Monique Howard, right tackle for Pershing High

By Laura Pappano

Thanksgiving football, of course, involves Detroit. And while the NFL will get plenty of attention today, there has been another Detroit football story out there this season.  Word that Monique Howard, 6-foot senior basketball player and track talent, tried out for – and made – the Pershing High School football team, was news this fall.

When Howard decided to try out for the team, her basketball coach and mentor, Shawn Hill, figured it was just Monique being Monique.

“At first I thought it was a joke,” he says, adding that, “I didn’t think she could do it.” Hill admits to being stunned when Howard not only made the team but became starting right tackle.

“It shocked me when she started. I was worried. I didn’t want her to get hurt. But I watched her play the first three games and then I thought, ‘She’s OK. She’s really holding it down.’”

Now that the season has ended, Howard talks about what the experience showed her – both about herself and about the beliefs people have about who can play football.

FGN: What made you decide to try out for the football team?

MH: My lineman coach saw me playing basketball and shot put for track and thought it would be a great idea. He said I was as tough as the boys.

FGN: Do you like playing football?

MH: I like tackling people, taking all the aggression out without getting in trouble for it!

FGN: Very few girls play football; and typically they are kickers. Reality is that you are matched up against guys who are a lot bigger. Was that scary?

MH: Before I started, everyone was saying, “You’ll get hurt!” Most teams’ players, they are bigger, but I was never nervous. My coach taught me different techniques – coming off the ball first, using my speed. As long as I come off the ball fast, it doesn’t matter how big and strong they are, football is all about timing.

FGN: You even pancaked an opposing player and they didn’t know it was by a female until you took off your helmet…

MH: They were jumping around saying, ‘That’s a girl you got pancaked by!!!!!”

FGN: Has playing football affected your hopes/plans to play basketball in college?

MH: Football helped me so much in basketball. My footwork got better. My timing has gotten better. (Shawn Hill agrees: “Now she’s used to being in a crowd. She has the patience to take her time with her layup.” )

FGN: What did you learn by playing?

MH: My whole mindset is that I can do anything I want to do if I put my mind to it. A lot of girls didn’t know that girls could play football. Really, boys and girls are basically equal when they work out and everything. Girls like a challenge. They can do what the boys can do.

More people will watch Super Bowl XLV this Sunday than tuned in for the President’s State of the Union address last week.

It’s not even close (42.8 million watched President Barack Obama vs. an expected 110 million). That’s no dis to Obama because George W. Bush was out-viewed, too.

The issue is not just the NFL and the Super Bowl. As a sport, football obliterates all other sports in just about any category you can name – at any level. Share of athletic budgets? Number of players required? Cost of equipment? Institutional support? Media attention? Fan focus? Ticket prices?

Honestly, how many parents battle one another to work the concession stand at the high school gymnastics meet? Oh, they don’t have boosters selling snacks? Point made.

Why is football so culturally dominant – and is that a problem? I do not have answers, but I do have thoughts.

1.     Do we like football because it’s violent? The game has always been dangerous (when it was primarily a college sport, young men died every year playing until President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905 called representatives from Yale, Harvard, and Princeton together to change the rules – and save the game). Ben McGrath in the New Yorker argues (and he’s not alone) that the concussion crisis is threatening the future of football. But is that bone-crushing intensity and threat of injury exactly why people watch (think auto racing and car crashes)? Does risk appeal?

2.     Is football popular because it’s popular? Has football become the de-facto community-gathering event because it’s where everyone is? The fact that it’s played once a week – and not every other day – makes it easier to follow and discuss because there’s less to miss. Plus, of course, we should thank TV for making it impossible to overlook any key pro or college play. Ever. Scary thought: Is football the closest thing we have to a shared discourse?

3.     Is the sport just a troublesome guilty pleasure? Because it’s a fun game to watch – a highly physical chess match that unfolds slowly enough to allow analysis between plays – we may overlook the negative messages and fallout, not only of the game, but of the hyper-celebrity, bad behavior, macho show-off trash-talking values. The game may have started as a noble effort to prepare college men for future leadership, but that faded long ago.

