Giant Buzzkill

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady (12) reacts to being sacked by New York Giants defensive end Michael Strahan (92) during the third quarter of the Super Bowl XLII football game at University of Phoenix Stadium on Sunday, Feb. 3, 2008 in Glendale, Ariz.
(AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Giants 20 17, Patriots 17 14. [edited afternoon; in my dreams, there were more field goals.]

Sad to say, I saw this one coming, as Sunday morning I woke up from a dream where the Patriots lost by 1 point. In the dream it wasn't the Super Bowl, and they weren't playing the Giants, but it felt ominous.

Top five reasons the Giants beat the Patriots, from the group I watched the game with last night.

(1) Boston mayor Tom Menino announcing the city's plans for a Patriots victory parade last week. Jinx.

(2) Belichek was not wearing his traditional homeless man grey sweatshirt. And the red sweatshirt looked like Giants garb! Don't mess with a streak, Bill. Didn't you ever watch Bull Durham? "A player on a streak has to respect the streak."

(3) The Patriots broke the John Madden rule -- Put the points on the board -- in the second quarter when they opted to go for it on 4th and 13 when they could have kicked a 49-yard field goal. And guess what? 3 was the margin of victory. Dumb move, Bill Belichek. Probably caused by the red sweatshirt.

(4) Tom Brady's ankle wasn't letting him plant and his throws were all over the place; plus his offensive line was getting run over by the faster, younger, less beat up Giants defense.

(5) The Giants were the better team yesterday. Better defense, better offense, better coach, better quarterback.

Most amusing TV announcer bullshit:

Tom Petty was announced as a rock & roll "legend." Hey, I know the guy is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but legend? Please. Reportedly, he wasn't even the first choice to play at the Super Bowl (The Eagles & Bruce Springsteen said to have turned down the big game).

Troy Aikman when the Patriots got the ball back, down 20-17 with 29 seconds left: "29 seconds is eternity to Tom Brady." No, you idiot, 29 seconds is 29 seconds and finite; and Tom Brady had been playing like crap all night. Too bad they wouldn't let Phil Simms call a Giants Super Bowl.

Superbowl Prediction: A Pat Riot

Check out this hilarious music video by Pats fans, hat tip to Yahoo Sports:

Newsweek Gives Right Wing Fruitcake Forum to Attack Title IX

This book, and its author, tilts to the right.
Newsweek: Is Title IX Sidelining the Boys?
While federal law made sports more accessible to women, critics charge it works against male athletes.

Jessica Gavora's at it again. This time on the pages of Newsweek magazine, where she is described as "the vice president for policy of The College Sports Council and author of 'Tilting the Playing Field'". In reality, Gavora is a former speechwriter for radical conservatives Newt Gingrich, John Ashcroft, and Alberto Gonzales. Five years ago when Kathy Jean Lopez was reviewing Tilting the Playing Field on NRO, Gavora was described much more accurately: "Today, Gavora is chief speechwriter to attorney general John Ashcroft (and wife of NRO editor Jonah Goldberg)".

[Yes, that's NRO editor Jonah Goldberg, the famous chickenhawk who, while exhorting soldiers to the killing fields of Iraq, said he can't go because "I'm 35 years old, my family couldn't afford the lost income, I have a baby daughter, my a** is, er, sorry"; so Jessica Gavora, Title IX-attacker, is the mother of said daughter. Sad.]

Of course, Newsweek provides none of this biographical information. She's the vice president of The College Sports Council. Doesn't that sound all even-handed and above-board? The fact that this is a group advocating for the interests of wrestling, swimming and gymnastics (small, expensive sports that get cut so schools can have 85 or 95 or 105 man football squads) is not mentioned. That would have involved reporting rather than stenography.

But I digress. Back to Jessica Gavora. The wingers' first attempt to dismantle Title IX failed miserably; public blowback ended their chances of eliminating equality by legislation. So the Bush Administration put out regulations that allow schools to say girls aren't interested in sports by administering a survey; these regulations were roundly and soundly criticized, but they're still in effect. They've only got 1 3/4 years left to attack Title IX, so they're trotting out the new tactics.

Jessica sounds so pro-equality as she attacks Title IX. She's just a pal trying to make things even more equitable:

Do you advocate getting rid of Title IX?

