"Since Title IX: Female Athletes in Young Adult Fiction"
by Grant T. Smith, Ph. D.
Viterbo College
I first became interested in gender representation in sports literature several years
ago as a student in a Feminist Theory class taught by Dr. Susan Birrell at the University
of Iowa. Dr. Birrell at that time chaired the women’s Physical Education Department, and
she also taught feminist theory courses in the Women’s Studies Program. I remember
very clearly one class discussion of cultural feminism, a feminism that argues that
because women have historically been defined by men, excluded from the ontological
and epistemological discourses, they have been relegated to a second class status, and
"feminine" characteristics have been distorted and devalued. Cultural feminists, said Dr.
Birrell, challenge the definition of "feminine" given by men. They reappraise woman’s
passivity as "peacefulness," sentimentality as "proclivity to nurture," and subjectiveness
as "advanced awareness." Cultural feminists argue that as women create a new vision of
society grounded in "feminine" values as defined by women, then sexuality, politics,
intelligence, power, motherhood, work, community, and intimacy develop new meanings
(Donovan 31-64). Thinking itself is transformed.
At this point in the lecture I raised my hand, and knowing Dr. Birrell was greatly
invested in athletics, I asked, "What about a new "feminine" vision of sports? Can we add
"play" to these aspects of living that will be transformed by cultural feminist thought? Is
there a "feminine" way of playing basketball that is defined by women and not by men?"
The discussion that followed was lively and enlightening, but ultimately
unsatisfying, and so I decided to tuck away in the back of my mind this question and
explore it more fully when I had the time and resources.
Now is that time, and so I present today the questions that I have been exploring for the
last several months to this body of teachers of English phrased to address our specific
concerns:

Since Title IX was signed into law by President Nixon, the number of high school
girls participating in sports has jumped from 300,000 in 1972 to 2.3 million in
1996. Scholarships for women collegiate athletes have increased 70 percent in the
last five years. Today women constitute nearly 40 percent of all NCAA athletes.
Clearly there is a significant difference in the number of females participating in
organized athletics today compared to pre-Title IX years. But, is there a
significant difference between how an adolescent female athlete perceives
participation in sports, competition, winning, losing, teammates, coaches and how
an adolescent male athlete perceives sports? Reviewers of Maureen Holohan’s
The Broadway Ballplayers, claim the stories have a "feminine spirit," and that the
stories "translate from the viewpoint of the young female athlete the many
lifelong lessons which sports can teach." But what is this "feminine spirit?" Do
boys and girls participate in and obtain satisfaction from athletics in totally
different ways? Is this difference demonstrated in young adult sports fiction?
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
If we assume that women have been excluded from "sports discourse" (and
anyone who has walked into a Barnes Noble store recently and asked for a YA
sports novel that has a female protagonist will know that women have indeed
been excluded from sports discourse) then what novels do we as teachers
recommend to our female athletes? What sports novels do we teach in class?
How do we teach them? How do we address issues of gender inequity in
sports as they appear in popular YA fiction? How do we challenge the
phallogocentric definition of sports and make room for a "gynocentric"
definition of sports, athletes, and participation?
Well, these are hard questions to answer in twenty minutes—and I will not even
begin to address the controversial issue of "difference" itself—but I would like to
share with you some conclusions I have reached from my reading and research of
young adult sports fiction that can serve to motivate all of us to answer the hard
questions.
The first observation I made from my readings was that images of female
athletes in YA sports fiction generally fall into three "Sports Illustrated"
categories: (1) The girl who is trying to succeed on a boys’ team, (2) the girl
participating in an "individual" sport: tennis, swimming, gymnastics, track, and
(3) the girl participating in a team sport. The covers exemplify the types of female
athletes present in much of the literature that I read. (As an aside, SI featured
women on the cover eight times in the past twelve months—one of which of
course was the swimsuit issue.)
For example, one of the early concerns of allowing girls to compete in
"boys’" athletics was the fear that the girls would move from femininity to
"musculinity" (Hargreaves 145) and thus challenge not only the boys’ site of
empowerment (the playing field) but also society’s notions of gender identity.
Male athletes have always been idealized as strong, aggressive, and muscular.
