ESPN and women's sports

I was watching the NCAA Women's Basketball Final Four Championship on Sunday. I had been looking forward to this all week. The men's finals were on a major national network, I believe CBS. The women's championship, however, was put on the less mainstream ESPN network… Well I shouldn't complain about this, at least women’s sports were finally featured somewhere. During the main part of this season, you would find men's basketball on almost every national network and sports dedicated channels buat you only find an occasional women's game.

 But I laid aside my disgruntlement, and settled back with my chocolate covered raisins and my one third of a bottle of beer, the allotment the doctor allows me because of my pain medication, to watch the games. Of course first, there is the pregame show with its little interviews of coaches and players and discussions of team strategies. What came next stopped me in mid-chew. They were interviewing the coach of the Baylor team, the team favored to win the whole shebang, and she is one of the top women's coaches in basketball. I was expecting the interviewer to discuss game day strategy with the coach, Kim  Mulkey. My fourth grade teacher at instilled feminist sensibilities in me and what came next plucked every nerve and I started yelling at the TV. Instead of respecting her as a great coach and strategist, the interviewer began discussing her great fashion sense and how wonderful she looked on the sidelines. Then the camera pulled back and a series of approximately 30 pictures of her wearing different outfits was featured. Another five minutes was spent discussing why she wore pants instead of skirts or dresses. To her benefit, Coach Mulkey approached the whole thing professionally and answered all questions respectfully. I would've ripped the interviewer a new butt-hole.

I decided to breathe deeply and try and enjoy the rest of the evening's entertainment. Right before the game started, as is customary, they had the players introduce themselves. Let me explain how this usually happens. Each player states their name and their position, quite often looking stern to intimidate. This is what always happens at the men's games and at previous women's games I've watched on TV. Now let me tell you how team introductions occurred during the Final Four women's games. Each woman smiled sweetly for the camera, gave her name, her position and told something cute about herself, such as liking puppies or enjoying playing video games on her iPad. There was a lot of simpering and giggling.

 After the feminization of the coach and the players, the games went on and they were very enjoyable. The final championship game took place several days later. I am pleased to say that apparently someone or several someones complained to ESPN about the Coach Mulkey fashion segment. Although they repeated several interviews from the previous presentation, this one was cut out. But they did still include the silly player introductions. My take on ESPN's presentation is that clearly they felt the need to feminize the players and at least one of the women coaches. Why? I don't know. Maybe they felt their viewers would find strong women threatening or intimidating. Maybe They found them threatening or intimidating. I find it so frustrating that strong women often are not celebrated … The Baylor team did something that no women's OR men's basketball team had ever done, going 40 –  0 in a single season.

 Well faithful reader, give me your honest assessment. Would you have been scared of Coach Mulkey if you only knew about her game strategy, rather than her clothing preferences? And would any of the games be less satisfying if you didn't know the players liked puppies, kittens or sleeping? I don't know about you, but I'd like ESPN to approach women's sports as seriously as men's.