It started with Kim Mulkey, the head coach of the team that would win the championship, Baylor. Mulkey had said this earlier in the tournament:
“Sure. Listen, we would all be best friends if we weren’t coaching," Mulkey said. "Hell, some of us may be married to each other if we weren’t coaching, right? You have the same interests, you know. But when you’re coaching your respective universities, it’s not like you’re kissing your sister and loving on them every day. Usually type A personality coaches butt heads from what we do for a living. You know, it’s the nature of the successful coaches, not just in women’s basketball. You can go to pro football. You know, it may come across as personal sometimes, but honestly if we weren’t doing what we’re doing, we’d all be best friends. I really believe that.”
From this, the question then made its way to Notre Dame's Muffet McGraw:
“Kim Mulkey was in here saying, if we weren’t all competitors trying to go for the same thing, we’d probably be all friends. She said some of us would probably even be married. I know you’re married, I know Geno is married, but do you think you two would have a normal relationship if you weren’t competing every year for the same thing?”
Geno, of course, is UConn's Geno Auriemma. McGraw then responded this way:
“Well, there’s a question I didn’t expect,” she said. “I think being from Philly, Geno and I have a lot in common, especially with Jim Foster as a very good friend of both of us. I could see us being friends, but I could not see us being married. So the answer is no, if he’s proposing."
“Well, there’s a question I didn’t expect,” she said. “I think being from Philly, Geno and I have a lot in common, especially with Jim Foster as a very good friend of both of us. I could see us being friends, but I could not see us being married. So the answer is no, if he’s proposing."
Then it made its way to Auriemma. His response was this:
“You
think Tom Izzo has to deal with this crap? I don’t think so. I
don’t think Coach K has ever been asked a question like that at the
Final Four. I don’t think Dean Smith or anybody else has ever been asked
a question like that.
"I
appreciate you asking it, but I think the issue around women’s
basketball to me that I find a little bit disconcerting is the attention
is always taken away from the game and the players, and it’s turned
onto the personalities of the involved coaches. God forbid, one coach is
a man, the other coach is a woman, there always has to be some kind of
friction, tension, all that other stuff. Like I wouldn’t marry me
either. What’s the big deal? I know me better than anybody else knows
me.
"I
think it’s crazy. It’s like when you watch a game on TV, a women’s
basketball game, they talk more about the shoes that the coach is
wearing. Who gives a damn? Really, c’mon. Let’s get over that. We want
to be taken seriously. Let’s talk about sports, let’s talk about the
game. Let’s not talk about the other nonsense that’s on TMZ. If we want
to be taken seriously, let’s act seriously.”
His comments are pretty good. It's important to remember that this wasn't the case of a reporter who was trying to be gossipy. This was something that Mulkey sort of made into a story, even if she meant it in a good way.
The bottom line is that there still exists a lot of sexism in sports, as hard as that might be to believe in 2019. You need look no further than the number of times that women's athletes, world class athletes, are referred to as "girls" or read the comments under stories like the one about how ESPN accidentally released the women's NCAA basketball bracket a few hours early. For that matter, there's zero chance that would ever happen for the men's tournament.
On the other hand, the women's NCAA Final Four has grown into a major event, played in sold out arenas year after year, with the kind of national media attention that would have been unthinkable not that many years ago.
TigerBlog's earliest days in college sports media shaped for him the importance of equality. He has said this many times before, but there were many nights at Rider and TCNJ (then Trenton State College) that he would be the only one covering the women's end of the doubleheader - and he's very glad he did.
When he came here, he found a place that also embraced equality, and again, he's very glad he did.
Still, there's a difference between equity from the inside of an organization and having the public embrace women's teams. As TB has also said many times, of all the great things that Courtney Banghart has done with the Princeton women's basketball team, the one that she doesn't get enough credit for is the way her success and her style of play led to a dramatic increase in male fans.
The women's lacrosse team is home tonight against Loyola at 7 in a matchup of Top 15 teams. The Tigers then host Harvard Saturday at 1.
During the game Saturday Princeton will be recognizing the 1994 NCAA championship team on its 25th anniversary. TB's colleague John Bullis has put together a video with highlights from that 1994 final and interviews with players from that team, and it's going to be worth seeing when it's released.
TigerBlog wrote stories about that 1994 championship team. He remembers a team with tough competitors who played hard and believed in themselves and their coach. Actually, the same was true of the men's team that year, which also won the NCAA title.
Did the men care more? Was it a bigger deal to them? Nope.
It's no secret that the sporting public still prefers to watch men's sports more than women's sports, but the world continues to change in this respect. And none of that takes away from the quality and competitiveness of women's athletics or from how important it is for girls to have the same opportunities as boys.
Hopefully the media guys into that and stops caring if Geno and Muffet would ever be married.
His comments are pretty good. It's important to remember that this wasn't the case of a reporter who was trying to be gossipy. This was something that Mulkey sort of made into a story, even if she meant it in a good way.
The bottom line is that there still exists a lot of sexism in sports, as hard as that might be to believe in 2019. You need look no further than the number of times that women's athletes, world class athletes, are referred to as "girls" or read the comments under stories like the one about how ESPN accidentally released the women's NCAA basketball bracket a few hours early. For that matter, there's zero chance that would ever happen for the men's tournament.
On the other hand, the women's NCAA Final Four has grown into a major event, played in sold out arenas year after year, with the kind of national media attention that would have been unthinkable not that many years ago.
TigerBlog's earliest days in college sports media shaped for him the importance of equality. He has said this many times before, but there were many nights at Rider and TCNJ (then Trenton State College) that he would be the only one covering the women's end of the doubleheader - and he's very glad he did.
When he came here, he found a place that also embraced equality, and again, he's very glad he did.
Still, there's a difference between equity from the inside of an organization and having the public embrace women's teams. As TB has also said many times, of all the great things that Courtney Banghart has done with the Princeton women's basketball team, the one that she doesn't get enough credit for is the way her success and her style of play led to a dramatic increase in male fans.
The women's lacrosse team is home tonight against Loyola at 7 in a matchup of Top 15 teams. The Tigers then host Harvard Saturday at 1.
During the game Saturday Princeton will be recognizing the 1994 NCAA championship team on its 25th anniversary. TB's colleague John Bullis has put together a video with highlights from that 1994 final and interviews with players from that team, and it's going to be worth seeing when it's released.
TigerBlog wrote stories about that 1994 championship team. He remembers a team with tough competitors who played hard and believed in themselves and their coach. Actually, the same was true of the men's team that year, which also won the NCAA title.
Did the men care more? Was it a bigger deal to them? Nope.
It's no secret that the sporting public still prefers to watch men's sports more than women's sports, but the world continues to change in this respect. And none of that takes away from the quality and competitiveness of women's athletics or from how important it is for girls to have the same opportunities as boys.
Hopefully the media guys into that and stops caring if Geno and Muffet would ever be married.
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