This popular symbol of masculinity is in contrast to the popular symbol of
femininity, weak, passive, and Kate Moss thin. Basketball rules for girls in the
early 1900s discouraged passing the ball with two hands because it tended to
cultivate flat chests and round shoulders and no woman could afford to be flatchested (Festle 31). Girls’ rules in basketball until fairly recently reflected a
societal belief that it was dangerous for girls (for either physical or sexual
reasons) to touch one another, or to achieve too much by herself. Hence a girl
could not play both offense and defense and could dribble only two or three times
before passing. The rules effectively prevented an individual female from
achieving too much by herself, and created a game that was slower and less
physically demanding than the boys’ game and more team oriented than the male
version. The girls’ rules implied that while passivity, weakness, and large busts
were attractive; muscles, aggression, and individual achievement were ugly.
Benjamin Spock discouraged girls from being too competitive because it led so
many of them to become disagreeable (Nelson, Embracing Victory 7). Thus any
adolescent girl who dared to defy the rules and the baby doctor and enter into the
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male sports domain ran the risk of being labeled masculine or lesbian. The athlete
also had to assume the masculine rules, discourse, ideology and behaviors of the
sports patriarchy. Note how Sports Illustrated describes Pat Summitt, the
successful Tennessee basketball coach. "This woman [has] never raised a lacard
or a peep for women’s rights, [has] never filed a suit or overturned a statute or
gave [sic] a flying hoot about isms or movements, this unconscious revolutionary
[is] tearing up the terrain of sexual stereotypes and seeding it with young
women who have an altered vision of what a female can be" (Smith 100). The
tearing up the terrain and seeding images suggest that the "altered vision of
what a female can be" is "a man." And the author describes Summitt as a female
Bobby Knight who "overpowers nature," and "out-muscles time." In other words,
girls can come into the sports world, but it is still a "male" world, and they must
talk the male talk and walk the male walk.
This risk is played out in several YA books where the female protagonist
challenges the restrictions placed upon her by society and plays with the boys. In
Zanbanger by R.R. Knudson, 1977, (The title alone could serve as the subject of
another essay.) Zan completely rejects the philosophy of her female basketball
coach who, echoing the basketball guidelines of the AIAW in the 1950s which
severely penalized girls who fouled, says, "We’re all gals here, not boys. For us,
basketball is not a rowdy game…nor is it a contact sport" (16). Zan accepts
instead the boys’ basketball coach’s philosophy as her own: "Second best is
nothing. Winning’s not a matter of life or death. It’s more important than either"
(21). Zan’s acceptance of the masculine definition of competition appears even in
the personal voice she uses in her journal: "Yesterday in English, we started work
on the exclamation point. My favorite punctuation. Yea. Now Tuesday. Coach
drilled us forever on penetrating zone defenses" (133).
In Zanbanger, Knudson exposes as ridiculous the arguments used by some to
keep men and women’s sports separate. In court testimony, Dr. Ableson (another
name that begs to be deconstructed) says: "To begin with, there are medical
reasons. Ladies—girls are not built the same as boys. Girls are softer, more tender
and delicate; boys are tough—stronger, faster, quicker. Girls would sustain
massive injuries if they were permitted to engage in athletics on the same teams
with boys. That would mean girls would have to play against boys as well as with
them…Girls would become unfeminine. They would grow muscular and
unattractive. Lumpy, perhaps" (79). While recognizing the absurdity in Dr.
Ableson’s argument today (although it rings strangely familiar with Newt
Gingrich’s recent comments regarding women participating in military combat )
we may fail to note that Zan has completely accepted and adopted the male
models of achievement, models that include some of the meaner "Lombardi"
aspects of competitive behavior. Zan understandably in 1977 neither challenges
the masculine premises of sports nor attempts to redefine them. Instead she
repeats the same old message; she makes the same mistakes.
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The challenge of the female athlete to participate competitively in athletics
("throw like a boy") while maintaining an alternative identity or voice is present
in many YA works with a female athlete protagonist. For example, in High and
Outside by Linnea Due, 1980, Nikki assumes many of the more despicable
behaviors of any athlete. She gets kicked out of a softball game for fighting with
an opponent, and she wears her wounds like badges of honor. ""It'’ll give me a
rakish look," she says. "Like those guys with the scarred cheeks in Germany"
(75). She antagonizes her teammates by trying to win the games by herself. Her
coach calls her the Lone Ranger and threatens to suspend her because she comes
to practice drunk. Her father, demonstrating another typically masculine behavior,
"never give up," berates her when she does quit the team. "You get beat up a little,
and you quit," he says scornfully (77).