I do think we still need title IX. I think that everybody in our educational institutions deserves protection against sex discrimination. I think that’s an important part of equality in this country. But we need to change the way we are judging schools. They need to be able to offer sports on the basis of student interest. That’s why we applauded the student interest survey, [which surveyed the student body based on interest in athletics, allowing for representative sports teams] because right now we have this very arbitrary numerical formula that we are applying and it’s hurting athletes. Not just male athletes, but female athletes on small roster squads. Women who play smaller roster sports don’t get the same opportunity.

Who's radical? It's all us equality folks, that's who! We're out there trying to brainwash women into thinking they're athletic or something:

What do the people on the other side of the issue argue?

The people on the other side of this believe that it isn’t the role of the university to accommodate the interests of women; they believe it’s the role of the university to create interest. They believe it is the role of the university to educate women on how athletic they are.

No one on the equality side of the ledger has ever said or advocated any such thing, but Newsweek lets it go.

Jessica blames everything on us old women (as Gloria Steinem said, women may be the one group that grow radical with age):

What do female athletes say?

I know that I’ve heard from lots of female athletes who are starting to say that this law has outlived its purpose. They don’t understand what this law means because they’re seeing it limit the opportunities of the men they travel and train with and who make them better athletes. And they think it’s insane. There’s a big generational divide here. Some of the women who are of the “if you build it they will com”’ mentality are older women and they lived at a time and went to college at a time when women were being given the short end of the stick in a major way. But these women today have had a very different experience and they don’t agree with what this law is doing to their male colleagues.

See, from Jessica's perspective, these young women, they're being given the short end of the stick in a minor way, and that's all right. If only us old women would only shut up and know our place. We say it's all about football. What does Jessica think of this argument?

What about the big-money sports, like college football teams, that have 80 players [n.b., actually, there are Division I schools with over 100 men on the football team; the University of South Dakota has 113) when they only really need 30. Do you think they are taking up spaces for smaller men’s sports?

Some people like to say it’s all football, because schools are spending all their money on football teams, but that’s not what this is about. Those football players aren’t taking any opportunities away from females. The money they spend on football is not the reason they can only have 15 guys on their baseball team, when if they took their walk-ons they could have 50. Women don’t come out and play for the team without scholarships the way men do. Women have a lot more things they want to do. Look at the gender balance for every extracurricular activity and they’re all dominated by women, except sports. Women have more diverse interests; men are more maniacally interested in sports. Some people say that’s gender heresy but I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

"Those football players aren't taking any opportunities away from females." That's the crux of the Title IX haters argument: Just take football out of the equation, and you'll see that men are getting screwed. Like it isn't male athletes who are playing football. They're an alien race of large-boned androids, or something. That's what they'd like to have us believe, but football players are indeed male athletes, and get counted toward Title IX compliance.

"Women have a lot more things they want to do. Look at the gender balance for every extracurricular activity and they’re all dominated by women, except sports. Women have more diverse interests; men are more maniacally interested in sports. Some people say that’s gender heresy but I don’t think that’s a bad thing." Gavora used to call this "The sportsmania gap"; but she's abandoned that and other incendiary phraseology like "affirmative androgyny" for more palatable, but still sexist, words:

This mostly applies to college sports, but how is it relevant to high schools?

This proportionality has so far been pretty much confined to colleges and universities and it would really be a tragedy if it were applied to high schools. Like I said, look at who’s doing what extracurricular activity in high schools and then tell me we need to force equality of participation in sports. You’re going to hurt a lot of boys because a lot of girls are busy after school doing other things, so I think it would be terrible if we expanded this to high schools.

"[T]hen tell me we need to force equality of participation in sports...". That's what she's against. She's against equality. Newsweek doesn't hear that dog whistle, but we do. Gavora is for Title IX, but against forced equality. But you can't have it both ways. Either you're for equality, or you're not. She's clearly in the anti-equality camp, and Newsweek should have called her on it. But that would have involved journalism. And this is just stenography, letting another right-wing fruitcake have her say in the corporate media.

Has Anyone Told John McCain?

I don't think Tom Brady has been practicing abstinence, do you?

Boston Globe: Tom Brady's former girlfriend pregnant
Actress identifies Patriots QB as father

Boston Herald: Daddy oh! Bridget’s pregnant, but Tom has no plans to marry ex-galpal

It's Football, Stupid, Not Title IX

John Tierney gets it wrong, as usual.

