Is there a thread on awesome women/girls in sport?

[Hot Pepsi]

i'm torn on this subject because the barriers to participation are still so tall and so actively policed. To some extent every woman who plays sport is awesome. And as the one who received polite congratulations for trundling in a long way behind everyone else during school races i am not much invested in the idea that dominance equals awesomeness. That said, there is certainly something enthralling about watching sportspeople who make their discipline look really easy. It's even easier to cheer for them when they are impressive human beings too. This paragraph is hurtling in the direction of Simone Biles, who is still, and i cannot get my head around this, 22 years old.

Last year i watched the BBC Scotland documentary about Rose Reilly, the only Scot ever to captain the winning team of the football world cup. Just by herself Reilly has enough personality for a whole XI, and she must have been a transcendent player. It's mindblowing to hear first-hand what she had to go through simply to be able to play football in the 1970s, without even thnking about the question of getting paid or making a living from it. The generation currently in its mid-20s or older is probably the last that could not grow up with a reasonable hope of earning some money from playing football, at least in the UK or France. It's the end of the 'amateur' era, of pay-to-play. And while on balance that's not worth mourning there will nevertheless be something that gets lost, a mindset, a determination, a resilience, and i think they're worth mentioning on a thread about awesomewomanness.

So is Ryoko Tamura, who's probably the most exhilarating judoka of the modern era. She won seven world championships and 15 national titles; at one point she went on a run of something like 149 wins in 150 contests, taking a break towards the end of the streak to give birth. She practised a fast-paced, attacking, energetic style and enjoyed her wins so openly that she was a pure joy to watch. Apparently she's now a politician, so some of her awesomeness may have worn off, but surely merits her place here.

If the obstacles for women who want to play sports are huge, then it goes double for disabled women, and there are many outstanding paralympicists worthy of a mention. i didn't get round to mentioning Marie Bochet on the recent thread about athletes who are unbeatable; she's won four of the five skiing events at each of the last two Olympics, and has gone almost a decade undefeated in downhill skiing, which is not her strongest event. If she chooses to take part in the next winter games she will probably become the most decorated French athlete in history.

i would also like to nominate the awesome wheelchair athlete Marieke Vervoort who enjoyed great triumphs and endured more pain in her short life than anyone should have to.

Lastly i will put in a word for the growing (American) tackle football league, the Women's Football Alliance (WFA). Not only are the barriers to playing gridiron sky-high for women, there's no support from the NFL and very little from the local or national media. Lots and lots of the players are black and queer*; quite a few of them are seriously big; and for full woke points there are prominent trans and non-binary participants including a key defender on the repeat champion Boston Renegades, the Massacheusetts-based sports team it's okay to like. The best-known ex-player is probably Sami Grisafe, an openly lesbian quarterback turned country singer who enjoyed the probably unique accolade of performing the national anthem at an international game in which she was also named most valuable player. You're feeling her awesomeness already, and you haven't met her yet. But she has now retired, and the baton for quarterback heroics has been passed to Amanda Congialdi of the DC Divas, whose fourth-down hail mary pass on the final play of a game last season went about as viral as women's tackle football will ever go. The one-time QB of the WFA's now defunct Kansas City Titans, Katie Sowers, coached in last month's NFL Superbowl for the 49ers. She is super awesome.

*often also overtly christian and sometimes in the military or security services, in that strange little niche of American society where these apparent contradictions get ironed out or worked through – a process that implies the presence of serious awesomeness imo

I remember the DC Divas got a fair amount of media attention and interest in the Washington area when I lived there.

I don’t think there’s much future for women’s American football.

Participation in boys football is declining and there doesn’t appear to be any movement to create girls football at the high school level. It would cost so much to do that.

The WFA may continue, but there are only so many grown women with jobs who will be interested in playing such a painful sport in their free time. There are men’s leagues like that too, but not many. (Though, a you allude to, they may be more popular in mostly black communities).

Women’s rugby seems more viable.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Oh, I see what you mean. I think they added skateboarding too, didn’t they? It makes sense, in my view, to include sports that kids are actually interested in.

The flippy-spinny BMX discipline is fairly popular around here because Woodward Camp is just down the road. Several of the world’s best at it, including Jamie Bestwick, live around here. Bestwick owns a coffee shop/coffee roasters that seems to be doing well.

Except in the snowy equivalents that led to awful ‘down with the kids’ posh tv commentators

[andrew7610]

Except in the snowy equivalents that led to awful ‘down with the kids’ posh tv commentators

Probably former competitors in those events, though - Chemmy Alcott for example lends credibility to any coverage whether you care for her accent or not.

[laverte]

I remember the DC Divas got a fair amount of media attention and interest in the Washington area when I lived there.

Yes they're one of the best organised women's teams and in particular they have a very active media department (i suspect it consists of one person, but he is prolific!). They have their own hall of fame and a few years ago the media dude published an encyclopedia of women's football listing every statline of every player in every national league (there were a few back then). The Divas QB when they won the championship was a homicide detective and they managed to squeeze a lot of stories out of that. Unfortunately most media reporting about women's gridiron is the tired old Lass Does Thing stuff: by day she paints her nails, by night she sacks quarterbacks type of crap.

The Divas have also been lobbying the NFL to invest in women's football. They got a bit of momentum with their When WNFL campaign during the WNBA finals last season. It hasn't produced any results yet.

I don’t think there’s much future for women’s American football.

The WFA may continue, but there are only so many grown women with jobs who will be interested in playing such a painful sport in their free time. There are men’s leagues like that too, but not many. (Though, a you allude to, they may be more popular in mostly black communities).

Women’s rugby seems more viable.

Point taken but i hope you're wrong! i think the surge in interest in MMA and women's boxing shows that the pain factor isn't all that important. And for so long as there are enough kids running around the yard pretending to be Lamar Jackson or Tom Brady, some of whom will be stubborn enough to insist on pursuing their dream, i think there'll be room for a women's league. The main problem is money: American football is an expensive sport to play, with big squads requiring lots of equipment, and trying to make a national league work in such a big country is a real challenge.

[Flynnie]

I kinda hope women's American football doesn't take off for the sole reason that the US women's rugby team is actually pretty good, and I suspect the reason why is they're an outlet for the pigskin heads.

[Hot Pepsi]

I hope women’s football doesn’t take off too much because it causes brain damage and will hopefully disappear completely. Same with boxing and MMA.

Rugby appears to be a bit safer.

A woman I went to junior high school with just posted on Instagram about her teenage daughter signing to play gridiron with the Philadelphia Phantomz. She plays rugby at a fairly high level already. I hope it works out and she doesn’t get hurt.

If nothing else, it appears to be a culturally diverse scene, and that’s good for all involved. That’s one of the good things about men’s gridiron too. It’s played at both rich and poor high schools and the fans come from every socio-economic strata. In places like DC and Philadelphia, it is one of the only things that unites people of all races.

[laverte]

Maya Moore, superstar of the Minnesota Lynx, quit the WNBA to help campaign for the release of a young Black man dubiously convicted of shooting a white man during a burglary. The man has now been released from prison after serving 22 years.

As an aside, is it normal to get a 50-year sentence for burglary and attempted assault?

[ursus arctos]

She is an absolute legend.

50:years is not normal, but it is also not unique, particularly in a system of "justice" as racially problematic as Missouri's. Many states give judges much more discretion over sentencing than they would have in the Federal system, and Irons would have been subject to significant "enhancements" for the use of a firearm.