4.      If football is such a great and important game, shouldn’t more girls and women play it, too? The amount of social, cultural, and financial capital expended on football suggests that it matters beyond the gridiron. If that’s the case we owe it to females to have the same encouragement, support, and access to the game as their male counterparts. It’s not unlike barring women from combat roles in the military. Keeping them out in the name of “protection” also keeps them from experiences critical to career advancement.

5.     If football is special, is that a problem? Ever? The NFL may be the most lucrative sports league in the world, but when we get to levels below pro – grade school, high school, and college – shouldn’t there be some sober accounting of spending public dollars to amplify the status of a relatively small group of individuals just because they play football? Is it right for a Texas high school to spend $60 million on a football stadium? The NFL may be its own case, but the brand reaches all the way down the line, disrupting any semblance of equity between football programs and everybody else. That, in my mind, is a problem.

I had to wince at a Birmingham News pre-season high school football analysis: Quick! Go pay $6 to see Hueytown high school quarterback Jameis Winston because “come 2012 at a major BCS school [it]will be around $50 and that’s not even counting the donation for priority seating…”

It’s there. In a nutshell. Anyone who feels that college football is out of control these days (and it is!) should take a step back and look at the source: High School. There is a problem — aside from concussions –with teen boys playing football.

The practice of placing high school football at the social, communal, and financial center of school life – from the focus of homecoming activities and Thanksgiving community gatherings to the status as a ticketed, revenue-producing event – sets it apart and above other sports and school-related pursuits.

This is the sweet spot of the high school football season. But let’s take a half-time pause and recognize that what feels like innocent ritual is actually the blueprint for a troubled sports culture.

Consider:

– In Texas, Allen High School just spent $60 million for a one-sport, one-team stadium for its football team. Where to start?

–  Last month in a move to save money, Bethlehem, NY moved up the start time of a football game against Ballston Spa to 4:30 pm so it wouldn’t have to turn on the field lights. Players were upset; parents of players were outraged. One parent commented on an Albany Times-Union blog: “At the varsity games last year, the bleachers were packed…..not yesterday!!! Wonder why???? Could it have something to do with the fact that the game started at 4:30???” Perhaps that’s what parents of other sport-athletes feel on a regular basis when fans don’t show for soccer or field hockey in hoped-for numbers? If we’re playing under the lights, give every team a shot at evening glory.

– The practice of scheduling high school football for Friday nights – plus charging admission and opening concession stands – has created a worrisome dependence on young male high school athletes to provide revenues for school budgets. In some communities a single football game generates $100,000 or more. If we care about fairness, it’s wrong to put this responsibility – and reward – on a group of teenage boys. It’s not good for them and it’s not good for schools.

Who says football must be the focus of homecoming celebrations? And when we have multi-sport school v. school competitions, can someone out there please ensure that boys teams aren’t the only ones playing under the lights?

********* NOTE: There are still a few tickets available for what promises to be a terrific lunchtime discussion at the New York Athletic Club on Oct. 27, 11:30-2 “Women and Sports: Get in the Game” with an all-star panel. More info here.

Flower Mound (TX) High School Stadium Seating

This is a good Monday for the NY Jets: A smashing victory against rival NE Patriots – and the team won’t face punishment from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for “unprofessional conduct” by coaches and players in the Ines Sainz case.

Or obvious punishment, that is. Jets owner Woody Johnson has agreed to underwrite a program to train players on appropriate conduct with the media in the workplace – something Christine Brennan has tweeted, could cost him $160,000.

The quick-thinking inoculation by the Jets to call in the Association for Women in Sports Media and Johnson to offer to underwrite the training shows there have been major advances in the NFL treatment of female reporters in the past 20 years. At least now, throwing balls and acting like a frat boy is considered wrong.

Not so on September 17, 1990 when Boston Herald reporter Lisa Olson was sexually harassed by NE Patriots players in the locker room. Despite an encounter that was so lewd and graphic that Olson called it “mind rape” – then Pats owner Victor Kiam labeled Olson “a classic bitch.”

Yes, there’s been progress. But it’s puzzling: Why is the NFL just getting to this sort of training now?  And if the Jets are essentially paying a $160,000 fine, why doesn’t Goodell use this incident to send a message (as he so often does)?

