Who's In?

I have a guilty conscience.

I like sports. I like doing sports of all kinds—basketball, rowing, skiing, tennis, running, lifting, hiking, goofin’ around with any kind of equipment for the most part (excluding motors). I also like watching sports of all kinds—from young nephews’ Little League games to little-understood equestrian events on YouTube to the Celtics on TV (even their 18th consecutive loss). And much else besides, from Major League Baseball to the Olympic Games (the more obscure the sport the more fun) to the World’s Strongest Man competition, if the mood is right.

I find that most, probably upward of 90 percent, of the sports I watch are men’s sports. I obviously (or not obviously) am a resolute supporter of women’s sports. Not only do I think it is good and important for women for health and sociological reasons, I think it’s just plain good, even for spectating. I’m just as happy to watch Duke vs. UNC’s women’s teams play basketball as I am the men’s, if not more so. (See AP photo, left.) Likewise tennis. Soccer. Swimming. Curling. But where are they? 

Truth is, I am not a devoted spectator. I’m lazy. If it’s on television right at the moment I feel like watching something, I’ll tune in. I don’t care enough about what’s on television in general to own or even desire TiVo or an equivalent, and with sports—unless you wanted to save a copy of a game for educational or sentimental purposes, like your kid was in it—watching an event after you know the outcome is bizarre. Even if you don’t know it but the rest of the world does. You can’t put your toe in the same river twice, right? You may be on the same spot on the riverbank, but the river has flowed by and changed. It has something to do with that.

The trouble with all of this is that, at any given time you can find men and boys doing sports on television. I mean that quite literally, I think, though haven’t subjected it to testing at 3:17 a.m., etc. (though I do believe that that is prime Strongest Man in the World time). But at any given time you cannot find women and girls doing sports on television. I’m not saying you don’t see it, or even that it’s impossible to find, but it is not at all ubiquitous. Often you can spin the whole dial, if you’ll pardon the anachronistic imagery, and not see a single women’s sporting event. If you’re really lucky, you might catch Violet Palmer reffing an NBA game.

I do wonder what percentage of sports programming covers women’s sports. Somebody must know this. Anybody? (I just checked the Women’s Sports Foundation site. Their listing of televised women’s sports is only as up-to-date as January, and here it is February 12. For January they listed the Australian Open, three days of Winter X Games (you caught that snowboarder X women’s qualifier at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday the 25th, didn’t you?) plus five college basketball games. I hope this merely speaks to the lameness of WSF listings.)

So I think this state of affairs is bad and it makes me feel guilty that I just lazily go with it, because I’m not about to make the reform of ESPN a crusade or anything….But if I, a strong supporter of women’s sports, by my actions (or lack of actions) appear to just accept the implied secondary place for women as athletes, who else is going to care? How’s anything going to change?

It’s been just about a year now since I started this blog. I haven’t been nearly as frequent or free and easy a poster as I’d hoped or envisioned. I apologize.

 

(If you apologize in the forest, and nobody’s there to hear, did it happen? )

 

It’s a good time to think back on why I started. Self-publishing is kind of fun, of course, even while it’s also a self-imposed nagging burden…. Homework you give yourself! But I started because I had been in a state of wondering what I should do with my working life, which at the moment seems terribly stale and meaningless. And I thought, yeah, if I could do anything, without regard to reality (i.e., funding), what would I want to do, let’s see… well, I’d like to start a women’s sports magazine. One that would be half spectator rag to cover women’s sports (at high levels, but including the citizen competitor) and half “service magazine” that would include workout advice, research and product reviews (again, aimed at the adult competitor in anything). Then, once the brand was strong and we were ragingly profitable, we’d sponsor and host our own events (races, horse shows, 3 on 3 tourneys, whatever) where the proceeds would go to a foundation. The foundation would award grants to organizations worldwide doing projects involving women’s health, nutrition and sports, particularly in places where this is not traditionally done. In the end, that kind of development work would be the true mission of my fantasy organization.

 

Sigh.

 

So I can’t even manage to make a weekly post about sports on my own blog. But I am going to save the world via my delusional career strategy. Ahem. Still, nice idea, isn’t it?

 

I recall the audience I had in mind, whom I was also going to write about. And it makes me happy to think of them, though I have largely failed to write about them. Friends, a cohort that could make up our own splendid Title Nine catalog.

 

Lou: rower, mother of one, French and Spanish teacher.

Nicola: sailor, physical therapist, comedian.

Cheryl: runner, mother of two, project manager.

Evelyn: rower, personal trainer, friend.

Charlotte: swimmer, innkeeper, rowing coach, letter-writer.

Penny: basketball player, mother of two, nonprofit consultant, activist.

Barbara: competitor, grandmother of four, artist.

Felice: tennis player, mother of two, import consultant.

Ruth: equestrian and swimmer, realtor, survivor.

Melanie: outdoorswoman, translator, world citizen.

Lisa: avid surfer, mother of two, graduate student in wastewater management.

Nomi: biathlete, reluctant lawyer, chair of the Nordic Commission in Steamboat.

Saiya: rower, mother of two, psychiatrist.

Carin: mad rock climber, mother of two, part-time lawyer, high school crew coach.

Jenny: yogi, mother of one, professor.

CB: hockey player, mother of three, marketing consultant.

Kris: runner, mother of three, railroad safety engineer.

 

And that’s just a quick look—wow.