PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Thank you USA women’s hockey team for losing.
It’s not because I wanted our team to lose, far from it. But as I stayed up late to watch the gold medal game against Canada, I was upset. Look at this crappy power play? Why can’t they even enter the zone? Are they even going to score tonight? I thought, ‘screw these Canadians celebrating’.
Thursday morning it hit me, is there a better endorsement for how far women’s sports has come than feeling similar angst for a team of females than you would feel for males?
For those couple of hours, it wasn’t that it a women’s team, it was it was Team USA and at times they sucked. Girls or boys, male or female, it was about an athletic competition not about forcing female sports to try and be fair.
There are still improvements to make, but in the 50th year of Title IX, mandating colleges and schools to give equal opportunity for women, there is progress.
Full disclosure, I, like millions, am a girl dad. Our girls play team sports and individual sports. I can remember watching my sister play nearly 30 years ago and some of those games were awful. I mean bad, and their skills were limited.
Since that time the explosion of opportunities for girls and the training and teaching is a night and day difference. The stigma of being girls’ sports is wearing off not because it’s the politically correct thing to say, watch them play.
Objectively.
I look at the success of the Pitt volleyball team. Are they packing the Fitzgerald Field House because they are women and its PC to support them? They are drawing thousands of fans because they are talented and entertaining.
That’s all women were asking for, an opportunity to compete.
Wednesday night they competed and disappointed. They blew an opportunity at a gold medal and are receiving criticism for it.
Isn’t it great.