Is this case different because Sainz was wearing super-tight jeans? Naturally, some have suggested that Sainz – whose provocative dress and conduct – was “asking” for trouble or that she was just seeking attention for herself and TV Azteca (if so, mission accomplished!).

But for a league and group of professionals  1) whose life is spent learning, memorizing and practicing choreographed plays 2) whose game day dress rules are so precise that having a towel larger than 6”X 8” is a $2,500 uniform violation, and 3) whose entire chess-like match-ups reward forethought of the kind that if they run-this, we’ll-run-that, it seems 4) unbelievable that no one could have imagined this play.

Call it The Meadowlands Fool: A blonde TV journalist-slash-model steps up to the line of scrimmage before the snap and throws a few glances and then – with stunningly little effort – opposing players (and coaches, too!) jump offsides.

The NFL is all about gamesmanship, and having one more play than your opponent. Why weren’t the Jets ready for this? And if they erred, why does Goodell still have the penalty flag in his pocket?

By Lindsay Rico

Why did I decide to play tackle football in the 6^th grade? Ever see the movie “Little Giants”? It’s about a ragtag football team with a coach who is just as much of a reject as his players. The one girl (they call her “Icebox”) is one of the best on the team. The team (of course) wins the championship against the very team these  players had been rejected from at the beginning of the season.

Movies are movies for a reason. They aren’t realistic—you don’t say, “Hey, I could do that. I could make that happen.” But that’s exactly what I did.

After convincing my dad to sign me up, I realized that football isn’t actually as glamorous as the movies make it seem. To sum our practices and training up in one phrase: Football is running. Everywhere I went—I ran. If it was a break, the team would run to the water. If we were being punished, we ran up and down a hill at the end of the field for what seemed like an eternity. If we actually did something impressive, we still ran, but it was a shorter distance.

Then again, football is also hitting. My coach would always say if the play has nothing to do with you—if it’s going the opposite way as you or if you fudge your assignment in some way—put a “hurt” on someone. Hit someone. Anyone. It’s the least you can do to help your team. We did tons of drills that involved tackling someone and getting tackled at different angles and in various situations.

So I guess football is running and hitting.

There was one particular moment, however, that I value the most out of all the crazy events that occurred during my two seasons playing for the Indians. It was a moment when I compiled the most important lessons my coach had taught and used them to my advantage: I was playing cornerback on a particular play and the ball was being run on the other side of the field. I was jogging over to see if I could help out at the breakdown when I saw him. A lineman was charging at me from the opposite direction. I knew what he was going to do: he was trying to get the angle on me so that he could lay me out.

My coaches had warned us that this might happen. “Keep your head on a swivel!” they barked at us. Football is not a sport immune to cheap shots. Like many sports, if the ref doesn’t see—then it’s perfectly legal. But one of my coaches made an extra effort to warn me in particular and at that instant I realized why. Many of my teammates were nearby with heads turned, jogging slowly to where the play was occurring, completely oblivious. Yet yet this player had chosen to target me. I had made a great effort during the season to be like any other male player on the team but this kid who got a peek at my ponytail decided that this girl who had the audacity to play against him needed her clock cleaned.

As he came nearer, one thought occurred to me: Maybe I should just let this kid hit me. I mean, that is what a lot of young women are taught right? That boys don’t know any better and that there are some things that they will never understand. That we should let boys be boys—men be men? I was convinced that the only thing that kept this boy from “being a boy” was me. I was also aware of how great of a hit it would be and how hard I would hit the ground and how long it would take me to recover from his cheap shot. I would have to be sacrificed for the sake of his pride and the running standard that girls should not play football.

But then I heard coach’s voice in my head yelling “Thattaway, Rico. You kept your head on a swivel and he sees you but he doesn’t see you seeing him. So why don’t you knock this kid into next week?” And I did. I moved at the very last second  and checked him right in the chest. He went down right on his back. Hard. It was there, too, on the reel the next week as we reviewed the game’s film.

On or off the field, there is always someone looking to knock you down.  Football gave me tools I didn’t have before. Remember: Keep your head on a swivel.

