Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!rochester!cornell!batcomputer!cheryl From: cheryl@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU (cheryl) Newsgroups: soc.misc,soc.women Subject: Re: Team Sports, an observation Message-ID: <1032@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU> Date: Wed, 17-Sep-86 11:08:23 EDT Article-I.D.: batcompu.1032 Posted: Wed Sep 17 11:08:23 1986 Date-Received: Tue, 23-Sep-86 01:05:46 EDT References: <1127@mit-trillian.MIT.EDU> <3357@umcp-cs.UUCP> <2253@gitpyr.UUCP> <5987@lll-crg.ARpA> Reply-To: cheryl@batcomputer.UUCP (cheryl) Organization: Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY Lines: 61 Xref: linus soc.misc:2 soc.women:9 In article <5987@lll-crg.ARpA> figmo@lll-crg.UUCP (Lynn Gold) writes: > >I was a lousy athlete up to high school -- NON-athlete is a more >accurate representation. When I transferred to a small, private >school for high school, there was a much stronger push for EVERYONE to >get involved with athletics because when your school is THAT small, >you NEED warm bodies just to fill up a team. Surprisingly, though, >our school fielded some damn good teams. Since the headmaster had 5 >or 6 daughters who were all outstanding athletes, there was a strong >girls' sports program. A study of Bryn Mawr alumnae indicated that women who were on athletic teams in college were HALF as likely to develop breast cancer than women who were not athletes. Needing warm bodies is right. They're a heck of a lot more lively than cold bodies, which is what you're likely to wind up with if you develop breast cancer. >Any other coach would have discouraged me, but Floss Brudon, the main >girls' gym teacher and coach, encouraged anyone who wanted to to go >out for sports. There was a policy against cutting anyone from any >team just because they weren't a great athlete. Another policy >throughout the school's sports program was that "How Well You Played >The Game" was emphasized over winning. If we played our best but were >still defeated, we were praised for playing our best. If we won >mostly because we were sloppy but the other team was sloppier, we were >criticized for playing a sloppy game. Another policy was that >everyone who showed up to play got to play -- even if it was only for >five minutes because the game was tight. What game? Soccer, Field Hockey, Softball, Lacrosse? I wasn't all that active an athlete myself, but the few seasons of team sports I did play, golly did we ever have FUN. One of our favorite things in frosh field hockey was to hang out the windows of the bus on the way to/from an "away" game and act like "spazzes" or "mentals". It was like something out of a Lynda J. Barry cartoon. "Carbo loading" was an excuse to see who could eat the most home-baked chocolate-chip cookies. And then there was the time in track we dragged coach Brush into the womens' locker room and gave him a shower in his clothes (it's amazing how strong 35 women are when united). And then there were the infamous "track films" by Richie Meister, which included a great deal of full frontal male nudity, plus a number of moons. >--Lynn > >P.S.--Wrt quality, our girls' lacrosse team was #2 in NJ my senior year! YAY! Womens' Lacrosse!!! It's a heck of a lot more fun than field hockey -- there are fewer spurious fouls (like the one in field hockey where you're not allowed to put your body in between the ball and the person who's trying to get it away from you, not to mention the oft- called "offsides" -- offsides makes sense in a fast-moving game like ice hockey, but in field hockey?! It stops the play every 5 minutes! Also, the bounds are not well-defined, and the means of getting the ball back in play are a lot faster in lacrosse than in field hockey) So the game keeps moving. Moves a lot faster than field hockey, too. No body-checking in the women's game, so it's not the brutal battle that the men's game is--more fancy footwork and stick-checking is required. Cheryl