John Tierney, NYTimes: Let the Guys Win One (TimesSelect wall)

His thesis:

When Title IX was enacted in 1972, women were a minority on college campuses, and it sounded reasonable to fight any discrimination against them. But now men are the underachieving minority on campus, as a series by The Times has been documenting. So why is it so important to cling to the myth behind Title IX: that women need sports as much as men do?

Yes, some women are dedicated athletes, and they should be encouraged with every opportunity. But a lot of others have better things to do, like study or work on other extracurricular activities that will be more useful to their careers. For decades, athletic directors have been creating women’s sports teams and dangling scholarships and hoping to match the men’s numbers, but they’ve learned that not even the Department of Education can eradicate gender differences.

At the University of Maryland, the women’s lacrosse team won national championships year after year but still had a hard time getting 40 players to turn out for the team. The men’s team had no such trouble, because guys were more than willing to warm the bench even if they weren’t getting a scholarship, but the coach had to cut the extra ones to maintain the gender balance. The school satisfied Title IX, but to no one’s benefit.

On or off campus, men play more team sports and watch more team sports.

The facts:

The foundation of Title IX is not the 'myth' that women need sports as much as men do. Title IX is an amendment to a federal education bill; its central thesis is that women, who pay the same tuition and taxes as men, should receive the same opportunities to participate in sports programs. It only applies to institutions that choose to receive federal funds. Any private school that doesn't want to treat men and women equally in sports can do so: just forgo federal funds. It's called equality, John Tierney, as much as you disdain it. Or maybe you're just an originalist, believing "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal..." really only applies to men.

The vast majority of colleges and universities are not in compliance with Title IX; they spend more money on their smaller percentage of male undergraduates than they do on their larger percentage of female undergraduates.

Title IX has never been enforced by the federal government. No university has ever lost federal funds for Title IX violations.

So what's the real problem here? Why are administrators creating teams that women aren't interested in? It's a two-fold problem, and it all comes back to football.

Football is the Achilles heel of college sports programs. It is the ultimate sacred cow. Colleges routinely carry football squads at the Division I-A limit of 85 players. (The maximum number of players who can actually suit up for a game is 40.) A large proportion of most college sports programs funding goes to football. So, colleges need to balance out football.

I am unaware of any school that actually spends its athletic funds equally on men and women. That would be the simple way to comply with Title IX. But that ain't gonna happen, not while the most athletic directors are male and most college leadership is male. So how else can a school comply? The government still relies on guidelines passed over 30 years ago to give colleges ways to comply with Title IX without actually providing equal money or opportunities. (Or as we say here in the reality-based community, ways to get around the law.) The so-called 'three-prong' test gives schools three ways to comply: (1) TRY; {a good-faith effort to accommodate women's interests), (2) SUCCESSFUL TRY (show that women's interests are completely accommodated, even if you're not equal), and (3) CLOSE ENOUGH FOR THE OFFICE OF CIVIL RIGHTS, (proportionality, that your playing opportunities for men and women are roughly proportional to their numbers in the student body).

Well, it's a little late for the first two prongs to be relevant (how can you show a history when you've been out of compliance for 30 years?) so most schools try to show proportionality.

So schools are trying to balance out those 85 football spots. There may be a million guys out there who want to wrestle, or play lacrosse, or cycle. But schools prefer to give men scholarships to back up the football bench rather than reduce football squads.

Therefore, schools need to create women's sports to make their numbers proportional. But because schools spend so much of their sports money on football, schools want to push cheap women's sports. That's why schools all over the country have cut their very popular women's gymnastics programs. Expensive, between the equipment and the insurance. Instead, they've added sports teams that are big and require little equipment. Wonder why crew and rowing are all over US college campuses? Colleges report squads of 70, 80, 90 female crew members. They count 'em the day they sign up, not after a month or two when most of the novices (there aren't many crew or rowing programs in high schools) drop out. There was no nationwide cry for rowing by female athletes. Lacrosse, also a big new women's sport, not because women are that interested in it, but because you can report a squad of 40 easily. Women who want to play sports that have smaller squads have been rebuffed. See Mansourian v. UC Davis, a female wrestler who was denied the opportunity to participate, as an example. Mansourian's male coach was fired from UC Davis for supporting her; his case has just been allowed to go to trial.