The frenzy of conference switching (Colorado, Utah, Nebraska plus others at least thinking about it), has caused a stir for one reason: Colleges fret that if the future really is about a few megaconferences that some schools will be big winners (measured in TV dollars and bowl berths) and others will be big losers (also-rans with expensive football programs that get little attention).

The college hosting of football is really higher education’s form of gambling. Most DI football teams in the country lose money. The question for AD’s: Can your college have a team that actually brings in cash?

When colleges get anxious, however, we don’t hear about this. We hear instead about how Title IX makes it hard for them to “compete.” Title IX, in this instance and others, is a favorite target of blame. But here’s a reality check: Title IX may be the only thing enforcing a semblance of sanity.

Title IX is carrying the burden of challenging an out-of-whack athletic culture. Title IX is all that reminds or enforces the broader belief that college sports are — indeed — played at colleges and must be rooted in a sense of equity and values other than cash and winning.

Consider that there is no law demanding equal opportunity – or spending – for athletes and non-athletes. (A new Knight Commission report shows that from 2005 to 2008 that median spending per athlete increased by 38 percent over that time to $84,446 while median spending per student increased just 20 percent to $13,349.) Report link here.

Title IX is not the “problem” but the levy against the flood. (Read a good Marquette faculty law blogpost here).

The real problems? Try these:

1. The NFL uses colleges as a farm team. With the fluid movement of coaches between the NFL and college ranks, we are ensured that colleges will seek to install NFL-like “systems,” build reputations based on their connections with professional teams (also useful in recruiting), and create programs that operate according to standards that are friendly to broadcasters.
2. Donors are allowed to buy (or partially buy, leaving colleges to cover the rest) expensive athletes-only facilities and enhancements aimed at winning national titles and recognition (see point 1). For examples, see the University of Oregon’s “Jock Box” or T. Boone Pickens Stadium (and influence) at Oklahoma.
3. Excessive focus on athletic school profiles in college marketing and the perception that kids are choosing colleges based on sports (as fans). The media attention given top football programs (and to a lesser extent basketball programs), eclipses the recognition that these big sports schools might get for their research successes.
4. Football conference alliances may not reflect broader university needs or values. Just because football teams match up or fit well in a particular conference does not mean that this high profile tie – which requires university resources to maintain – serves the needs of academic departments or research interests. And then there is the reality that football players may not accurately reflect the student body — either academically or in terms of behavior — creating two sets of standards, one for real students and one for students whose main job is to entertain everybody else on Saturdays.

Given that the Super Bowl is a distant memory, the NFL Combine is done – and we have a day or two before spring college football begins (yes, games are now broadcast on TV), we have a sliver of free air to highlight Vanderbilt vice Chancellor David Williams’ contention that football is the biggest challenge to Title IX compliance.

“We have 330 varsity athletes, 110 are on the football team,” he said. “So if you want me to get to 50-50, that means I have slots for 55 men other than football.”

Thank you.

At the panel discussion at Vanderbilt earlier this week (read news report here), there was, naturally, a wrestling coach present to dutifully complain that Title IX was crushing his sport. In fact, wrestling simply is not as popular as it used to be.

When FGN interviewed Linda Jean Carpenter and C. Vivian Acosta, who have tracked college sports participation since 1977, they made the point: “The face of athletics changes, sports become popular and unpopular. They wax and wane. Gymnastics for men and women is a contracting sport. Same with wrestling,” said Carpenter. “To the wrestler on the team, it is the only thing that exists. In the world, wrestling is waning. It is not waning because of Title IX, but because of poor administrative decisions.”

If we can put the wrestling matter to rest, there is a serious debate to have about the role of football in college life (or should we talk about the role of college in football life?)

Unlike baseball, which is a major professional sport and a minor college sport because MLB has its own farm system, football uses college campuses as their talent development league. (Much as the NBA, although they even reach down to the HS level.)

This necessarily skews the entire conversation about equity. Coaches are paid more. Recruits are more fretted after and coveted (signing day celebrations, anyone?). Colleges bend over to build professional-style facilities and court fans as if they are attracting them to for-profit sports franchise events and not what they are: non-profit institutions receiving federal benefits – and in the case of state institutions – supported by public tax dollars.

