Mortarboard moment: Sharing advice I got from Gail Marquis, Olympic superstar and Wall Street success

Friday, May 10th, 2013

By Ashleigh Sargent Gail Marquis is a powerful woman in sports, business, and volunteer foundation work.  She won a silver medal as a part of the 1976 U.S. Women’s Basketball Olympic Team and played basketball professionally in Europe, before taking her competitive drive and spirit to Wall Street where she worked ...

Posted in Basketball, Money, Power & Politics, The Athletes | 1 Comment »

Good surprise: Final Four basketball not just for top seeds anymore

Sunday, April 7th, 2013

                    By Ashleigh Sargent and Mariah Philips What does it mean for a #5 seed team like Louisville to be in the Final Four? That favorite Baylor was out early? Women’s college basketball fans seldom get to watch a regional seed lower than #3 make it to the Final Four. Sure, on the ...

Posted in Basketball, GenNext: Sport Girls | No Comments »

Women’s NCAA Bracket: Vote with your pen and then talk about it

Friday, March 22nd, 2013

By Laura Pappano It's March Madness and that means one thing: Time to vote with your pen, and rehearse your friendly trash-talking zingers. The brackets are not just about the games, of course, but about the culture we create around the games. They are about the notice we give to female athletes, ...

Posted in Basketball, GenNext: Sport Girls, Money, Power & Politics | No Comments »

NWSL seems to be learning from predecessors

Friday, January 18th, 2013

By Laura Pappano It’s draft day for the National Women’s Soccer League. Don’t bother turning on your TV or tuning into sports radio.  Don’t expect NFL-style high drama. Thanks to the rise of cheap media, though, you can catch it on Twitter and Facebook (NWSL doesn’t have its own website). Sure, there is ...

Posted in General, Money, Power & Politics, Soccer | 1 Comment »

Do we have the stomach for football?

Saturday, January 12th, 2013

By Laura Pappano News that NFL veteran Junior Seau, who committed suicide last year, suffered from degenerative brain disease was hardly a revelation. We paused, saddened, on Thursday when the National Institutes of Health announced that Seau’s brain revealed evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy – the result of absorbing frequent blows to ...

Posted in Football, Money, Power & Politics, The Athletes | No Comments »

Warm-up playlist: Time to get pumped up without being put down

Thursday, December 13th, 2012

By Ashleigh Sargent and Mariah Philips Get ready, it’s game day!!!!! As you prepare mentally and physically, you want help getting into your zone. Which songs pop up on the warm-up playlist? Chances are, messages of female empowerment and gender equality are not major themes in your favorite jams. In fact, it might ...

Posted in Basketball, GenNext: Sport Girls, Money, Power & Politics, The Athletes | No Comments »

Nothing doing with the net: Lowering hoops 7″ is backwards idea

Sunday, November 4th, 2012

By Ashleigh Sargent UConn Women’s Basketball Coach Geno Auriemma believes the women’s hoops should be lowered seven inches from the standard 10-foot height (or 7.2 inches for 1972 when Title IX passed). Why? He says lower rims would yield greater offensive production – more scoring -- and more fans for the women’s ...

Posted in Basketball, Money, Power & Politics, The Coaches | 1 Comment »

Results are in: Farther 3-point line makes a (small) dent in scoring

Wednesday, May 9th, 2012

By Ashleigh Sargent One foot might not seem like a major difference – unless it’s on a basketball court. And unless it’s the three-point line you’re talking about. Last year, the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel decided to move the traditional women’s three-point arc before the start of the season.  In a (literal) ...

Posted in Basketball, The Athletes | 1 Comment »

Women and weights: Don’t hate on me because I’m strong

Thursday, April 12th, 2012

  By Mariah Philips After an hour-long 6 a.m. lift, I can feel my hands shaking, residual adrenaline pumping through my veins. Sweat trickles down the side of my temple. My muscles are limp from exhaustion.  But the most prominent thing I feel when I walk out of the weight room is pride, ...

Posted in Money, Power & Politics, Softball, The Athletes | 4 Comments »

Sizing up ND vs. BU (what won it and what the final will look like)

Monday, April 2nd, 2012

By Ashleigh Sargent and Mariah Philips Notre Dame: The Fighting Irish took down perennial powerhouse UConn in overtime to advance to the National Championship for the second year in a row.  Behind the leadership of Skylar Diggins, who finished the night with 19 points, Notre Dame forced the game into overtime ...

Posted in Basketball, The Athletes | No Comments »