Sports fans deserve to see a diverse range of athletes represented in the media.
In their Monday column (“More Than a Game,” Feb. 24), Maddie Garcia and Abby Cohen rightly claim how unjust it is that Sports Illustrated only features women in its pages when they are swimsuit models, while talented female athletes get overlooked week after week.
There is little doubt that men’s sports capture the public spotlight, while women’s athletics receives little air time or any interest among fans. Baseball is labeled “America’s pastime,” suggesting that the game transcends the realm of the sports world as a marker of American culture. Football, the manliest of sports, is the one sport with a championship game that resembles a national holiday. Sports Illustrated, and the sports media more generally, is merely a reflection of public attitudes about sports; it is not as if the media determines our preferences. So, if we’re going to thrust more women onto the cover of the premiere sports publication, then it’s going to require fans to place higher value on women’s sports.
How might we generate this shift towards a more diverse sporting culture?
It can start at the college level, where female athletes are our classmates and friends. In my last column, I called for greater appreciation of individual sports, which are neglected largely because of our sports culture’s loyalty to hometown teams. I noted how more attention to individuals brings greater respect for their accomplishments, and recognizes College teams that we hardly hear about. But, in a much broader way — and what I didn’t mention two weeks ago — it also has great potential to raise the profile of female athletes.
Just consider how Abbey D’Agostino ’14 was thrust into the spotlight last year, as she competed in the Olympic trials in the 5,000-meter race on national television. Dartmouth students and alumni tuned into NBC to watch a sport they would likely not otherwise pay any attention to. For many viewers, watching the combination of track and a women’s sport on television was likely a rare moment. No doubt that D’Agostino’s performance, and the way it captivated the Dartmouth community, set an example for the next superstar Dartmouth female athlete.
The world of athletics may be slowly becoming more inclusive.
University of Missouri linebacker and NFL prospect Michael Sam recently announced that he is gay, generating discussion about homophobia in professional and collegiate sports. Sam received an outpouring of support from teammates and fellow students, which is encouraging.
College students have a role to play in creating a more inclusive world.
Dartmouth is part of a national initiative to promote LGBTQ rights among student-athletes and coaches, called the “You Can Play” project. It is meant to send a message to student-athletes that their team is a safe space.
“In athletics, you don’t have to feel like you’re being excluded,” track and field high jumper Kaitlin Whitehorn ’16, who appears in Dartmouth’s promotional video, told me. “If you’re an athlete, we’re accepting of whoever you are.”
If the “You Can Play” project — of which Missouri is also a member — can send that message around all college campuses, it’s going to set a precedent for the next generation of professional athletes. No longer will homophobia be accepted in the locker room, even in sports where a tough, masculine attitude often defines a player’s fierce competitiveness.
As Dartmouth athletes and coaches say in the College’s “You Can Play” project video, “When the game is over, when the match has been decided, and we strip down to who we are as people, I care about who you are, what you are, and what has molded you, because that’s where the trust begins. It takes courage to perform on the field, but shouldn’t take courage to go into your own locker room.”
College campuses have historically been an impetus for social change in America. Now they can have the same impact in the sports world.