I love football. And, from what I gather, I’m not alone. But it’s a big game with a big cost – to institutional equity and, yes, even men’s sports.

By Katie Culver

Here’s a Super Bowl quiz question: Would you send your daughter to a football game in her underwear?

I wouldn’t. And yet, funny thing is, there’s women at every NFL football game in a close approximation of panties and bras. They just happen to be on the sidelines cheering — so does that mean it’s okay?

As a mom (and a football fan) who is raising children to believe they can be in the game, or at least relate to it, I’m disturbed by the skimpy cheerleader dress (or undress):

• They are the most visible representation of women at the game. They are on the sidelines; they are cheering for an all-male team in the patriarchal sport of football.
• Girls watching the game gravitate to the cheerleaders (most teams also have a “junior” cheer squad to capitalize) and the message they get is that their involvement in this multi-billion dollar, socially pervasive sport is limited to cheering on the sidelines, wearing inappropriate clothing. The subtext: Don’t bother competing because only your body is worth the attention.
• Those at home get up-close views of these women before and after every commercial break, which reinforces women’s “place” at the game (never mind that the commercials we’ve just seen typically feature disturbing images of women behaving in stereotypically, demeaning ways).

The question about cheerleader dress in public might spur a comparison to the beach. Sure, people wear revealing attire to swim and it’s no big deal. The difference is that men and women alike are dressed to swim.

Then there’s quasi-feminist argument claiming that women who have beautiful bodies should be able to proudly display them. The problem? In a setting in which the men are not only fully-clothed, but extra clothed (with more undergarments than anyone else present) women are objectified, and the presence of cheerleaders—displaying this much of their bodies— just reinforces hegemonic notions of women’s status in society.

Why should my daughter think the only “place” for her on a football field is on the sidelines, nearly naked?

I am willing to budge: When TV cameras show fully-clothed female coaches, assistants, or trainers – I’ll reconsider. Until then, I’ll push for cover-ups for cheerleaders. In some cold weather venues, I bet they’ll snatch them right up.

By Hannah Ritchie

Only one in four girls at Colleyville Heritage High School in Texas, my school, participate in sports while more than half of boys are on sports teams. This is NOT because girls aren’t interested.

Last December, 3,374  girls in grades 6-12 participated in a survey to gauge their interest in sports after a student filed a Title IX grievance. The results (and more so the comments girls wrote) were revealing. When asked the question, “If you tried out for a school sport but did not make the team, would you want to play that sport on a recreational level, for no credit, after school on your campus?” results showed 53.3 percent of girls answered “yes.”

In Texas, unlike some other parts of the country, students receive a required athletic credit by participating in sports only during the school day. Sports may also practice during, after and before school.

According to data from a Freedom of Information Act request I made to the district, even though my high school enrolled 1159 female and 1156 male students (in the 2007-2008 school year), only 287 — or 25 percent — of girls participated in sports. Meanwhile, 633 — or 55 percent — of boys did. Our girl’s participation rate is one of the lowest percentages in the country according to a study by the Women’s Sports Foundation.

So, why don’t more girls play sports at my high school?

1. Girls who played sports in middle school are shut out in high school – while boys are not (thanks to football)

In middle school, volleyball is an open-admission sport, mirroring the open-admission football program for boys. In fact, there are three middle school volleyball teams for girls, letting some who are new to the sports a chance to play on a developmental team. In some years, according to a Freedom of Information Act request I made to my district, more girls play middle school sports than do boys. Middle school athletics include options to play volleyball, football, tennis, basketball, track and cross country. Only tennis and basketball teams have try-outs.

In high school, however, boys are welcomed onto the football team without try-outs, which is why the football team has no cap (and in 2007-2008, for example, made room for 260 boys) while there is no comparable athletic team for girls (the largest team for girls that year was soccer with 58 participants).

2. You haven’t played club sports for more than 2 years

The message on the school website when I started high school two years ago (it’s since been removed) noted that, “High school athletics is not a place to learn a sport. You must be a skilled player to participate in athletics.”

