My final college softball season starts in three weeks. Time to worry about my makeup and hair?

Softball may be a serious, competitive, slide-in-the-dirt sport, but as it grows in popularity (and TV interest), there is heightened attention — to looking good.

When I tuned into the Women’s College World Series on ESPN at the end of last season, it hit me: The players sported a perfect ponytails, sparkly headbands and ribbons — and enough layers of make-up to suit them for a magazine spread. From the shoulders up, they were vying for Miss Teen USA, not an NCAA national title.

One has only to read the coverage to discover that, like competitors in a beauty pageant, players actually schedule pre-game time for hair and makeup.

These women are fierce competitors and I know they mean business. We may be accustomed to noting perfect hair and makeup in gymnastics, but in women’s softball? (check out a few photos here, here, here, and here). Does Derek Jeter take time for foundation and bronzer before stepping onto the field?

Why must  female softball players reinforce their “girly” side, particularly for ESPN cameras? Doesn’t this hinder the message of female athletic empowerment that the Women’s College World Series is meant to convey?

Sure, we are all aware of the stereotypical line about softball –  that everyone is lesbian, that we are “dykes on spikes.” Why is it that no matter what sport women participate in that still today — it’s 2010! — gender and sexuality must take center stage over raw talent, athletic ability — and the drama of the game?

Wearing gobs of makeup (look at stills or clips and it’s not just a swipe of blush) during a national championship does not prove some quasi-feminist point that you can be cute and athletic at the same time. Rather, it reveals to the girls who are watching that no matter how strong, fast, talented or competitive they are that how they look matters most.  The Women’s College World Series is an opportunity to collapse female stereotypes of passivity and weakness, yet it’s become a stage to codify and perpetuate them.

And it’s not just softball. Just in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics, Lancome has unveiled a cosmetic line apparently inspired by the female athletes who will be competing for a gold medal.

Please, fellow female athletes, let’s stop getting dolled up to compete. Leave heavy make-up and perfect hair for dinner or the runway — not the diamond.

It’s become standard: we listen and watch as men objectify women — and women play into it. We’ve got Serena naked on the cover of ESPN magazine, women pro squash players selling swimsuit calendars (and speaking of swimsuits, the SI annual issue is out next month).

But for at least one time slot on Tuesdays, a new TV show proves that two can play that game. I bring you, Conveyor Belt of Love. (Watch a short clip here).

I encourage you to watch the show, if for no other reason than its comic value. But for those who opt-out, here’s the rundown: Five women sit in director’s chairs and watch as a life-size conveyor belt hauls 35 slabs of meat (er, men) on by, one by one. Each man has sixty seconds to sing, dance, rap, recite or in some other way impress the women. Some men come by clothed, others more or less naked – and still other take off their shirts after being asked to do so by the women. The women have placards that read “interested” and “not interested” which they can hold up at any point in the man’s schpiel. At the end of the show, each woman selects one man for a date. The contrived setup makes for a mindlessly entertaining hour of television.

It’s obvious that the tables have been purposefully turned. The women on Conveyor are vapid — and the men are 10 cents a dozen. The females are unfairly judgmental and the guys are pathetically eager to please.

What makes this worth a conversation is that more than merely answering the Bachelor with the Bachelorette, this show offers something we rarely see: a vision of a successfully manipulated social climate. In this show, the women have done men one better. Conveyor Belt of Love, after all, is a program in which the roles could never be reversed without someone at ABC losing their job.

That said, I need to add that this arms race is not poised to turn out well for either side. I mean – what’s next? Where are we racing to?  The real-life meat market only grows less romantic and more embarrassing each passing day.

But the competitor in me has to admit that as far as gamesmanship goes, this is a brilliant little trick shot to put the women up one — if only for an hour a week.

1. A legitimately equal opportunity to develop athletic skills and play sports — from the start.

This means: girls should be handed a ball (instead of a doll or toy purse) as soon as they can hold something. They should be dressed appropriately so they can run, climb, jump as much as boys do. Girls should be taken to watch sporting events and have pictures of female athlete role models hanging on their walls. And girls should have as many options as boys to play sports as early as possible in their lives.

