One of the downsides to feeling ill is the inability to sleep. So as I was laying on the couch trying to go to bed a commercial for the latest episode of that moronic show "The Best Damn Sports Show Period" came on previewing what was going to be on the show. Barry Zito of the Oakland A's. Ronde Barber of the Buccaneers. The Harlem Globetrotters (whatever happened to Meadowlark Lemon anyways?). Of course the lovely Lisa Guerrero. ....... And lo and behold there is Mia. It's nearly 1240am here and this show ain't over until 2am so I don't know if I am staying up for the entire thing. Thank God for VCR's. It appears from the previews that the soon-to-be Mrs. Nomar was talking about Title 9. "The Best Damn Sports Show" airs on the various Fox networks throughout the country. Don't know if this show reairs the next day but you can always check. Oh yeah...and thank you wonderful Washington Freedom staff for not informing us of this appearance by Mia . Good work!!! And no I will not make a copy of this tape for you unless you have sent me tamales, live in Chicago, or work for Delta. Your welcome. EDIT!!! Ms. Hamm appears after the Harlem Globetrotter segment. Ummm OK maybe she's on after the referee segment. Oh hell I don't know.... Lisa Guerrero interviews Mia on the barriers women face in sports. Or something like that.
Title IX I caught a couple minutes. She had a great comment... "it is like having a son and daughter and telling your daughter that you are going to spend more money on your son. How could anyone do that?" I thought it was a really powerful statement.
Wow...that was a pretty decent interview by Lisa Guerrero. * Mia highlights from UNC, Freedom, and the USWNT. * Talk about Brandi ripping her jersey off. * Using sex as promotion. Lumping her in with Lisa Leslie, the Williams sisters, Hornykouva. * Oh yeah...some footage of her training at that one place in Arizona. * Some dude affiliated with Fox Sports Radio said she is one of the best women athletes of our time (or something like that). Gave props to Navratilova for "his generation". * Title 9 stuff (see runbabyrun's post). One thing about the interview that stood out for me was the talk about Title 9. Mia said something along the lines how alot of people just don't understand what Title 9 is all about. I must admit I am one of those folks. I am a supporter of women having more and more opportunities to compete in sports. But I am clueless as to what the nuts and bolts of Title 9 are and what the arguments are against Title 9.
Thanks Fear!!! Oh and I agree... a big thank you to the Freedom staff for letting us know she was going to be on.
Title IX Title IX raison d'etre is to provide equality of opportunity for women athletes, which is certainly laudable and I fully support that. However, the method that they have used to achieve that is coming under fire. It's called proportionality, and it basically means that the number of female athletes has to be proportional to the number of female students in the university. So, if the student body is 55% female, then 55% of the athletes at that school have to be female as well. This is a big part of the reason for the growth of women's soccer (the fastest growing college sport). However, there is as great an effect on certain men's sports, particularly those that have large "rosters" and are not money generating. Wrestling is one of the chief "victims". Some college wrestling association is suing to try and eliminate proportionality. I don't know where I fall on this issue. I would like for all these students to be able to continue with their athletic endeavors, but it would be difficult to get rid of proportionality without causing grievous harm and a huge reversal of fortune for women's sports.
The one thing I wonder about is why are there so many more women on college campus'? They say the national average is something like 55%. Is there a reason for this?
The short answer WWII. The long answer, well there's a reason it's called the long answer. More opportunity to a growing middle class as a result of greater wealth and easier credit available after WWII. Also with many men gone to fight a war, the work place filled with women who after the war ended decided they didn't all want to go back to baking bread and making babies. With the men taking many of these jobs back college became the place that absorbed these "displaced" women. Also the population of the country as a whole has a higher number of women than men. So if the same percentage of the male and female population went to college there would be more women in college. Add to this the huge societal changes that happened in the 60's and 70's especially in regards with the women's lib movement and that would help to start to explain some of why this has happened. I'm sure there are other theories, truths or reason for this "phenomenon" the above are mine in a nutshell. My big issue with the enforcement of titleIX is that if 55% of the student population at school x is female, there is an assumption that 100% of the women are interested in participating in a sport, the same could be said of men. I believe that one of the proposals that came out of the recent conference was for schools to survey their students on interest in sports participation in order to determine a fairer type of proportionality. this may be a better way I'm not sure but I think the current proportionality rule is starting to swing the pendulum the other way. I also don't think that a football team should have 110 players on it's roster which helps to skew the numbers. Another possible solution also out of the recent confrence was to only count scholarship players. I'm not sure what the answer is but I think as it currently stands it is broke.
Damn, I can't believe nobody gave us a heads up.....is anyone selling a copy??? Please let me know. Thanks, Cindy