How had the gecko guarding the porch light missed a last mouthful of dust? Under its pale otherworldly skin, throbbed a blue semiprecious stone. In ancient gowns the months Persephone had lost to the upper world leaned down from heaven's porches. There on her own porch, in the rocking chair where no one ever rocked, sat the dead weight of September, the chair ever so faintly ashudder. Debora Greger

I was getting ready for my day Tuesday morning and multitasking. I wanted to find out the score of the Caroline Wozniacki and Svetlana Kuznetsova match because I had fallen asleep Monday night in the second set. So I turned on ESPN. And while I was waiting I heard Stuart Scott issue an opinion on the Peyton Manning injury story and whether Manning would play Sunday. But he hedged his bets when he remarked "but what do I know? I'm wearing makeup." Because apparently makeup has some kind of mystical effect in which the wearer lacks sports knowledge. Now, who else wears makeup? Hmmm... Seriously. What a ridiculous statement. [In case you were wondering, Wozniacki won. I had to go look on the internet, because I shut off the television in disgust--and rushed to an appointment. ]

I know everyone is posting about this, but I would be remiss not to at least post a link . The concept that her diagnosis is not going to affect her, though, as some quoted in certain articles seems to suggest, is a little optimistic. Even if she can temper the disease medically, I am sure it will significantly affect her ability to recruit. Because it is uncertain how long she will be able to continue, I would imagine recruits and their families would be hesitant to commit. Of course, when and if she leaves, there will be a long line of excellent prospects waiting for that position.

Women's intercollegiate basketball is not that far away, my friends. And given my current status as a resident of western Massachusetts, I hear about the progress of the UMass-Amherst Minutewomen all the time. And I cringe every time. Because what exactly is a Minutewoman?? Looks like I am not alone in my questioning of the name, its history, and its effects.

August Peonies Lallygagging on bent stems, late this year because of the snow in May, their rag-tag magenta cluster-heads freshen the still heat like a rush of wind in the leaves or the cool brush of deep sea crinolines as the ripple kiss of a breeze opens their bunched petals just enough to let them breathe before they ease back into light repose, poised at the edge of time-lapse attention, like us, who lose momentum in the heavy air rich with the scent of ripening wheat that drifts in from the fields over the slow-moving river as the afternoon nods and lengthens into shade, into thoughtfulness, and the sky deploys an argosy of softly tinted clouds, fresh blooms without stems that sail where we cannot go, all the way to the edge of everything where daylight looks back, once, then disappears. George Amabile

...there must be some sexism in the atmosphere. I think I perhaps knew something about scantily clad young women (note that they are always referred to as girls) on ice skates who come out during NHL games for various reasons. But I don't watch much professional hockey anymore opting to engage in slightly less cognitive dissonance by watching intercollegiate hockey. So I guess I chose not to think about how hockey--like so many other sports these days--is bringing out the babes to arouse the crowd--and shovel some ice chips. This article with accompanying video--which is mandatory viewing because the article so doesn't tell the whole story--is about the tryouts the Penguins held recently for the 2011-12 Ice Crew. Tell me--what do you envision when someone says ice crew in the context of professional hockey. I think mostly men--college age dudes and/or older guys with bellies--shuffling out on the ice in their black sneakers, khakis, and nylon team jackets during the period brea...

...with this poem from Matthew Zapruder's 2010 collection Come All Your Ghosts. 5 Come on all you ghosts. Bring me your lucky numbers that failed you, bring me your boots made of the skin of placid animals who stood for a while in the snow. Bring me your books made of blue sky stitched together with thread made of the memory of how warm even the most terrible among us has felt the skin of his or her beloved in the morning to be. Come on all you ghosts, try to make me forget one summer lost in a reservoir and another I keep in my chest. Come on all you ghosts, try to make me repeat the most terrible thing I said to someone and I will if the mind of that someone could ever be eased. Come on let’s vote for no one in the election of who is next to die. Come on all you ghosts, I know you can hear me, I know you are here, I have heard you cough and sigh when I pretend I do not believe I have to say something important. Probably no one will die of anything I say. Probably no one will live...

While I certainly do not support the concept and execution of the Lingerie Football League, I see why it exists. It plays on a variety of sexual fetishes and, of course, makes these female athletes far less threatening because of the sexualization and because what they are doing doesn't look like "real" football. Again, not a fan. Wish it would go away. Will write letters or engage in other methods of discouragement to get that to happen. What did genuinely surprise (ever so cynical) me is the news that there is now a Lingerie Basketball League. I found out about it on some mom blog . Said mom does not seem too upset, after her initial questioning, that the league exists because, once you get past the uniforms, you can see (there's a video) that they are skilled. Yes. They are skilled. But there are a lot of women who are skilled basketball players. They play at all levels: high school, college, professionally, recreationally, in the pick-up games at my gym. They don...

