Women's Basketball

Women's Basketball
August 10, 2001

You can take the girl out of sports, but you can't take sports out of the girl.

Back in 1934 when our team won an intramural field hockey game on the grass in Boulder, we did a silly dance on the field, and headed for the gym. Notice I didn't say locker room. We had a dressing room and one shower. But we did have a women's gym.

Sixty-five years later, Brandi Chastain kicked the winning goal in the final American Cup Women's Soccer game, ripped off her jersey and waved it around her head while thousands of people in the stands cheered and her team mates tore down the field to her at full speed. My adrenaline level shot up, although probably not as high as hers, just watching and remembering how it felt to win a hard physical game.

It took a lot of years for women's sports to come of age. Girls were not supposed to sweat. In 1972 Congress finally passed Title IX which mandates in part that, "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance." You could hear the guys scream clear to China and even today many colleges and universities are not in complete compliance.

But there is hope. Steve Marantz, writing in Sporting News, said, "Sport is a meritocracy. Toughness isn't gender specific. The toughness of the male athlete may start with cultural expectations. The toughness of women athletes must come from within." Sounds as though he just got off a space ship from Mars. We knew that all the time.

Now that I am in the couch potato phase of life, and television has discovered the WNBA, I am a star again -- in my imagination. I am addicted to the Women's National Basketball Association. Their games are the only women's team sport events that are regularly shown on television. The season only lasts three months during the summer, but I am right in there playing every game. The high point in my couch career came in 1999 when New York's Theresa Weatherspoon and I made a 52 foot running shot that lofted into the basket just as the buzzer sounded (known in football as a Hail Mary pass).

I have a friend (male, of course) who calls it the Wannabe National Basketball Association. The only wannabe part involves money. The women play for peanuts compared to the men. Some of them play in Europe during the off season for real money.

These women are superb athletes and play top level basketball. Theirs is not a game of run and dunk and hang on the basket. They play a game of skill and teamwork. They have had a few seven footers, but one of the best players in the league is Colorado State's Becky Hammon who at 5'6" , a leader of the New York Liberty.

I don't get to go to the games in person, but I do get detailed reports about my favorite team, the Phoenix Mercury. My kids have season tickets and keep me informed. There are lots of children who attend the games, especially little girls for whom the team members are role models. They dream that they too -- some day -- could be playing out there. The Mercs have a new coach this year, Cynthia Cooper who is as stern as last year's Cheryl Miller was dynamic. But the emotion is not buried very deeply. They both managed to get ejected now and then.

The players are tough and highly competitive, but the they have fun playing and they have even been known to laugh during games. They become part of their communities. This year the Mercs had a "boot camp," with team members working with interested local women. My daughter-in-law attended and reported that she emerged star struck and sweaty and "can't wait for next year's camp."

Women are now making great gains in other team sports as Title IX is making it possible for girls to start their athletic training early. There is now a professional women's soccer league and others are coming. I was definitely born 60 years too soon, but I can dream, can't I?