Maybe There's Hope

Most of my life, I haven't considered myself much of a feminist, but I discovered over the past year or so that I'm naturally more of one than I realized. This all came about through my continually growing fanaticism for WNBA and women's basketball in general.
My dad's company used to have such high-level MN Timberwolves season tickets that they got Lynx season tickets for free. At the time, the tickets for both teams were in the high-level then-Cambria suites, and it was there, in a near-empty suite that is always filled for a Wolves game, that I experienced my first WNBA basketball game which was one of Katie Smith's last with the Lynx. At that age I enjoyed going to sporting events, but I didn't have a huge appreciation for them. But few people at my dad's work ever wanted to use the tickets, so my dad and I made it to a few games each summer for a number of years.
It wasn't until I had spent a few years away from Lynx games (working at summer camp doesn't allow much time for summer sporting events) and having my dad's company's seats move down to a row back from courtside that I began to truly appreciate watching the games. And being that close to the court, you discover that these players have personalities much different from the ego-driven male athletes we are used to seeing. These women were competitive, but also loved the game. Once I began to see the athletes as people, I was hooked. And as a result, I started learning more about the game as well. (That, mind you, was the summer of 2010, a year before the Lynx drafted Maya Moore and won their first championship.)
Part of the reason it was hard for me to really follow the Lynx early on was the lack of coverage. In the newspaper, you'd get a box score the day after a game. There were maybe one or two televised games in a season. The only way to really follow the team was to have season tickets, which wasn't a workable option for my family.
Coverage has gotten better over the years. The WNBA added Live Access, which has admittedly gone up in price a couple of times (starting at Free), but $15 for every WNBA game all season to be watched any time through the season is a pretty reasonable deal. TV coverage has improved not only with the WNBA's contract with ESPN but with NBATV and Fox Sports stations. Lucky to live in Minnesota, the Lynx are one of two teams in the league that has radio coverage for EVERY game (most teams just have home games) and one of the local papers has pretty good coverage. This year added was the impressive free online periodical MinnPost coverage of the Lynx, posting weekly in-depth articles.
Between increased coverage and becoming a Lynx season ticket member upon getting my first grown-up job, I've become a full-blown WNBA fanatic. I watch every game that I can (and don't know what to do with myself nights like last night when there are no WNBA games to watch). Last year I even started watching NCAA women's basketball (and had a relatively successful tournament bracket). I tend to call myself a women's basketball junkie these days, and I'm totally proud of that identity.
It is for this reason that I can't wrap my mind around the disparity between the WNBA and the NBA. And it's not just the people who like men's basketball better. It's the people who actively put down the WNBA as worthless. The ones who say that any boy's high school basketball team could beat even the best WNBA teams. The ones who say that the WNBA is a joke and the sooner the league realizes this and dissolves itself, the better. Look at almost any WNBA news article's comment section, and you find these kinds of statements, or worse. And it's not necessarily just the internet trolls. I've worked with people who make these kinds of comments. I have relatives who have made these kinds of comments. The likely only reason that I can't think of friends who have made these comments is that most of my friends are music geeks or math geeks who generally don't acknowledge the existence of sports in general. It irks me.
On a personal level, I don't understand why people would prefer other sports over the WNBA. I walk through the skyway between Target Field (home of the MN Twins) and Target Center (home of the MN Wolves & MN Lynx) and shake my head at the people going to sit outside and watch a slow-paced game when they could sit  inside and watch a fast-paced exciting game (that also happens to include the defending WNBA champions - just sayin'). I don't understand why people want to watch a game of ego-centered, one-on-one, flashy basketball when they could watch a game of fundamentally sound, TEAM basketball.
I get some arguments. No, the WNBA isn't the fancy dunkfest that you see in the NBA. I accept that. But it's solid, fundamental basketball. And some days I'm convinced that the WNBA is more physical (last Thursday's game between MN and Phoenix, for instance). It's a solid product. It's solid basketball. And it has value. At least as much as all of the male sports leagues in the US. But people refuse to acknowledge the WNBA as a valid sports league simply because its athletes are WOMEN.
Last week I read an article about the struggles faced by an WNBA player who I believe has the potential to be one of the best guards in the league, and it brought me to tears. It broke my heart to learn just how difficult the decisions she's had to make this year have been. And many of her struggles are shared by most players in the WNBA. You see, the salary cap in the WNBA is just over $100,000. So to really make a living long-term (since athletes frequently retire between the ages of 35 and 40), they go play overseas in the "off"-season where they make much better money. Making a living this way often means making sacrifices: sacrificing physical health, time with family, and sometimes loyalties to their US teams. It's not easy, but it's what they have to do. I understand that financially, the league can't afford to pay the players any better. I don't blame the WNBA for these difficulties. I blame the American people.
You see, I understand that genetically, female athletes aren't able to be as athletic as their male counterparts. What I don't understand is why across the world there are countries whose citizens wholly support women's basketball, and the United States is not one of them. I don't understand why in Brazil, and France, and Spain, and Italy, and Poland, and Russia, and Turkey, and Israel, and South Korea, and Australia, and China, and other countries I'm sure I've missed, the citizens support women's basketball enough that leagues can provide reasonable wages when in the United States the citizens won't. For all the ideals we say we uphold as Americans, I don't understand why so many countries across the world, including numerous ones we as Americans consider much less progressive than we are, support women's basketball wholeheartedly. I don't understand. And it makes me incredibly angry.
Today I read another article that brought me to tears. Last week perennial All-Star Becky Hammon (who entered the WNBA as an undrafted rookie), announced that she would retire at the end of the season. To me at least, the announcement did not come as a complete surprise given Hammon's long tenure in the league and the fact that she hasn't seemed to come back to 100% of her previous playing level after missing all but one game last season due to injury. While working back from injury, she took some time to work with the San Antonio Spurs (Hammon plays for the San Antonio Stars), sitting in on some practices and even on the bench at some games with the intent to learn about being a good coach. These two events together lead me to cross my fingers that maybe in the next few years the Spurs would make the monumental move of hiring her on as an assistant. To see those hopes become a reality today was incredible - I didn't expect it to happen so soon. Hammon will be the first full-time female assistant coach in NBA history (though Lisa Boyer worked as an assistant in Cleveland, she was not paid by the NBA team; Natalie Nakase was hired by the Clippers as an assistant coach this year but only for the summer league). This is made more exciting by the fact that she'll be working with the defending NBA champions. Becky Hammon was trending #1 nationally on Twitter in the hours following the announcement. I've seen more news coverage on the hire than I've seen of any other single event in women's basketball all season. This is a big deal. A great big huge deal. It brings legitimacy to a female basketball player in the NBA. And it brings me hope.
It's just a little step. The misogynist internet trolls are already at work in comments sections of any article posted to a mainstream news page (and some of the statements would probably be considered sexual harassment if said to her face), but it's a start. We'll let her work this NBA season do the talking. Because I truly believe that she'll be successful. Not every WNBA player could be; not even every WNBA point guard could be. But I think Becky will. And I hope that she helps bring some doubters over to the side of women's basketball, if not women's sports as a whole. Every little bit helps.
At the end of last week I came to a conclusion: Sexism is real, and it's alive and well in American women's sports. And though I was resolved to do as much as I could to change it, I felt angry, depressed, and hopeless. But today I'm feeling like maybe there's hope.