Thursday, October 15, 1998
Give it a shot, women’s sports an appealing alternative
COLUMN:Female athletes, as skillful as counterparts, deserve our
attention
Watch women’s sports. You might be surprised. I was.
And now… the eighth wonder of the world: how a man could
possibly enjoy writing women’s sports.
Actually it’s not such a phenomenon to me. But everyone else is
amazed that I write about females by choice.
Women’s sports are just as interesting to me as men’s are.
There’s competition, skill, and intelligence involved, as in men’s
sports.
Reflecting, though, I guess I never thought about how important
women’s sports were before my eyes were opened to them.
So here’s my shot at opening yours.
It all started one day in Fall 1995 when the UCLA women’s
basketball team manager asked me to check out a game.
Trying to continue to be the well-rounded sports writer that I
was, I attended the game. I didn’t think it would hurt to broaden
my sports scope. Well, to make a long story short, I saw a freshman
do something that I never witnessed before or since.
Against Long Beach State, Erica Gomez came off the bench to dish
out 15 assists. Fifteen passes converted into hoops. After being
there for that, there’s no way I could deny that "basketball is
basketball, and athletes are athletes."
But there’s more. I was playing pickup basketball with my friend
Tre at Sports Club Los Angeles in the Spring of 1996. We were just
minding our business and then who should show up and want to play
with us but Dawn Staley, Nikki McCray, Katrina McClain, Teresa
Edwards and Ruthie Bolton “¹ all 1996 Olympic Gold Medalists;
all ABL and WNBA players ?
Sure, they played below the rim but so do most people on earth.
They still dribble, pass and shoot. And they do it well. They still
play to win. That’s what you expect as a fan, right?
That same 1996 women’s Olympic team was the biggest news story
of the Games. And speaking of Olympics, in the 1998 Winter Games
the Women’s U.S. National Hockey team were the Gold Medalists. And
women’s soccer… The U.S. National team is the best on the
planet.
Regarding women’s professional basketball in the U.S., there’s
been a lot of speculation about the quality of play being subpar.
While the WNBA has left something to be desired across the board,
the ABL has produced a quality product throughout. And any good
basketball is more entertaining than the Clippers, right?
But here’s the main reason why I am a proponent for equal
coverage of women’s sports in the media.
The Chamique Holdsclaws, Lisa Leslies, Mia Hamms, Dawn Staleys,
Venus Williamses, Martina Hingises and Natalie Williamses of the
world have all done their part to let little girls know that it’s
okay to be athletic. There’s more of an understanding that it is
okay to express talent and still be a woman. This furthers my point
that it’s okay to be a man and enjoy women’s sports.
That said, women’s sports coverage in print is lacking, to say
the least.
It was a minor miracle that in 1995 UCONN’s Rebecca Lobo was on
the cover of Sports Illustrated following their undefeated season
and National Championship. Of course, that only ran on the East
Coast, since UCLA’s Ed O’Bannon was on the cover in the West. But
even the cover that sported Lobo was something that wouldn’t have
happened if the men’s team wasn’t UCLA (but that’s a different
argument).
As a student at UCLA, before I began writing for the Bruin, I
didn’t like the coverage that women’s basketball was getting. I
wanted to change that. I feel that if a person really wants to
cover a beat and they put their heart into it, it will work out
better for all concerned parties. Therefore, I volunteered to write
women’s hoops, swimming ands soccer.
And honestly, once you actually watch women’s basketball, or
women’s soccer for that matter, and get to know the players and
coaches, your attitude changes. Believe me. It’s just that whole
idea of "not knocking it before you try it."
Let’s take Pat Summit and the Tennessee Lady Vols basketball
team, for example. They are America’s team. That squad has won
three consecutive national championships. And last season they
posted a 39-0 mark. That’s never before been done in men’s or
women’s basketball. And to top that off, their current streak of 18
consecutive tournament wins rival the John Wooden era at UCLA in
which he won 30 consecutive tournament games en route to seven
consecutive championship titles.
Now I can just hear cynics reading this and saying, "But they’re
just women, so who cares?"
Well, the whole point of this column is that I care. And I want
others to try their hands at giving women’s sports a chance. What
would it hurt?
Those women work just as hard, or even harder than the men do.
And at the end of the rainbow there’s less of a pot of gold. Look
at women’s tennis, for example. The only major payoff in
professional tennis that’s the same as the men’s is the U.S. Open.
So that leaves the Australian Open, Roland garros and
Wimbledon.
The women consistently draw more fans than the men. Sure, you
could probably put an Andre Agassi or Pete Sampras match up against
any of the women’s, but none of the others. Serena and Venus
Williams, Martina Hingis, Anna Kournikova, Lindsay Davenport,
Monica Seles, Natasha Zvereva all out-draw the other men.
It’s just not fair.
In conclusion, I need to show what happens when sports fans
don’t support women’s sports. The Long Beach StingRays of the ABL
went to the 1998 championship and lost to the Columbus Quest three
games to two. In the summer of 1998, the club was closed down, due
to a lack of revenue produced last year. But what the ABL didn’t
take into consideration was what the presence of former UCLA
standout Natalie Williams would have brought to this year’s
squad.
The general manager of the club, Bill McGillis, consistently
brought his kids to the UCLA women’s games last season. And Kathy
Olivier, head coach of UCLA, attended a lot of the StingRays games.
The marketing departments of the two entities would have found some
creative way to boost interest in both products. But now it won’t
happen.
For those of you that laugh and say that the team never should
have existed in the first place I ask you to do but one thing.
Think about any little girls you know: your daughters, sisters,
neices cousins, neighbors, etc. Think about the fun time they could
have had watching some of their idols play (yes, little girls do
look up to women’s players, too). Think about how happy they were
to find out that they had season tickets or even tickets for just
one game.
Put yourself in the position of telling that happy, bright-eyed
little girl that there will be no women’s basketball and explain
why.
You look that kid in the eye and tell her that women’s sports
aren’t important.
A. Cinque Carter
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