In The Broadway Ballplayers: Friday Nights by Molly, 1998, Molly, who
also has fist fights with other girls, is absolutely humorless in her approach to
competition, and she refuses to see her opponent as an individual. "The Hawks
were already waiting at center circle. I walked right past Tasha. I could feel her
eyes on me. But I continued to ignore her. I wasn’t there to fight. I was there to
play. And to win" (150).
In "Posting Up," a short story by Stephanie Grant, Theresa Meagher
struggles in competition because she is reluctant to "dominate" her opponent, to
see her opponent as an enemy. "Here it is again," she says. "How could I possibly
compete against such goodness? How could I fake left, all the while knowing that
I would be moving to my right, digging my shoulder into Mary Jude as I pivoted,
and lightly pushing the ball into the basket? How could I leave her standing there,
as people had so often left me, mouth agape, embarrassed, wondering what had
just happened? How could I press my advantage knowing the punishment she
would take from her teammates, punishment I knew only too well?" (43-44).
Theresa, like many female athletes in the books I read, was ambivalent about
competition because she knew what it was like to be dominated by others.
Theresa’s thought is representative of women who as a group have been losers in
the game of sexism, and who are thus reluctant to assume the win-at-any-cost
mentality. Nikki, Molly, and Theresa did not imagine a different view of sports—
to appreciate competition as a process, an opportunity to excel with others, and a
chance to connect with others in a spirit of teamwork.
In most YA works that deal with a female athlete participating in an
individual sport, the protagonist can maintain the balance of athleticism and
femininity by ice skating in a sequined costume or tumbling to music in a
"uniform" that enhances her little girl image. But many of these athletes are still
torn between accepting a definition of athletics that demands that she win at all
costs and not tolerate others winning, and a definition of athletics that embraces
the connection of the athletes to the process of competing together. These female
athletes balk at continuing in an activity that is laden with military jargon and
violence. And their frustration and anxiety is many times manifested in the novels
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by psychological or physiological disorders: self mutilation in The Luckiest Girl
in the World, myotonic dystrophy in Silver Blades: On the Edge, and anorexia
nervosa in The Best Little Girl in the World.
In Tessa Duder’s novel, In Lane Three Alex Archer, 1987, Alex wants
desperately to win, to do her best, but she also wants to break from the "us versus
them" mentality in swimming competition. "Did there always have to be winners
and losers?" she wonders. Alex’s dilemma is complicated by the feminine role she
is expected to assume, and the heterosexual identity she is expected to represent.
"You must decide, girls," says her school counselor, "Do you want to strive
towards degrees, diplomas, achievements, to be a career girl? Or the greater and
more realistic satisfaction of motherhood and family?" (38). At school Alex
explains to a friend how she learned of the question of her sexuality: "I would go
to my first dance and someone would whisper that Alex Archer was really rather a
mannish sort of girl with her broad shoulders and flat chest and slim hips and long
legs, always hugging other girls after her races—and nothing would ever be quite
the same again" (50 ).
Although the lesbian "problem" is not explicitly played out in Norma Fox
Mazer’s short story "Cutthroat," it is implicit, and Jessie concludes that a sports
rival need not be the enemy, competition need not preclude intimacy, and winning
and/or losing need not result in being alone. "But the truth was that, as soon as she
said it, she felt much better and loved Meadow again and knew she always would.
How could she not love her—they had been friends now for seven years, half her
lifetime. Yes, she would love Meadow and keep her for a friend, no matter what.
Even if, she thought, she was beaten at cutthroat every week of her life, she would
still love Meadow" (158).
At this point I should return to the questions I asked earlier: Is there a difference
between how an adolescent female athlete perceives participation in sports, competition,
winning, losing, teammates, coaches and how an adolescent male athlete perceives
sports? Do boys and girls participate in and obtain satisfaction from athletics in totally
different ways? Is this difference demonstrated in young adult sports fiction?