The real problem is the way college athletic programs have decided to allocate money and participation opportunities. Women's sports haven't caused smaller men's sports to lose spots. It's the insistence that football programs have 85 athletes, although many of those 'athletes' will never set foot on the field as college athletes.

Don't blame women for dumb allocation of athletic dollars. Blame the administrators. Blame football and its bloated squads. Don't blame women, John Tierney.


Mariah Burton Nelson deconstructed this same bogus argument four years ago: And Now They Tell Us Women Don’t Really Like Sports?

And no article on Title IX should ever be written without a big thank you Patsy Mink, foremother behind Title IX (along with Birch Bayh), who fought for equality. Great article by Mechelle Voepel.

Gender Equity in Sports: Still a Goal, Not Yet Reality

First, let's celebrate one of our sports foremothers: Billie Jean King. On the heels of the rousing success of their documentary on the US Women's Soccer team, "Dare to Dream", HBO just released a film on the story of Billie Jean King,

The Woman Who Transformed Tennis (WaPo)

As an athlete, she set a Wimbledon record by winning 20 titles (since tied by Navratilova) and held the No. 1 ranking five times. She was also relentless -- and remains so -- in her efforts to gain equal rights for women in her sport. Just last week, King, 62, pushed anew for equal prize money for men and women at Wimbledon.That's just one of many battles she's fought. In the 1970s, King was a catalyst for the formation of a women's professional tour (sponsored by Virginia Slims) and led the drive to organize her fellow players into what would become the Women's Tennis Association. She testified before Congress in support of Title IX, legislation that provided equal athletic opportunities for young women and girls at school. She stood next to Gloria Steinem at rallies for women's rights. And, after a past lover filed a palimony suit against her in 1981, essentially outing her as a lesbian, she eventually became a public advocate for gay rights.

No one can forget how King created worldwide headlines when she won the "Battle of the Sexes" singles match, beating self-declared male chauvinist Bobby Riggs at the Houston Astrodome in 1973. Greenburg and Bernstein do an excellent job of capturing both the event's circuslike atmosphere and its cultural significance.

Did King change the world? According to "Portrait of a Pioneer," yes. As Deford puts it: "She and Jackie Robinson are the two figures in sports who stand out in the culture. She should be honored for what she did."

Amusing to see the quote from Frank DeFord, an old sportwriter who was virulently against women in sports until he had the radicalizing experience of fathering a daughter. Now he's a convert.

See, also, Alessandra Stanley in the Times: The Legacy of Billie Jean King, an Athlete Who Demanded Equal Play

The thrill of seeing Billie Jean's story on HBO is tempered by today's news that Wimbledon will continue to discriminate against women tennis players in pay:

WaPo: Wimbledon Will Still Pay the Men More

WIMBLEDON, England, April 25 -- Wimbledon remains the only Grand Slam tournament that pays the men's champion more than the women's winner.

The All England club announced Tuesday that the men's winner this year will receive $1.170 million and the women's champion $1.117 million, a difference of $53,000. It's a 4 percent increase in British currency.

[]

"In the 21st century, it is morally indefensible that women competitors in a Grand Slam tournament should be receiving considerably less prize money than their male counterparts," WTA Tour chief executive Larry Scott said in a statement.

He accused Wimbledon of taking a "Victorian-era view" on pay.

And Title IX is still under attack from within, from the Bush Administration. Although their attempt to dismantle Title IX by commission in 2002 failed (thank you thank you thank you, Julie Foudy!!!), their latest attempt to attack the law is by letting schools continue to offer less scholarships and participation opportunities to girls, by giving a survey to female undergrads. If the girls don't respond to the survey, they're assumed to have no interest in sports. Like you've never deleted a survey from your email, or hung up on a survey company. The Bushies rule would actually allow the schools to count girls who didn't respond as not interested. (Obviously, there's no category for 'busy'). Besides, that's not really the group you should be surveying anyway. Why not survey high school varsity athletes? They're the ones most likely to play sports in college. Why not them? Because the purpose is to gut the law, not to maintain its goal of equal opportunity for women athletes.

Personally, I would just abolish the Office of Civil Rights regulations at this point. They were passed 30 years ago just to give schools some time to get into compliance with Title IX. It gave them ways to be in compliance while they worked toward the goal of equity. It's time for equity. 30 years is enough. No more half measures. No surveys, no analysis, no bullshit. You have 56% female undergrads (that's the national average)? Then you spend 56% of your money and offer 56% of the athletic opportunities to women. That's it. No more half measures. If you don't give out money in your sports program equally, you lose your federal funds.

