Long Live Women's Sport

Monday is often article day, or current events or something like that.  Who's paying attention?  Anyway, I couldn't help but notice all the headlines this morning about the Women's World Cup Final game.  And I couldn't let that amount of attention for a female sporting event go unheralded on this blog.

I watched the game too, though I'm not exactly an avid soccer fan.  I confess I was actually relieved when my oldest took a break from soccer this year.  But this was a great game and I was totally into it, shouting directions to the coach to the extent that at one point I recognized my idiocy and turned to my husband and sheepishly said, "You know, because I know more about soccer than Pia Sundhage."

But YAY that a sporting event featuring all women athletes captured the world's attention like this.  Yay that the U.S. team captain is a 36 year old mother of 2.  (I am trying not to be envious that this is the only part of Rapone's bio that looks like mine). Yay that there were men in the stadium painted up and shouting for women athletes and brandishing signs like "I'm Solo, Hope!" Yay that little girls like mine can have role models like Abby Wambach.  Yay that girls can wear jerseys embroidered with the names of women. 

The Women's World Cup Final  in 1999 made way for this, I realize.  As did tennis athletes like the Williams sisters. And of course Title IX. This is an event in my children's lifetime, however, that they will remember and note.  Every time events like this get this kind of support and coverage, they internalize it. And it becomes more natural for them to see this kind of embrace of women's sport than it was for me, much like computers and other technology is natural to them in the way it was not for me.

My youngest is signed up for soccer in the fall and so I will begrudgingly pick up the mantle of soccer mom once again. (I've still managed to hold out on the minivan and other soccer mom accessories). But it is important to me that my girls know that "athlete" is one of the identities available to them.