I think I do, Beau, but that's because I am around field hockey players all of the time. It's mostly field hockey players, and NOT womens soccer participants, who know what it is like pre-Title IX. The field hockey players know about substandard fields, having to wear the same belted pinafores for lacrosse and basketball as well as for hockey, and having no scholarship dollars. The boom in female participation in soccer from the late 70s to today has yielded a generation of players who go through ODP and State Cup matches without so much as a blink, and expect scholarship offers to roll in. They just play and don't have to do as much "legwork" behind the scenes to make the sport go. I think that's what happened in the WUSA to a certain extent. I can't find a link, but in a long-form article on the Freedom written for The Washington Post Magazine, a minor row occurred when a last-minute community outing to Kings Dominion was announced to the team. One player asked, "How much is enough?" when it came to selling the product. And that goes along with the "starf--king" model I talked about three weeks ago when it came to WUSA staff. They wanted to revel in the fact that a league existed rather than do all of the dirty work of selling the game (something that, BTW, Marla Messing and her minions did for THREE SOLID YEARS before WWC 99).
Damn. Even in threads that start off on the lamest, most tired themes, interesting points can still emerge. Whether that's exactly what AH meant, this is still a nice bit of sports-n-culture stuff here.
So I e-mailed Ms. Howard, asking her in so many words to source the quote. Ain't heard nothing back yet. Developing....
For those of you who don't know, Kings Dominion is an amusement park near Washington. I didn't know but I wanted avoide the wrath of you all so I looked it up and save the trouble for other people.
Worth noting. It's also a fair ride away from the Beltway, out near Richmond. In rush hour, that could be quite a haul. No wonder the players were a little aggravated.
And Dan Loney moves to the head of the line for the reward. Although I may not give it to him just on general principles -- and all the bad jokes on BS Radio Sachin
But this is the crux of the problem, Beau. Foudy has convinced a lot of people that she's not interested in promoting the game. If she were, then she would've been more than happy for MLS to "ride their coattails." She would also be happy to loosen Title IX restrictions in common-sense ways, like lifting the proportionality quota that limits male walk-ons. (IIRC, she and Lopiano actually voted against the quota during the committee hearings, but they later reversed their position during their publicity campaign.) So even though I support our women's team, I personally didn't mind seeing her lose. Question for those who are primarily women's soccer supporters: what if a male US player made disparaging remarks about the women's game, or worked to reduce the opportunities for female players? Would you still support him?
Did you ask her to be a guest on your show in order to discuss the ideas in the article? That might get a response, too. And she's not a pinhead, so...
First paragraph has confused me quite a bit. The one time I've talked with Foudy, we talked about quotes, and I got the impression that she wasn't completely rigid on the subject. Second paragraph is a red herring. None of the situations you describe there are accurate parallels.
First paragraph is meant to raise the simple question: is Foudy working to promote soccer? If she were deeply interested in soccer (irrespective of gender), then I don't think she would've made the "coattails" comment, nor opposed any Title IX reform ... following her time on the Title IX commission, she issued a statement saying the current rules should be "preserved without change." To me, that suggests no flexibility at all. Second paragraph are intended to be decent parallels. Afraid I've gotta run ...
So where would Seymore Butts lay in your classification? Ivy-League grad. So following the posters' psychobabble logic who are screaming "small penis/latent *#*#*#*#," Foudy and her defenders have "big vagina syndrome?"
Brilliant post by Beineke. Beau Dure, I like some of your thoughts but you have made it clear. You will not criticize Ms. Foudy no matter how reasonable the critique.
It's one of those situations in which someone is accused of being a murderer while most of the evidence points to a possible jaywalking at worst. She's said some silly things, and I recall that I recently agreed with a group of critics upset with something she said. I tried to dig it up and couldn't find it in the tangle of WUSA threads. (I opened up my own profile and almost, by sheer accident, added myself to my own ignore list. I know, I know -- not a bad idea.) But I think a lot of folks on these boards have taken those things far too seriously. They're jokes (bad ones) and/or political rhetoric. As far as political windbags go, she's more tolerable than most. Perhaps it's just a function of living in Washington. I'd chalk my own incentive down to this troubling urge I've always had to stand up to howling mobs. If I had any past lives, I think most of them ended with the villagers' bootprints stamped firmly in my chest.
[Memo to myself: never play ping-pong with Beau Dure. When he wants to, he can serve up some wicked spin...] Murder? No. Hostility to men's soccer? Yes. Here in the Bay Area the CyberRays were antagonistic towards the Quakes from day one. Now, maybe Foudy was behind the scenes saying, "Hey sister-'Rays, that's a senseless attitude. If you attack MLS, that will only split the existing market and not attract new fans. You're not going to build soccer that way." Maybe.
You've obviously never tried to drive South on I-95 on Saturday morning. It may not be a rush hour, but there is traffic. Sachin
Nah -- my game was always based on placement. We had some fantastic rallies back in the day. It's just an analogy. I think the supposedly evil things Foudy supposedly said can be taken with enough salt to season a winter's worth of ham. (I'm excluding the Title IX fight there, in which she's simply protecting women's sports interests -- you may disagree with her stand, but it's a big stretch to say she's taken that stand intending to harm men's soccer. I'm absolutely sure that if you gave her the choice of taking scholarships away from football or soccer, she'd agree that third-string tight ends don't need full rides through school.) They were silly things to say, but they've been blown way out of proportion. If people in places of power within U.S. Soccer or elsewhere actually harbor grudges because of things Foudy has said or done, then they're doing much more harm to the game than Foudy herself ever has.
Agreed, and fortunately, this is one situation where Don Garber seems to be doing a good job. By contrast, Doug Logan was not receptive to women's soccer. I'm sure that many WUSA people remembered that. In all likelihood, it's part of the reason that some of them harbored such a grudge against MLS.
Interesting point. Funny how many subplots can be contained in the relatively small world of U.S. soccer.
I have a show? How the hell did that happen? Seriously, who'd be dumb enough to sponsor me? That's not a bad idea, actually - and two hours on Julie Foudy- Threat or Menace? is something I would absolutely love to do. We'd have to get callers in who hated her, though, since Llew respects her and I worship the ground she runs upon with her admittedly amusing and unorthodox gait. I don't know if Howard will be on - if she hasn't got time to source a quote, she probably hasn't got time for a minor league internet radio show. Developing....
Anyone still care about this? So, here's the response from Johnette Howard: You are one of two people who wrote to me regarding the Julie Foudy quote, and so I crosschecked it and found only this: "Unlike the WNBA, which has succeeded on the coattails of the NBA, there is no men's league backing the WUSA. We want to do this on our own," Foudy said. "With that is great risk, but also great opportunities. Hopefully, when we pull this off, it will give other sports and other investors the courage to make this step and keep going." The above quote is not exactly the way her quote was originally represented to me, and so your concern is right. I don't think the quote I used is totally outside the spirit of what she feels (when I saw her in Philly, she spoke about how mistakes were made regarding the WUSA's relationship with the MLS, and most of it was the WUSA's fault). But still, it's not exactly what she said. You're right. I regret the discrepancy and I'll make sure to note it in the future. Thanks a million for bringing it to my attention. My verdict - the coattails quote is the Loch Ness Monster. It doesn't exist, but no matter what, people will still believe.