Do you know that the Office of Civil Rights has never actually stripped any educational institution of federal funds? How can you enforce a law when you never enact the penalty? You can't, and they haven't. Instead, as of 2003 when 55% of female undergraduates were female, only 42% of college athletes were women. That means that the 45% of male undergraduates got 58% of the participation opportunities. That's after 34 years of Title IX "enforcement."

My kind of change to Title IX law and enforcement will require the election of a Democrat, and probably a woman. Run, Julie Foudy, run!


Southern Maryland Online: Mikulski Calls for Title IX Hearing

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) has joined a group of her Senate colleagues in calling on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman Senator Michael B. Enzi (R-Wyo.) to hold a hearing on the Department of Education's enforcement of Title IX under the "Additional Clarification of Intercollegiate Athletics Policy."

[]

For over thirty years, Title IX has opened doors by giving women and girls an equal opportunity to participate in student sports, we're concerned that the Department's proposal could unfairly reduce their opportunities for participation in the future. Under the Department's new guidance, colleges that provide fewer sports opportunities to women can be considered to have accommodated female students and complied with Title IX, based solely on the results of a student survey. If female students do not reply to a survey emailed to them, the Department will assume that they are not interested in additional sports activities. But a survey alone cannot reliably measure students' interest in sports. Many students may not respond to, or even open, email surveys. In fact, in a report to the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Department highlighted the low response rates of surveys and the importance of monitoring by the Office of Civil Rights.

I'm Talkin Basketball

Shoulda-been-MVP Kristi Toliver (5' 7") hits a 3-pointer over 6' 7" Allison Bales to send Maryland-Duke to overtime

Fantastic weekend of basketball here in Boston. Saturday night Coach Mom & I went into town to meet up with my sister. We had dinner at Skipjack's in Copley Square. While waiting for a table, seats at the bar opened up, so we got to watch George Mason lose to Florida in the first game of the men's semifinals. I love my family. At one point I asked, "Where did [Florida coach] Billy Donovan play in college?". My sister & Coach Mom answered in unison "PROVidence" (in a tone that said, 'you idiot', which I accepted as my due), and Coach Mom said, "For Rick Pitino." Doesn't everybody know that? In my family they do. Idiot.

I got to have sushi and everyone loved their dinners. We walked on Newbury St. afterwards and windowshopped art and clothes. We left sis who was heading to a WNBA party & headed back to central Mass.

For Sunday's games we picked up my friend's kids, ages 14 and 11. They were excited to go to their first Final Four. We got to the Garden pretty easily, parked in the underground parking garage ($23, ouch), and headed upstairs. I stood in line at the undermanned souvenir stand (why do they only have two people working these booths? They could have sold out the first day with more salespeople.) for 20 minutes and got the kids Final Four shirts with their favorite team's logo (North Carolina and Duke) and a ticket lanyard and a pin for Coach Mom. Then we got hotdogs & drinks and headed up to our seats in the balcony. I was pleased to see that no alcohol was being served. It was a very family atmosphere, especially if you come from a family with lots of tall women (like I do.) I always feel so short at the Final Four. I have to keep reminding myself, You are the average American woman. Not short, average.

Our seats were in Balcony section 307, row 5, in the corner on the same side as the benches. We had a good overview of the court, but I was glad we brought binoculars so we could see the player's faces.

The first semi was a barnburner. We were rooting for North Carolina and Ivory Latta, but she got hurt in the first half and was never very effective. Reportedly, she hyperextended her left knee. She was carried of the court so we were surprised when she returned. Maryland's freshman guard Kristi Toliver was guarding Latta and she used her 4" height advantage to great advantage. She just wouldn't let Latta drive on her which really took a lot away from Latta's game. Maryland ran a couple of clear-out plays where Toliver isolated Latta and drove on her, scoring with ease. Toliver finished with 14 points, as did Latta, but that was advantage: Maryland, as Latta averaged 18.2 during the regular season, while Toliver averaged 11.5.

