I grew up playing organized and pick-up sports. I played t-ball and baseball in elementary school, ran track in middle school, and fell in love with cheerleading, which required a deep understanding of all the major sports. I ended up cheering for 15 wonderful years from middle school through college, becoming an instant fan of football, basketball, and volleyball along the way.
As a young adult, I leaned into club sports, joining kickball and track and field teams with my coworkers and friends. My family even had a beach volleyball team that competed once a week during the summer. I say all this to say, I am a sports girlie. I grew up in Kansas City, so naturally, I cheer for all KCMO sports teams. Go Current. Go Chiefs. Go Royals. Go Sporting KC.
But we never had professional basketball or hockey. So, as a Seattlelite for the past 18 years, I am also a die-hard Kraken and Storm fan. This past year, I added women’s hockey to my fandom and became a Torrent fan. This means I spend a lot of time (and money) at games each year. (My fandom comes with a wardrobe and game day routine.) My goal is to have season tickets to all three professional Seattle teams that I can cheer for without guilt. Trust me, I look good in the stands decked out in my jerseys, hoodies, and t-shirts!
Game nights are sacred for my girlfriends and me. Not only do we get to fan out over our teams, but we get to catch up on girl talk. Some of my favorite memories are of us hanging out in the sky lounge at Climate Pledge Arena, drinking old fashions and hanging out with Buoy. Major life decisions or our latest dating sagas are often discussed between cheering for goals or three-pointers.
The growing visibility and popularity of women’s sports makes me proud because there was a time when it was impossible to see women’s sports on TV outside of gymnastics, figure skating, swimming or tennis. Now, we can watch everything from fast-pitch softball to rugby 7s. I might be cultivating a small addiction to the WNBA, but that’s my business. Women’s sports are having their moment. Women athletes are allowed to be aggressive and passionate and loud with abandon. I love that for us. New generations of ball players can look to these women as role models and actually envision a future as professional athletes.
We have come so far. But there is still progress to be made. The next step is to guarantee women athletes are paid fairly, given equitable playing conditions, and funded on par with male sports. I still have flashbacks to the deplorable conditions of the women’s locker rooms and practice facilities during the NCAA tournament a few years back. And for goodness sake, stop policing the bodies of women athletes. All women, really, but this is a blog post about women’s sports. We don’t care what you think or have to say. That’s that on that.
Happy sporting ladies!
