Women's Athletics and the Disparity Between Men's Sports

I have long felt that I needed to dedicate an entire post to Woman's Athletics as I used to work for the American University Woman's Basketball program as their manager and learned to appreciate the sheer amount of hard work that these female athletes put in to be great but yet they still do not get the same recognition as male athletes.  Last year it really hurt me to go to the woman's games and not see people in the stands but know that when it came time for the Men's games people would be piling up no matter how bad the team was doing that year.  I tried to get people to come to the games for the women because not only did I work for the team but the AU Woman's team was amazing last year they were playing at that time some of the best basketball I had seen come out of AU.  The women made it to the Patriot League Championship Finals and was there really any recognition from AU to the student body, not really.  The team barely had the press that the Men's team had when they made it.  While I do have to admit that prior to working for the team I was not a big fan of Woman's Basketball that did all change once I got to know the girls and work for the program.

The last time a woman's program made it into sports headlines was when UConn was closing in on the all time win streak and about to beat the streak of 88 games that the UCLA Men's team had back in the late 70's under Coach Wooden.  The reason that this team made it into the headlines is the fact that they were breaking a Men's record now that they finally lost they haven't made it into the headlines anymore.  Also upsetting for me is how the WNBA gets shafted by the networks.  The WNBA has players who are amazing for example my favorite Basketball player male or female is Sue Bird and do many people even know how good she is, nope they do not.  She is an athlete who takes pride in her skills and goes above and beyond to be one of the best basketball players in the country.  She went to UConn and played under Coach Geno, a coach who does not treat his female athletes as women who can't do everything that men can do but as athletes who can do what ever they set their minds to.  Female athletics deserves to have the same recognition as male athletics because the female athletes are putting in as much work if sometimes not more work then male athletes for less glory or praise from the media and the public.

I hope you all keep following my love affair with sports.

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