Mariah Burton Nelson, a former Stanford University and professional basketball
player, provides a gynocentric definition of sports, competition, and winning in her books
that any teacher of English could appropriate in the teaching of gender differences in YA
sports fiction. Her titles include Embracing Victory: Life Lessons in Competition and
Compassion, New Choices for Women; The Stronger Women Get, the More Men Love
Football: Sexism and the American Culture of Sports; and Are We Winning Yet? In
Embracing Victory, Nelson redefines competition as a process whereby the athletes seek
excellence together, not against each other. She redefines winning as the power to do
something rather than the power over someone. Nelson claims that a "feminine" notion of
sports requires compassion in a competitive relationship, a sense of humor in winning or
losing, and ultimately courage in the risk of playing the game. This risk, which is
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frightening and yet exhilarating, includes recreating the image of the athlete and
competition.
In my review of YA sports fiction I found several examples of Nelson’s vision of
sports, a vision she labels "the Champion’s way."
The first title that I recommend is an anthology of short stories edited by Joli
Sandoz, A Whole Other Ball Game: Women’s Literature on Women’s Sport, 1997. A
caveat is appropriate here, however, because this anthology is not specifically YA
literature. But, all of the stories are excellent, several of them could be used in a middle
school setting, and many of them illustrate Nelson’s feminine sports ideology. For
example, again in "Posting Up," Theresa learns that a "champion’s way" requires a
healthy self-esteem, a recognition of one’s own competence, and a courageous
willingness to take a chance. "There was something peculiar about [the girls]. Something
I couldn’t quite name," she says. "They were women, not girls. For the first time I saw
the difference…There was a sturdiness about them, a sense of commitment to life, like at
one point they each had made a conscious decision to stay alive. They had made choices"
(55).
In Carol Anshaw’s "October 1968, Mexico City (From Aquamarine)," Jesse places
second in the 100-meter dash to an Australian swimmer, Marty. In the water Marty
reaches over the lane marker to wrap an arm around Jesse’s shoulders. "It’s a cross-chest
carry of sorts, a gesture to bring Jesse up with her. Amazingly, it works. Jesse can feel
her spirit grabbing onto Marty’s, and for this moment at least believes they’ve won, that
together they’ve beat out the competition, that the two of them are laughing together in
the hilarious ozone just above the plane of regular mortals" (80). Jesse and Marty
delineate "self" through connection. Marty wins the race but she does not humiliate Jesse.
Marty and Jesse are separate competitors, but the are also connected in their mutual
desire to excel, to challenge each other, to cheer for whoever succeeds.
Toni Cade Bambara’s short story, "Raymond’s Run" illustrates this same definition
of "self" through connection with another. "Hazel Elizabeth Deborah Parker wins the
race. In second place Miss Gretchen P. Lewis. And I look over at Gretchen wondering
what the ‘P’ stands for. And I smile. Cause she’s good, no doubt about it. Maybe she’d
like to help me coach Raymond; she obviously is serious about running, as any fool can
see. And she nods to congratulate me and then she smiles. We stand there with this big
smile of respect between us. It’s about as real a smile as girls can do for each other,
considering we don't practice smiling every day, you know, cause maybe we're too busy
being flowers or fairies or strawberries instead of something honest and worthy of
respect...you know…like being people" (19). Gretchen is not what Nelson calls a
"Cheerleader" (Embracing Victory 26-30). She is not on the sidelines; she runs the race.
She is not in a subordinate role; she supports her competitor. She is not selling her
sexuality; she proves her athleticism.
A fourth example in A Whole Other Ball Game of Nelson’s feminine vision of sport
is "Diamonds, Dykes, and Double Plays" by Pat Griffin, a hilarious short story that
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actually spoofs in many ways Nelson’s definitions. The protagonist, who has known she
was a lesbian since she was about twelve years old, moves to Northampton,
Massachusetts, because she hears it’s a great place to be queer. She joins a lesbian
softball league but is shocked as she listens to the league rules: "(1) We basically play
fast-pitch rules, but if the batter thinks the pitcher is too fast, she has to slow it down; (2)
It is totally unacceptable to ride the other team; we are to treat them as sisters; (3)
Everyone will play equal amounts of time regardless of skill; (4) We will take turns being
coach; (5) No men are allowed to umpire games; and (6) We all must wear clothes to
play" (200). Although the narrator laughs at her teammates named Morningdew and
Moonwolf, and although she prefers going out for a beer rather than "processing the
experience" after a game, she still at the end of the season recognizes that all of the
"womon" have learned something about the challenges and joys that come from
redefining sports. "After I got home that night," she says, "I realized what a good time I’d
had. Everything was still a little odd and I knew there was still a lot I didn’t understand
about playing softball in Northampton. The rest of the team wanted to pick hand signals,
though, and start putting coaches on first and third when we were up at bat. This was
hopeful" (210).
