Women Bring Positives To Sports World
About 15 years ago, I went with my mother to a collegiate women’s basketball game in Los Angeles. Actually, the women’s contest was just a warmup for the men’s game, and few spectators were there yet. So, Mom and I cadged some closer-to-court seats until the season-ticket holders showed up.
In the second half, a couple of men and a young boy sat behind us. Disinterested in the game, they were nonetheless riveted by one player - a 6-5, rather attractive blonde center. The man behind me stared at her as if she were a zombie.
“No, I can’t believe it! How disgusting! Isn’t she gross? Oh my God!” He went on and on, impugning her simply for being vertically gifted. Finally, I couldn’t stand it - I turned to him and said, “Will you just shut up! You’re really insulting!” He yelled back at me, my Mom yelled back at him, and we huffed off to higher ground, away from cretins who could see neither sense nor beauty in women’s sports.
I thought about that man again the other day when I read Jeff Weinstock’s rant about women’s basketball in the October issue of Sport magazine. “Women are not terribly good at basketball,” he wrote. “Basketball is a sport that requires, if not men, then maleness - aggression, bravado, hostility.”
Weinstock went on to moan that, at a women’s game, he’d miss the thrill of “raving” at opposing players. “It just seems bad form to wish humiliation on a woman,” he wrote, “the way I once wished everything from scurvy to canker sores on Kevin McHale.”
While purporting to speak for “guys”, Weinstock might only be part of a dwindling race of dinosaurs who still roam the sports pages. In fact, it seems that women’s sports - particularly basketball - are drawing more respect and attention than ever. Why else would two women’s professional leagues be starting up, including one run by that male bastion, the NBA?
No less a basketball icon than John Wooden praised women’s play during last year’s Final Four, admiring their attention to the game’s basics that he so long and carefully taught. Indeed, lacking testosterone, women sometimes improve a game because they don’t overpower it. In volleyball or tennis, that can mean longer, more exciting rallies instead of action ended in a serving ace or a quick “kill.” In basketball, women players focus on finesse and teamwork - passing, picks, team defense. They might not be able to dunk like men, or display as vast a repertoire of one-on-one moves, but to some basketball purists, that’s a good thing.
Women athletes are throwbacks, and not just in their playing style. In an era of greedy pro sports owners, cutthroat and corrupt recruiting, and whiny, rich players, the as-yet-unspoiled elite sportswoman is a welcome relief. We know they’re playing for love; a paycheck is just frosting. Still underdogs in the sports system, they’re struggling for empowerment as athletes and as women - and that strikes a familiar chord in any of us who have felt one-down in the world.
That’s not to say that fans of women’s sports have only the purest of motives - nor should they. Many watch women play because they take an aesthetic - and even sensual - pleasure in women’s bodies. Nothing crude in that - just a basic human response. Many women, after all, have long savored the rear view of football players and the rippling shoulders of basketball players. Most of us, if pressed, would admit that our admiration for sports and sports figures is both noble and carnal - and that women offer a vive-la-difference viewing treat.
But according to Weinstock, it’s not enough to admire players - we need to insult them. Judging from all the “smack” on sports-talk radio these days, perhaps that’s a hard-wired secondary sex characteristic of men. Or, maybe the courtesy women players receive only proves the ridiculousness of projecting disgust upon male athletes. Do we really need to brand our athletic surrogates with all the disappointments, imperfections, and failures we wish were forgiven in our own lives?
When I was growing up, I hardly knew that women athletes existed. My role models were men, and I took my cues about competition and heart and physical grace from them. How much richer my life is now that I can look up to women players as well - and how much luckier are the sportsminded girls growing up today.
I wish I now had a daughter to introduce to women’s sports - but at least I do have a 1-year-old nephew. In a few years, when we go to his first women’s basketball game, I won’t tell him that we’re going to watch women play. I’ll just say, “Let’s go watch some basketball.”
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