At an information meeting for incoming 9^th graders, high school counselors told us that if we hadn’t played a club sport for at least two years we shouldn’t even try out for the team. Apparently it is a big hassle for counselors to rework your schedule if you sign up for a sport and then don’t make the team.

3. You ride the bus

No sports are offered exclusively within school hours. If you want to work out without competing, you are out of luck. There are not even free weight times to lift, unless a student is enrolled in an athletics class.

4. You are almost, but not quite poor

The reality these days is that students have to pay fees to participate in classes above the basic offerings — including band, choir, drill team and athletics. These fees are only waived if you qualify for free or reduced lunch (about 20 percent of our community).

5. A coach or other school official discourages you from playing

The executive summary of the survey showed that 99 girls said they didn’t play sports because they were discouraged by coaches; another 93 who had played sports in the past said they were not playing now because they were discouraged by negative remarks by a coach; and 54 who were presently playing would not play the following year because of negative remarks made to them by a coach. Ironically, the survey results showed that 77 to 89 percent of girls (depending on the grade) who participated in sports reported “really” or “somewhat” liking the experience.

When I reviewed the comments girls made on the surveys, here are some things they wrote:

— This year for my team at school (varsity volleyball) I thought that our coach was very harsh and did not have the rights to say that stuff to us. She really hurt some girls’ feelings and to do that is not what a coach should do.

— Transportation, cost, and practice times don’t work out for me… I can’t do after school practices at all because of my schedule at home and my classes, but I really would like to join school clubs and sports, if only the school could work with my schedule and with mine and my parents budget.

— I do not play soccer for the school because I was cut from the team and I do not plan to try out next year because the coach was not encouraging.

— The coaches play favorites and it is obvious to everyone and it hurts my feelings when they don’t have to work as hard in the sport as a non-favorite athlete.

— My coach makes fun of me frequently in front of everybody and he thinks its hilarious but it isn’t! I don’t think its mean — it’s just annoying!!!

Adults in the district may point to figures showing they are doing enough. But I think there is something wrong when twice as many boys as girls in my high school are participating in sports. Girls DO want to play!

Hannah Ritchie is a senior at Colleyville Heritage High School in Colleyville, Texas. She played volleyball in grades 7-9. She began looking into gender equity issues in sports in her school district as part of an English project on Title IX her sophomore year. The differences between gender opportunities became vastly apparent when her younger brother entered high school and was able to walk onto the football team. She hopes that in the future girls are given the same opportunities as boys.

It’s Thanksgiving and aside from turkey and family, this holiday is about football. What does a celebration of early American settlers and indigenous people coming together in prayerful feasting have to do with gladiator-style battle for territory and pigskin? It hardly matters. Football (plus turkey) rules.

I love football. I will actually play in a family football game today (yes, I brought my cleats, family — watch out!) and will absolutely relish body-faking my kids and (hopefully) catching a well-thrown pass (attention: Derek) in the endzone.

I love watching football on TV. The NFL is a study in effective marketing, packaging, and production of something that before TV was in danger of being just another sport (kudos, Bert Bell).

But here’s the problem: Like a dominating older sibling who takes up all the air in the room, football simply commands too much money, attention, and status in settings in which fairness and equity matter (READ: high school and college). The issue is amplified — not caused — by football’s identity as a testosterone-charged game that discourages female participation.

Today, high school football stands will be populated by people who like lapsed parishioners  on important holidays make the pilgrimage to celebrate the community’s men-in-training. Tonight, local TV news stations will feature highlights of teenage boys battling storied rivals.

The cameras will not glimpse, unless by accident, the girls in short skirts  who have worshipfully decorated lockers, baked treats, and shouted encouragement to the hero-boys. There will be no recognition of girls and boys who have run record times in cross country meets, no nod to the state championship field hockey team nor to the soccer players who finished a spectacular season.

It does not matter whether the football teams are actually any good. The booster clubs selling snacks and talking about players as if they were NFL prospects, don’t care. They — we — have collectively decided to make them the centerpiece of our communities.

It is a lot for the players to bear. And even more to bear for all the other athletes who play to empty stands and tiny agate at the end of the sports pages. Who says football must be the only sport worth gathering for on Thanksgiving Day?