In The Stronger Women Get the More Men Love Football, Nelson argues that
feminism is about bodies and that in sports women get a chance to recognize and enjoy
their own physical natures: graceful, expansive, experimental, joyful, sensuous (33). In
the short story "Posting Up," Theresa learns to appreciate the female body. "From the
ground, everything finally made sense. I knew what Kate meant by being in one’s body: I
was in mine. I looked up at the calves and thighs surrounding me. These women were in
every inch of theirs. They seemed completely without fear: of their bodies, of each other,
of their desires. I could see that they even liked their bodies, which is what at first seemed
so peculiar. I had never met a woman who liked her own body" (58). The female athlete
and her body have generally been contested ideological terrain in sports. The images of
the female in sport are most often understood in their relation to the male images. The
female participant is generally measured as smaller, weaker, and inferior to the idealized
male participant. Male coaches and athletes have often denigrated the female body with
vulgar epithets or derogatory slurs used to motivate (Weiller and Higgs 67). This fall the
Louisville football coach, John L. Smith, castigated his athletes saying, "We looked like a
bunch of girls out there. No offense. Don’t take this the wrong way, but we looked like a
bunch of sissies out there trying to tackle." But Theresa successfully subverts these
common practices and popular symbols by repossessing her own body, discovering for
herself the beauty of the female athlete.
In conclusion I would like to share with you two more titles of YA works that I feel
would be appropriate resources in any junior high or senior high discussion of gender
issues in sports. One is a recent title, Bat 6, 1998, by Virginia Euwer Wolff who is in
Nashville; and the other is an older title, Tell Me if the Lovers are Losers, 1982, by
Cynthia Voigt. Bat 6 is the story of an annual girls’ softball game played by sixth graders
in two schools from neighboring communities. The story is told in a journal format with
the voices of the different girls revealing the significance of the game and its aftermath. I
liked the book for various reasons, but especially because it breaks the stereotype of girls
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not being willing or able to dedicate themselves to athletics. These girls know softball;
they talk softball; they play softball well. They are committed athletes. But these are also
girls who truly use sports as a means of learning poise by handling adversity, gaining
discipline by sacrificing for others, and attaining self esteem by achieving success in
cooperation with all.
In the voices of the girls:

Ila Mae: "Me and my brother A.J., we practiced out back. He taught me my
windup and we practiced striking each other out. We would practice till my mom
come out on the porch, stepping very careful so we wouldn’t slip on the ice where
the porch was tilty. One time the year before she yelled, ‘Ain’t you doing
anything else your whole lifes?"

Shadean: "So the ladies decided enough was enough, they wanted peace between
the two towns. After a bad winter they arranged a ball game in the spring. They
agreed to use alder branches and a leather ball, and the ladies made teams to play
against each other all in good fun. They thought, well, the men can’t watch us
playing our game for a whole afternoon and not say anything to one another, can
they? And they arranged to take along baskets of food too. See, they were forcing
the men to have a social" (30).

Daisy: "And for one other reason too I wanted to play extra good. I was thinking
if our team would win, and everybody would be cheering and jumping up and
down and hugging each other, everybody would be joyful and friendly even to
those they didn’t know good. Well, my dad would get so happy and proud he
would just all of a sudden be cheering and Lorelei’s dad would be cheering too,
and my dad would accidentally speak to Lorelei’s dad, and the bad feelings would
be gone, poof. Deep in my heart I wished this would happen" (37-38).

Hallie: "It means we got teamwork down the hill here in Barlow, that’s what it
means. It means we ain’t merely nine girls standing on a field watch’ the sun
move across the sky and puttin’ our gloves to the ground every now and then. It
means every player on the field helps her team, because the team ain’t nothin’
without the cooperation of all a you. You hear that?" (53).

Lola and Lila: "Men always talk about the wars, ladies always say let’s forget the
fighting" (83).
Bat 6 has very few male voices. The female voices speak clearly, powerfully,
and passionately about softball and life. The voices bring girls into the sports
world. The voices articulate a desire for a new vision of their communities, a new
vision of their relationships with one another, and a new vision of how sports can
be a vehicle to replace ignorance, fear, and hate with understanding, peace, and
love.
