March is Women's History Month and this year was the 35th anniversary of the celebration with the theme "Weaving the Stories of Women's Lives." You can read more about the women honored by the National Women's History Project here.
In the world of sports there are many storytellers. The talking heads who grace our TV screens, give us the play by play, and profile athletes are often men but there are some wonderful standout female reporters on the beat. Mary Carillo is one of my favorites.
A correspondent for NBC Olympics and a tennis analyst since the 1980's, Ms. Carillo was a was champion doubles star herself garnering wins at the French Open, the US Open and the US Clay Court Championships.
From her NBC bio:
"Carillo has received two coveted Peabody Awards, one of television’s highest honors, one for work on the HBO documentary Billie Jean King, Portrait of a Pioneer and the other for co-writing with Frank DeFord the HBO documentary Dare to Compete: The Struggle of Women in Sport. Carillo was named “Best Commentator” by Tennis Magazine (1988-91), “Best Commentator” by World Tennis Magazine (1986) and “Broadcaster of the Year” by the WTA (1981 and 1985). She has co-written two books—Tennis My Way with Martina Navratilova and Rick Elstein’s Tennis Kinetics."
We at Sporty Girl Books seek to honor the stories of women and girls in sports and March has been an exciting month for that.
March 8th was International Women's Day and World Rowing put out the following challenge for photos on Twitter. If you'd like to see more, search for #womeninrowing on your twitter feed!
From NPR's "Only A Game" broadcast comes this article about JV baseball player, Sydney Dore. Sydney Dore is a 14 year old at McKeel Academy of Technology, a charter middle and high school in Lakeland, FL who showed up at Red Sox spring training to thank her inspiration Dustin Pedroia. My fave quote is from coach, Lorne Wheatcraft. "She tried out and there was no way I could say, 'You are not good enough to be on this team.' There was just no possible way to do that." Of course this is just another in a wonderful long line of girls who are being allowed to play baseball. We happily covered Mo'ne Davis and her wonderful showing at the Little League World Series.
I want to note here that we at Sporty Girl Books are also are huge fans of softball. Coaching softball since 1985 is Carol Hutchins, from Michigan. This article about her 1,400th career win comes from the NCAA website. "Michigan head coach Carol Hutchins earned her 1,400th career victory in memorable fashion as the No. 4-ranked Wolverines cruised to a 20-0, five-inning rout over rival Ohio State on Sunday. Hutchins is just the third coach to reach 1,400 wins in NCAA softball history; she is the second winningest active coach." 20-0? Congratulations to Coach Hutchins and the team!
And finally (also from NPR's, Only A Game) is a story about a women's sports team that regularly outdraws many Division I male basketball teams. Utah Gymnastics is the only program that has reached the national championships every year of that event's existence (39). With a pep band, in-between-routine videos and spectator games it has averaged over 10,000 fans for the last 20 years and according to the article had already sold 7,500 season tickets.
In fact, because of scheduling conflicts in Arizona, the 2015 PAC-12 Women's Gymnastics Championship took place last Saturday at the University of Utah where they were the first team to earn back-to-back championships. I'm sure they had plenty of psyched fans! Sadly, one of their leaders and captains, Tory Wilson, suffered an injury and could not finish with the team. Click here for more on that story and enjoy this video of the highlights!
March 8th was International Women's Day and World Rowing put out the following challenge for photos on Twitter. If you'd like to see more, search for #womeninrowing on your twitter feed!
World Rowing Celebrates #womeninmotion for International Women's Day - tweet your photos using #womeninrowing pic.twitter.com/HlidXfCJCz
— World Rowing (@WorldRowing) February 24, 2015
And finally (also from NPR's, Only A Game) is a story about a women's sports team that regularly outdraws many Division I male basketball teams. Utah Gymnastics is the only program that has reached the national championships every year of that event's existence (39). With a pep band, in-between-routine videos and spectator games it has averaged over 10,000 fans for the last 20 years and according to the article had already sold 7,500 season tickets.
In fact, because of scheduling conflicts in Arizona, the 2015 PAC-12 Women's Gymnastics Championship took place last Saturday at the University of Utah where they were the first team to earn back-to-back championships. I'm sure they had plenty of psyched fans! Sadly, one of their leaders and captains, Tory Wilson, suffered an injury and could not finish with the team. Click here for more on that story and enjoy this video of the highlights!
Post by Utah Gymnastics.
I forgot to say thank you to Megan Hoak for alerting me to the Sydney Dore story. Thank you, Megan! for following Sporty Girl Books and making us aware of great stories. We welcome input from all our readers!!!
ReplyDeleteNo worries! Thought you'd enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteNice to see sporty girls doing well, and great video about the Utah Gymanstics Team. Regarding girls playing baseball, there is the historical story of Jackie Mitchell, who at age 17 pitched baseball better than the famous men in baseball. Her story is at Rebecca Behrens' blog today. Not sure if you already told her story here.
ReplyDeleteGiora, thanks so much for that hint. I enjoyed Rebecca's blog!
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