{"id":2225,"date":"2010-12-07T21:05:38","date_gmt":"2010-12-08T04:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.talesfromthe.net\/jon\/?p=2225"},"modified":"2010-12-07T21:05:38","modified_gmt":"2010-12-08T04:05:38","slug":"what-did-you-win-by-playing-sports-rally-to-help-girls-sports-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/2010\/12\/07\/what-did-you-win-by-playing-sports-rally-to-help-girls-sports-day\/","title":{"rendered":"What Did You Win by Playing Sports? Rally to Help Girls’ Sports Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rally<\/a>I almost never blog about sports here … but since today is National Women’s Law Center’s Rally to Help Girls’ Sports Day, I figured I’d make an exception.<\/p>\n

The theme for the blogging day is “What did you win by playing sports?”\u00c2\u00a0 First, though, a little context.<\/p>\n

And it’s something that made a lot of difference to me personally.\u00c2\u00a0 I was the stereotypical “weird smart kid” in school, wearing glasses starting in first grade, with a lot of multi-syllable words in my vocabulary and a preference for reading instead of TV.\u00c2\u00a0 In the classroom, I didn’t fit in well at all with most of the other students.\u00c2\u00a0 But on the baseball field, I totally did.<\/p>\n

Second base and shortstop were my thing in Little League.\u00c2\u00a0 We moved to a new town when I was in fifth grade, and my team (go Mansfield Mets!) was pretty bad my first year.\u00c2\u00a0 But the next year, when I was twelve, we somehow got a lot better, and wound up in a tight race for the championship.\u00c2\u00a0 One of our star player’s moms was the main coach, and my dad (who had no athletic ability whatsoever but was a great teacher) helped out too. \u00c2\u00a0 I made the all-star team and we went on to the district finals.\u00c2\u00a0 Cool!<\/p>\n

So one of the biggest win for me was winning people’s respect.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 I practiced hard and played hard too, and didn’t mind getting dirty.\u00c2\u00a0 Even though\u00c2\u00a0 I was a lot smaller than most of the other guys my age, I had a decent eye and was a good bunter — so I added a lot of value to the team.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 It really changed how the other kids reacted to me.<\/p>\n

Another big win for me was learning to be part of a team where we each contributed in different ways.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Like all the other teams in the league, we had a couple of great players — natural athletes who would go on to star in high school and college.\u00c2\u00a0 But baseball’s a team sport, and everybody matters.\u00c2\u00a0 Fortunately we also had a bunch of players like me, and when we were in the right roles our mediocre team suddenly became a winner.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Almost every game somebody would come through big time.<\/p>\n

Both of those wins have grown in importance over the years.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve come into a situation as an outsider and had to gain people’s respect.\u00c2\u00a0 From a professional perspective, working effectively as part of a team is just as important than anything academic I learned in elementary school or high school.<\/p>\n

Many people I talk to have had similar experiences — and even bigger wins.\u00c2\u00a0 NLWC’s fact sheet<\/a> has tons of information about the value of sports for girls; for example, young women who play sports are more likely to graduate from high school, have higher grades, and score higher on standardized tests than non-athletes.<\/p>\n

When girls don’t get to participate as much as boys do, or have second-class equipment or facilities, it puts them at a disadvantage.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve made a huge amount of progress since the all-male Little League and pre-Title IX world of the 70s: 3.2 million girls in the US now play sports.\u00c2\u00a0 But there’s still a significant gender differential: 4.5 million boys play sports.<\/p>\n

So as we celebrate the successes of so many girls, and the progress we’ve made, let’s also keep in mind that there’s still a ways to go.\u00c2\u00a0 The She’ll Win More Than a Game<\/a> campaign has links to a briefing paper and a dozen complaints that the NWLC has filed against school districts who are violating Title IX and not giving girls equal opportunities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I almost never blog about sports here … but since today is National Women’s Law Center’s Rally to Help Girls’ Sports Day, I figured I’d make an exception. The theme for the blogging day is “What did you win by playing sports?”\u00c2\u00a0 First, though, a little context. And it’s something that made a lot of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[334],"class_list":["post-2225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}