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My last recommendation, Tell Me if the Lovers are Losers, is also notable
because of the absence of male voices and because of the power and potential of
the female voices. Nikki, Ann, and Hildy are roommates at Stanton College, a
women’s liberal arts college on the East Coast. Nikki’s approach to volleyball
(and indeed to life in general) is to take no prisoners. She’s aggressively
competitive. "You’ve got to let people know you’re worth fearing," she tells Ann.
"You’ve got to get to the head of things" (14). "The secret is to hate the
opposition. There’s only so much hatred people can withstand…You have to
break them in order to win" (100).
Contrasted to Nikki’s aggressiveness is Ann’s passivity. Nikki takes
showers. Ann bathes. Nikki digs and spikes. Ann sets. Nikki wears boys’
sneakers. Ann wears preppy loafers. Nikki "doesn’t bend before anything." Ann
goes to extreme lengths to accommodate everyone. She just wants everyone to get
along. "Peace is what I want," she says. "Serenity, security, balance—So, I’ll take
volleyball, whatever you say. How did that decision become so serious? (46)"
Ann is both fascinated with Nikki’s strength and appalled by her
insensitivity. She is able to resolve the apparent conflict of masculinity and
femininity through the third roommate, Hildy. Hildy, who because of impaired
vision literally does not see the world in the same way others see it, redefines how
the girls approach playing volleyball. She explains to Nikki her philosophy
regarding winning and losing. "Neither is important, not really. I like to win.
But—I like to play. If you play well you win, usually. If you play well and lose,
then it will still be a good game" (Voigt 35). Hildy defines competition as a
process of seeking excellence together. In her vision of the game, the distinction
between friend and enemy is indeed blurred. "It is easier to see the play when I
cannot discern faces," she says. "It is all soft, smooth, simple. I see what will
happen and what has happened. The ball floats to me, like a little cloud. It is still,
without glasses. There is no winning, no losing, just the play itself." Ann and
Nikki recognize (although slowly) that Hildy’s perception of why the girls play
volleyball (and indeed why anyone plays any sport) is radically different from
anything they have ever known. "Well, you break all the rules," Nikki says.
"You’re the exception."
Hildy is the exception, and from her the girls learn new rules to life, a new
discourse, a new appreciation of their bodies, and a new understanding of
relationships. When Ann puts on Hildy’s glasses, when she sees life as Hildy sees
it, then the rules change and she comprehends the unity within the community.
"She could see how things would go, one or two plays ahead of each particular
shot. She saw the juniors move together for defense, the freshmen move forward
for offense. Then the patterns would alter slightly, and the freshmen were in
danger. It was if she could see through to the essence of the game" (155). The
girls’ communication becomes a series of silent signals on the court, an intuitive
semiotic discourse. "Ann sensed that Hildy knew what she was thinking, what
play she would make, not so difficult, after all, when Ann knew only two plays,
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sideways or forward. But the four other girls also seemed able to know what she
was thinking. And more surprising, she was able to guess what they would do
too" (54). Ann’s embarrassment of her body evolves to an appreciation of the
female body. "Hildy had finished her bath. She stood naked, except for glasses, by
Nikki’s desk. Her flesh glowed pink and white. My God, women are beautiful,
Ann thought," (157). All of the volleyball players begin to see themselves
paradoxically as separate individuals living in connection with others. "Sarah and
Ruth and Bess came by, grim and depressed. Eloise left Ann with them while she
went to pack a suitcase for herself and gather together her books. Ann chattered,
her voice high. Sarah and Ruth and Bess chattered back. Together they managed
to fill the room with bright chips of sound. But Ruth came to sit beside Ann on the
bed and their forearms touched until all four girls fell silent. For a minute then,
Ann felt swathed, swaddled, by unspoken understanding, a deep female
belonging, a feeling she had sensed seeing cows huddled together on the ground
awaiting rain. A sisterhood" (185).
I highly recommend this 1982 novel by Cynthia Voigt as an excellent
example of a "feminine" approach to sports. It is a rich, challenging, and
provocative novel.
I began with an anecdote from Dr. Susan Birrell’s class at the University of Iowa. I
conclude with something else that has remained with me from my experience with this
feminist scholar. So what? Dr. Birrell always said we had to answer, "So what?" in our
essays, presentations, and arguments. In other words, why is this speech today in
Nashville important to the teachers of English who are present? Well, I think it may be
important because if you come up after this session I will give you a bibliography of a
few Young Adult works that deal with female athletes! If we do not have an awareness of
the female athlete’s stories, if we do not hear their voices, then we will never be able to
share those stories with others in our classes. If we do not bring female athletes into the
classroom, we will continue to exclude a growing part of the sports world from our
conversations, and we will never be able to move beyond the masculine definition of
athletics.