It was a very physical game. Maryland substituted in a post player, Jade Perry, whose sole purpose seemed to be putting a body hard on North Carolina's talented post player, Erlana Larkins. Larkins finished with 28 points to lead NC but she took a lot of punishment. The terrible officiating crew from the Pac-10 didn't help matters, letting assault go on in the paint while calling touch fouls on outside shooters. They were consistent -- consistently terrible, as was all the officiating in the tournament. (Sally Jenkins of the WaPo says, fire all the officials and start all over.) Some fans from the Pac-10 were sitting in front of us & they groaned when the officials walked out onto the court.

North Carolina never was able to cut the gap and when Larkins fouled out with less than a minute remaining, she went over to shake hands with Duke coach Gail Goestenkors and the game was over.

Between games we met up with my sister after rendevousing via cellphone. (We passed Georgia coach Andy Landers on our way.) She moved us down to centercourt, 7th row seats for the second game. What a difference! We were behind the Duke bench. Allison Bales is huge. Unfortunately it wasn't much of a game. Duke put a smothering double-teaming defense on Siemone Augustus, and no one else from LSU stepped into the void. LSU's 45 points was the lowest point total ever in a semi-final game. It was such a blow-out that we left early with 4 minutes left on the clock, something we never do, but it was almost midnight, and the kids had school the next day.

Why do they start the games so late? The only reason the kids got to see the game is because they were there. If they were home not surrounded by screaming fans they would have been asleep on the couch. How can you build a fan base when the games are played while they're catching zzzz's?

The final last night was great. On our way in Coach Mom recognized former longtime Maryland coach Chris Weller, so we stopped and congratulated her. I'm sure it was a bittersweet moment, as she built the program, then got run out of town by AD Debbie Yow. I'm sure they had her resign or something like that to save face, but everyone knew what had happened.

I couldn't really root for Maryland. First, Maryland AD Debbie Yow, credited with the huge expansion of the Maryland women's basketball program, has been no friend of Title IX. It was Yow, a member of Bush's Title IX commission, who proposed allowing schools to comply with Title IX by offering as few as 43% of scholarships to women, even though women make up 55.5% of undergraduates nationwide. Add to my dislike of Yow all the allegations of recruiting violations swirling around the Maryland women's basketball program. Who wants to have the first women's basketball championship revoked because of later-adjudged recruiting violations?

So Duke it was. The building was packed -- well, maybe there were a few empty yellow seats in the balconies, but at least 16,000 people in the building. The crowd was wild. And Duke came out hot, packing in the defense, denying Crystal Langhorne and Laura Harper, Maryland's leading scorers in the semis, good looks inside. Duke led by as much as 13 points in the first half, but while Maryland continued to play poorly, Duke didn't take advantage and put them away. They got sloppy, threw away passes, missed layups, and at half Maryland was only down by 10.

Maryland hung in there, hung in there, and then with about 8 minutes left in the game, they found their stroke. Duke fell apart. Mistie Williams, who had led them in scoring in the semis, only had 3 points last night, and by the end she was passing up all open shots. No one from Duke seemed to want the ball during the last five minutes or in the overtime.

When Toliver hit her three-pointer with 6 seconds left to tie the game, the Garden went wild. People were shouting, throwing up their hands, shaking their heads, and just screaming. I just knew Duke was dead. Duke has a well-earned reputation as chokers. Goestenkors has built a great program at Duke, but she seems like a tense person, and her teams always play tense in the big games. Exactly what they did last night. Their best player last night was guard Lindsey Harding, but she committed a senseless foul in the final minute to take herself off the court. Mo Currie finally hit two shots in the OT, but never touched the ball again on offense. Duke had one final chance, but the shot was off balance, and off target. Duke melted off the floor, while Maryland streamed onto it, exulting in their improbable win.

Laura Harper was named Tournament MVP. She did lead Maryland with 25 points over North Carolina, but in the championship she had 16 points (same as Toliver and Shea Doron). Toliver only had 14 points vs. North Carolina, but she was guarding Latta, NC's best player, and she took her out of the game. Without her cool three-pointer, Maryland does not go to overtime, does not win the title. Therefore, Toliver was my MVP. She got robbed, IMHP.

Congratulations to Maryland. Fear the turtle!


