Women's Sports Blog

'La Vida Es Un Sueno'

That's how pretentious the IAAF head sounds in this article, in which he opines that the rather large and diverse continent of Africa will not be hosting a major track event in the near future, despite having produced scads of championship runners.  Reasons?  Not given. 

Back at home, the appropriately-named Angela Bizzari of Illinois shocked presumptive favorite Jenny Barringer (who finished 163rd) to win the individual cross country title at nationals, while Villanova won the team championship. 

POY Comes Down To Final Shot, One Point

Michelle Wie, my Aunt Ethel.  She certainly wasn't missed yesterday as the LPGA Tour Championship turned into a tense shot-for-shot battle between Ochoa and Shin for player of the year honors, settled only on the last stroke of the last hole.  The play even elicited a 'wow!' from the hardened commentating team twice, once when Ochoa saved bogey with a beautiful putt on the seventeenth, and again when Shin's stroke headed straight for the eighteenth flagstick before finally veering off and giving Ochoa the prize for the fourth straight year.  Barely.  The final tally in points was 160 to 159.  Shin is a rookie, too, which as Dottie Pepper pointed out means she's seeing a lot of the courses for the first time, and that has to give the rest of the tour pause.  Oh yeah, and Anna Nordqvist won the tournament.  Poor Anna, this was probably the least attention paid to an event winner all year.  It was also not a great year to be the second-most-successful rookie on tour.  Even winning a major wasn't enough. Nordqvist's performance was also notable for her attire, a skirt that may one day be enshrined in the Smithsonian under the heading 'what?' 

To wit:

Can The Bay Area Support A WNBA Team?

As a native of a basketball-mad area that can barely keep its WNBA franchise afloat, and a Bay Area women's sports fan for the past six years, I was worried when I heard the Monarchs were coming.  Granted, anything's better than Sac-town (thanks, Maloof brothers, for your belief in women!), but there are a lot of questions still to be answered.  Oracle is far too big for a WNBA franchise, so where does the team go?  If San Francisco, will the East Bay fans come, and vice versa?  If down on the Peninsula, where they can draw in the Stanford faithful, will the city fans make the trek?  Sure, the Bay Area has a thriving women's basketball culture, but it has an even more entrenched soccer culture, and FC Gold Pride is struggling mightily.  That team is proof that a strong bastion of college support is not the same as a pro fan base. It's also being made to pay out the nose for the prime stadium location in Santa Clara (thanks for the solidarity, Broncos!) and rumors continue that it may move to the East Bay, because there's nothing Bay Area fans like more than commuting to games.  Based on my observations, I think the team has failed to pull in the key Hispanic demographic that has helped men's soccer survive here.  Marketing has been fairly poor.  A WNBA franchise needs to seriously step it up to compete, and with league-wide instability it's unclear whether that will happen. 

Baylor Also Fails To Hit Half Court Shot, Loses Game of HORSE

While the attention garnered for the women's game by Brittney Griner can't be a bad thing, it's disheartening to see headlines like "Baylor Beats, But Doesn't Dunk On, Cal."  Since when is it news that a women's team doesn't get dunked on?  It's quite possible that Griner won't dunk successfully in a game this year, or that it will take her many more games.  Are we ready for more headlines that mention a non-event because it's important in the men's game?* Here's a Fanhouse piece that gets beyond that single shot into Griner's game. 

*"But FL, you made the exact opposite point about checking in women's hockey!" That's because I think checking is an essential skill and I know all players can do it if properly taught.  Unless they lower the rim, the dunk is never going to be the province of more than a few. 

Can't-Miss Tournament

Aside from the rain delay, the LPGA couldn't have scripted this one any better.  The two leaders for player of the year sit in second and third in the year's final tournament.  Tune in at 1 PST/3 EST if you have the Golf Channel. 

College Reffing Objectively Sucks

At least according to this study done at (where else) Indiana University. Because it's being reported in the Sporting News you can rest assured they only studied mens' games, and I tend to think the level of overt corruption is lower when you have women refs, if only because women in our society don't often get the opportunity to develop the necessary sense of megalomania (although some have certainly found a way). That said, I'm certain the incompetence measures right up.

Michelle Wie As 'Savior' Of Women's Golf

This is a real insult to the many great golfers who have been toiling away to make the game competitive and exciting.  Just because the Dude Networks' cameras were looking elsewhere at the time doesn't mean it wasn't happening, nor that we should pander to them by embracing their narrative.  Then again, the LPGA has done sod-all to market any of the others, and Wie is perhaps the only household name on tour right now, so we have a sort of devil's bargain on our hands.  At least she's actually an extremely talented golfer and not just a pretty face. 

PS- Thanks For Your Patience

In case you haven't noticed, I kind of want to be danah boyd, despite the fact that my actual academic work is not in her field.  Since WTS has been so engaged in social media discussions lately, it has given me free range to wander off topic.  Techno-ennui has surely set in among many of you.  I'll try to get back to sports proper. 

You Don't Quuuuuite Get It, Do Ya?

One of my favorite WNBA twitterers is Monique Currie, who can be quite funny as well as surprisingly trenchant.  Yesterday she wrote a general tweet along the lines of 'do you really enjoy following people you don't know?' calling it 'odd.'  That certainly wasn't the original point of Twitter, which was envisioned as a way to keep in better touch with friends throughout the day.  But the beauty of the Web 2.0 (3.0?) movement is that things grow and change beyond their intended usages, and following people you don't know has become pretty much the most important aspect of the site.  For one thing, Mo Currie has over 1,300 followers.  I strongly doubt she knows that many people personally, but it's sure a boon to the WNBA that fans can connect with players that way.  A public Twitter feed, unlike a Facebook page, is a public persona.  There is only one privacy control on the site, and if you don't use it, you're a 'celeb,' and people feel it's totally appropriate to follow your tweets whether they know your or not.  As sociologist danah boyd has pointed out, that changes the discourse.  As I've said before, this is a net positive for the women's sports community.  It also allowed me to have a mostly civil, thought-provoking argument with a writer I've never met about reproductive rights activism (he didn't like the coat-hanger campaign; I thought it was pretty effective).  The character limit actually helped, because it forced me to consider what I was saying extremely carefully and stick to what was crucial in my communication.  Thus far the Twitter limit has not led to an increase in text-speak, in part because Kids Today are not actually using Twitter.  Which is fine by me.  I've found it extremely useful as a blogger, and I sure enjoy reading Mo Currie's tweets.  If she thinks that's odd, so be it, but it's driving Twitter's growth and it's great for the game of women's basketball.   

Still Here

Just overwhelmed by a fox and hedgehog problem.  As Isaiah Berlin famously put it, the fox knows lots of little things but the hedgehog knows one big thing.  My friends The BC Fan and Envirogal regularly kick my ass on basic knowledge of the names, skills, and stories of soccer players around the nation (also gymnasts).  They each follow one other sport (water polo, tennis) fairly closely.  I feel responsible for all of them and sometimes that makes me a jack of all trades who is master of none.  I don't mind ignoring the entire volleyball season, but there was also field hockey and ice hockey, and I need to get this college basketball thing going. 

Speaking of which, Kara Lawson wins the evening for proving, yet again, that women's impulses are just as stupid as men's.  In response to the lovely ongoing bit of sexism that has Geno accusing his team of being 'girly-girls,' which was reacted to appropriately by both Ward and Lobo, Lawson reflected that if she had been called such a thing, she would return to the floor and throw a punch.  It made me want to go cover figure skating immediately.