Many women have indeed moved beyond the male sports model and have generated
a list of principles that they emphasize in intercollegiate sports ("Empowering Women in
Sports"):





The "student" portion of the teen student athlete is the more important.
Student governance of campus programs and student involvement via student
athletic associations are healthy, viable phenomena.
Winning is great, but can be compatible with the growth of the individual.
The greater the cooperation and mutual interest between the academic and athletic
aspects of college experience, the better.
The improvement of the student as an athlete is less important than the
improvement of the student as a healthy, contributing member of society.
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

Selection and fostering of a specific sport are based on the perception of
participant interest and the sport’s ability to provide positive experiences for the
student.
Women, women’s sports, and men’s minor sports are necessary for the proper
development of a balanced and responsible athletic/academic complex.
In preparation for this paper I asked my college’s women’s basketball team to list
the sports books they read as a middle school or high school student and to list the sports
role models from their middle school or high school years. Only two titles appeared: In
These Girls Hope is a Muscle by Madeleine Blais and Dennis Rodman’s Bad as I Wanna
Be. The major role models for these girls in junior high school were Magic Johnson,
Michael Jordan, and other NBA players, although they listed several WNBA players as
positive representatives of sports today. In the 1995 anthology Ultimate Sports: Short
Stories by Outstanding Writers for Young Adults, only five of the 16 short stories have
female athletes as protagonists. In the 1997 Best Books for Young Adult Readers, only
four of the 41 titles involve female athletes.
I read a student’s essay recently that reminded me of the importance of recognizing
an alternative vision of sports. Amy wrote a narrative about playing in a high school
basketball game, a game that she did not play well, a game that her team lost. She wrote
that after the game her father (she describes him as her "wannabe agent") shouted at her:
"’What the hell were you doing out there?’ I sank in my seat trembling with fear. His
eyes were like little beads, a stream of sweat streaked down his forehead, his face red
with anger. I couldn’t even let out a squeak. He roared at me, harping about not shooting,
not passing, not dribbling with desire. He shouted, ‘If you don’t work to be the best, then
don’t play.’
"He lectured me on not concentrating, not playing up to my ability, not really
wanting to win. I burst into tears and as soon as we got home I ran to my room. With a
loud slam of the door, I heaved myself on my bed and buried my face in my pillow. A
sense of shock rushed throughout my entire body. I felt as if a knife had stabbed me in
the heart. Not only did I fail in the game that I loved, but I shamed my father by not
giving 110 percent.
"Today I realize why my dad was so infuriated. I didn’t demonstrate the qualities of
the child he desired: determination, integrity, and a supreme work ethic. He wanted to
reinforce these values that I needed to be strong…I respect my dad for igniting a fire that
burns deep inside of me. I knew he cared for me. He wanted me to be the best I could be.
"If having to be punished was a way to pound a lesson of life into my head, then I
guess the punishment had a purpose. I never want to be punished that way again. I try
hard now at every obstacle thrown my way. If the task becomes overwhelming, I still
trudge forward…"
I was tempted to say to Amy, but I did not, "Have you ever imagined that it was
wrong for your father to yell at you? Have you ever considered how a person might
11
develop a positive work ethic without being threatened and bullied? Have you ever
envisioned an alternative to anger, to humiliation, to abuse? In other words, have you
ever though that your father’s definition of who you are as an athlete and a woman may
not be your definition? Amy did not see herself as victimized by father; yet if she does
not define herself and her sport, then she will continue to be defined by others—for their
use and perhaps to her detriment.
I am hopeful that Amy and other men and women, boys and girls, will
become aware of the female athletes’ stories—that they will gain an awareness of
how the girls’ rules of the game can be extended beyond sports to the family,
education, the work place, into dating relationships, and even into an
understanding of oneself. But I am more hopeful that the girls will become aware
of themselves in these stories—aware of themselves as Theresa in "Posting Up"
says, "They were women, not girls. For the first time I saw the difference."
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A valuable website for "girls and sports" is
<http://www.amazon.com>
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