...Dr. Mary Jo Kane has a piece in The Nation about the yes-we're-still-talking-about-this debate over whether sex sells women's sports. The answer, as I've noted before, using Kane's research, is no. Kane opens with a quote from an article by Wendy Parker. While the quote--about a female soccer player who seems non-plussed by her status as Playboy's third sexiest soccer player--is apt, do we really need to support Wendy Parker in her ongoing recovery from feminism and paradoxical support of women's sports?

There have been many, many article about the potential effects of the Women's World Cup on the WPS. I haven't even bothered to blog about them or to even read all of them. They basically boil down to: 1) the WPS will benefit from the very exciting WWC, 2) cautious optimism about the benefits, 3) Americans still don't like soccer and they certainly aren't interested in watching women play it. There may be other categories or subcategories that I am unaware of. But it seems like attendance at games post-WWC is up. Way up in some venues. Yay! And it also appears that the WPS is not just pleasantly riding this wave of popularity. They are working that wave. I just hung up with someone from the Boston Breakers asking me if I am coming to Harvard stadium for the last two home games. I explained that I cannot because I am busy those days. And I was a little curious as to how they got my cell phone number...But good for them for making personal phone calls. I am sure some poor ...

Is it possible? Are American women's life spans going to dip below those of our mothers' because we don't work out? Apparently it is possible, according to a study out of the University of Washington. Not good news for American women. This study follows a report out of Britain a few years ago which showed a dearth of sporting activity among girls and women. So what's it all about? According to this article , time and money. Because even while we promote Title IX and advocate for equal opportunities for girls, when adulthood hits, exercise is one of the first things to go. Assuming it was ever there at all. But this article says that even adult women who were once quite active, sacrifice exercise when things (i.e. motherhood plus work plus domestic duties plus attempt at salvaging a social life) get busy. And then when mid-life hits, the effects of a less active life really come into play. While I sympathize with the issue of making time for exercise when a woman becomes...

...who has some reservations about how this WWC is going to dramatically change the women's sports landscape in the US. WaPo columnist Petula Dvorak talks to some of my favorite people, Mike Messner and Nancy Hogshead-Makar, about how and why the surge in fan interest in women's soccer post '99 and for women's professional sports generall kind of petered out. The difference, for soccer, is that the WUSA started 2 years after that world cup ended. Too much lag time. The WPS is already in place this time. Hopefully, this will make a difference. But I too have been skeptical about all the rah-rahing. Some of us have been following women's soccer all along, in the so-called down time--you know when the US won the Olympic gold medal. I worry about fair weather fans. But I worry about no fans at all, too. Boston Breakers 2009

I've been lukewarm on ESPNW since its inception for many reasons. Now I have one more: this article about how fat baseball players are . Well, not exactly an article. It is listed as an opinion piece. Still... So in light of MLB's All-Star Game and based on some observations, writer Amanda Rykoff is pointing out how large some baseball players are--as in overweight. An additional motivation, as stated in the opening paragraph is "to laugh and poke fun at some absurdities in the sports world." Let me just own up to the fact that I was observing a young guy in the gym the other day who has clearly bulked up in the last year. He was wearing a UMass Baseball t-shirt. And it made me think "is he too big to play baseball effectively?" Of course he could simply be a fan and not a player. And he isn't fat--just bulky. Still, I thought about how/why larger players can and are prized in baseball. I have theories about the focus on home runs and some masculinity is...

Finally got to watch the Brazil v. US match this morning. I knew the general outcome because the second I got back across the border (from Canada) and had my data plan back, I checked Facebook. I also got the hint that it was a dramatic game, though I refused to check for a score or details. Even knowing the outcome, it was a pretty enthralling game. So here are my thoughts (in case you were wondering): 1. When you watch a recorded soccer match and fast forward through some of it in the interest of time and getting on with your work day, the ball looks like a ping-pong ball, which just makes you appreciate the distance it travels and the abilities of the players to control it. 2. Abby Wambach: still super cute and now with some goals under her cleats. (Because those uniforms don't have belts--thankfully. Though I'm not sure it would make them any worse.) 3. And speaking of Wambach...the Girlfriend noted this morning "that those short-haired girls are making things really i...

I've been accumulating thoughts about the WWC as I watch--just haven't gotten a chance to get it down. So I saw--last week--Equatorial Guinea's first game of the tournament. Kudos to the commentators on ESPN for actually mentioning the allegations that several players for the team are men. I have heard other media outlets (NPR's Only a Game, for example) also talk about it. So that's good. Alas one of the ESPN guys, after noting in the pre-game commentary that two of the three accused players were not playing this tournament, urged us all to put that all aside to think about the soccer. There were other interesting moments in that pre-game; and they seem to involve Brandi Chastain. First, on the shallower and more catty side of things, what's up with the hair? Someone needs to start a blog that deconstructs all of the Chastain's hair-dos this tournament. During this pre-game: several French braids ending in a long ponytail. She looked like a high school soft...