ESPN: Terps take title and there may be more on the way

SI: Start of something big
Toliver, Maryland have bright future after taking title

Tiffeny Milbrett to Chelski

Chelsea FC is apparently on the brink of signing Tiffeny Milbrett for the remainder of their season, along with Canadian Christine Sinclair:

Whitecaps sign Milbrett and Sinclair

Tiffeny Milbrett, 33, comes to the Whitecaps as one of the most productive goal scorers in U.S. national team history. The 5'2" native of Portland, Oregon, has amassed 204 appearances (fifth all-time), 100 goals (fourth all-time) and 61 assists (third all-time) with the U.S. women's national team.

Sinclair and Milbrett are slated to travel to England next week to join Chelsea LFC of the F.A. Women's Premier League for the remainder of their season. They are then scheduled to join the Whitecaps in May.

What a contrast in players. Milbrett is tiny, but incredibly skilled, with a powerful shot. Sinclair is a beast, just a very big woman. Every time I've seen her play I see her land on top of someone else, hard.

Tiffeny breaks Chelsea fast

Ever since the female Blues shook buckets outside Stamford Bridge to raise money, Chelsea have been portrayed as uninterested to the point of meanness. Signing Milbrett and Sinclair would mark a turning point for the game in the UK and prove that one of football's biggest brands is prepared to put women at the heart of its drive for growth.

Some things never change. When I played soccer in college, our Athletic Director was the head of the NCAA. Yet the women's soccer team wasn't varsity, and we had bake sales to buy uniforms (until one of my teammates threatened a Title IX lawsuit, that is). I hope Tiffeny is getting some of Roman Abramovich's money.

2/15/06 Update: New York Times says Milbrett is trying to obtain a work permit to play for Chelsea.

Happy National Girls and Women in Sports Day!

Today, February 1, 2006, is the 20th annual National Girls and Women in Sports Day.

NGWSD began in 1987 as a day to remember Olympic volleyball player Flo Hyman for her athletic achievements and her work to assure equality for women's sports. Hyman died of Marfan's Syndrome in 1986 while competing in a volleyball tournament in Japan. Since that time, NGWSD has evolved into a day to acknowledge the past and recognize current sports achievements, the positive influence of sports participation, and the continuing struggle for equality and access for women in sports.

Sports have been very important in my life. I loved playing and am a fan. When I became a lawyer, sports helped me survive the five years I spent as the only woman lawyer in my law firm. It gave me something to talk about in attorney's meetings, and there was automatic respect because I knew more about baseball, basketball, football, hockey and soccer than anyone else in the room. And you can tell from that last sentence that I do not lack for confidence, and I attribute some of that confidence to playing sports.

One of Bushco's early failures was their attack on Title IX in 2003:

In 2003, the administration empaneled a commission to "clarify" read "lessen" Title IX's compliance standards. A minority report issued by commissioners Julie Foudy and Donna de Varona condemning the commission's recommendations for change drew bipartisan support and the backing of women's groups across the country and compelled the Department of Education to withdraw plans to modify the standards for compliance adopted in 1979.

Not that Title IX has ever been enforced with any rigor by the Justice Department of any administration. Do you know how much in fines has been leveled by the Office of Civil Rights for Title IX violations? That would be zero, zip, nada. No educational institution has ever been fined by the federal government for violating this federal law.

We've come a long way, but there's still a ways to go. Happy NGWSD!

Too Hot To Blog

So I'll just offer some interesting links:

Wingnuttia predictions on SCOTUS nominee: The Hedgehog Report Supreme Court Nomination Challenge

The stupidest article ever written on Title IX: Women Athletes Don't Need Big Brother's Help

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Title IX Book From Unlikely Source

Title IX's next hurdle

By a writer for the Wall Street Journal!

Here's an excerpt, read the whole article:

Despite the challenges, the benefits of Title IX have never been more apparent. Passed when many universities restricted admissions for women, the law initially was intended to end discrimination such as quotas that limited females to 10 percent or less of medical schools, law schools and other professional programs. Today, about half the law-school and medical-school students and roughly 57 percent of all college students are women.

Since the law was passed, the number of girls participating in high-school varsity sports has also increased, growing tenfold, to nearly three million, while the number of women in collegiate sports has grown more than fivefold, to about 160,000.

While the debate has focused on athletics, Title IX originally wasn't about sports at all. In a new book for young people, "Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX," Wall Street Journal editor Karen Blumenthal details how one of the nation's most controversial civil-rights laws came about and the enormous impact it has had. An adaptation: