By Marilyn Miller
My boss scared me the other day. She started out saying she’d like me to write a sports column. Or at least that’s what I heard. “Just one column,” she clarified. “Something about women’s sports” and are they good for sports in general? I guess she asked me because I was a female athlete most of my YOUNGER life.
I got to thinking about it. Women’s collegiate basketball attracting television audiences in excess of 12 million people — a 50-year struggle finally realized, or a phenomenon created by super stars and hype?
Or a combination of the two?
True, many female athletes have reached star status today. Simone Biles in gymnastics. Caitlin Clark in basketball. Angel Reese in basketball. JuJu Watkins in basketball. Alex Morgan in soccer. Hannah Beatus in softball. Charlotte Richards in volleyball. And many more.
Maybe it’s the classic “women are from Venus, men are from Mars” portrayal. Women have brought a lot to sports, especially to team sports, in the last few years, even the last few months. Women know how to express themselves, and they do it in spades when they are on a court, a diamond, or a field.
They are excited to be there, and it shows. Whether its during warm-up, during the game, on the sidelines, in the locker rooms, on the bus, amid crowds of supporters, women athletes know how to express excitement. They know how to smile. And people want to be a part of that – whether it’s from an easy chair in their living room, or on the bleachers. By the millions!
Women athletes today know how to support each other. More and more it seems like men’s teams always have something divisive stirring in their ranks. And they’ve always got something going with the fans that’s divisive.
True, women can stir up things, but that’s usually involving a single game, remarks by a coach, or a simple “gesture” – all things you expect from athletes and teams who are excited to be playing a game they love; and THEY WANT TO WIN!
No matter the sport, women’s teams today are rising in excellence of play as well. Maybe they’ve been hungry for so long, they just want it more. Hungry for play, hungry for competition, hungry for the win…
In the early 1970’s when I was playing collegiate sports, we rarely got what we needed (equipment, fee payments, travel reimbursements, arenas, etc.), much less what we wanted (new equipment, comfortable transportation, facilities, sanctioned games, etc.). Then Title IX came along and at least gave women one thing they wanted and needed – sanctioned playing time. Prior to that, women simply played for the love of the game.
Today things have improved. Just look at the new softball complex at Minden High School. Amazing!! And a long way from the corner of the pasture behind some school building.
But women still have the excitement, the excellence of play, the support for each other that they had prior to Title IX. Today, more and more it’s televised. Or streamed. Women’s collegiate basketball has drawn more spectators in the last few weeks than in the past 50 years combined. Title IX you finally did it!!
Sadly, there is nothing ahead for the majority of female athletes once they finish college. There is the WNBA (basketball), but very few teams compared to the NBA. There is (or was) Women’s Pro Fastpitch (softball), soccer, lacrosse, hockey; but even fewer competing teams. Some play professional sports, but don’t get paid.
In the end it still all boils down to money. The advertisers will pay for who the advertisers want to pay for playing. That’s usually the men. But as I said, more and more women are getting airtime today.
To answer my boss’ question, yes, I believe women have put a new face on athletics, period.
But when it comes down to it, women are still playing for the love of the game.
(Marilyn Miller is an award-winning journalist who won lives in Minden and writes for Webster Parish Journal.)