2.     Equal air time on major networks and ESPN for MY sporting events, such as prime time for Women’s college basketball and (can I add LESS time and money spent on #*&$@&^$ football?)

3. Hot male commentators at every televised game (and yes, we should wonder if they really know anything about the game as they interview coaches). They should also be dressed interestingly enough that we viewers can comment on their clothes and hair.

4.   Commercials that offend men during football games (is it possible?!) Men in speedos (and heels?) serving drinks to women in a bar or women picking up men with ridiculous lines using  actual film clips taken from top female coaches’ press conferences.

5.     A major stadium built primarily for women’s sports (with luxury boxes featuring top women-owned companies, actually clean bathrooms, and that sell jerseys of female athletes in XXL).

6. The cover of ESPN devoted to top female athletes (wearing clothes).

And while you’re at it, Santa, please bring all of those poor NFL cheerleaders some football-weather appropriate outerwear.

Sure, research shows that high school girls who play sports are less likely than their non-athletic peers to get pregnant. But sometimes it happens.

When it does, schools and districts need fair and sensible policies that allow girls (with guidance from a physician) to continue to compete and participate, particularly early in the pregnancy.

For Mackenzie McCollum, a 17-year-old senior at Arlington Heights High School in Fort Worth, Texas and the starting setter on the school’s volleyball team, the trauma of discovering that she was pregnant was compounded by school officials whose misdirected response has left her and her mother battling the district and raising the profile of pregnant athletes’ rights. According to a report on ESPN, McCollum was at times barred from the team and then allowed to play, but given dramatically reduced playing time, even though she was in her first trimester of pregnancy and had the written support of her physician.  (Read and watch the story here).

Holly Powell Kennedy, Helen Varney Professor of Midwifery at the Yale School of Nursing, says McCollum, “received very appropriate advice from her clinician and should be able to continue with sports while pregnant…In fact, it is likely to be beneficial in many ways…”

But as Kennedy points out, this is more than a health matter. “Of course,” she writes, “the umbrella is the big ‘Scarlet A’!”

For most teenage girls, discovering you are pregnant is an unwelcome surprise. It is life-changing and identity-altering. More than 150 years after we met Hester Prynne, out-of-wedlock girls who get pregnant are still shamed. McCollum, who chose not to end the pregnancy because of her faith, bears the burden of stares in the hallways and whispered judgments.

It’s troubling when school officials reveal their ignorance precisely when a student most needs sensible support. Pregnancy is NOT a state of incapacity. McCollum’s future will be more challenging, but she is no less of a student or an athlete than she was last year. Like any high school senior, she should not stop doing the things that are central to her self-worth, identity, and—yes – physical and emotional health.

Athletes do, have, and will get pregnant (even when it’s not convenient). Early last year the NCAA issued rules protecting pregnant college athletes from losing scholarship support after reports of athletes hiding their pregnancies. (see the full policy here.)

– Ashley Shields played basketball at Northwestern Mississippi Community College while eight months pregnant. She gave birth to a healthy son.

– Syracuse University basketball player Fantasia Goodwin, who hid her pregnancy until just before the last game of the season, gave birth to a healthy daughter April 19, 2007.

– In 2003, Connie Neal played eleven games before she told University of Louisville coaches she was pregnant. Her last game: December 20th. She gave birth her to daughter Jan. 31.

The NCAA policy points out that “most pregnant athletes with normal pregnancies can safely continue to participate in team activities, with progressive modifications, as the pregnancy develops past the 14th week.”

Surely high school volleyball (even in Texas) isn’t as demanding as NCAA play. This thoughtful, detailed, and well-footnoted policy is easily find-able on the web. Surely McCollum could have received more enlightened support from Arlington Heights officials.

Or maybe they should be wearing an “A” for “Addled.”

By Laura Pappano

The visual is stunning.

Click here to see the Little League Softball World Series championship TV schedule.  You’ll find ESPN2 (the channel broadcasting women’s college hoops unless there is a men’s game that can’t fit the ESPN or network schedule) is showing two semi-final games on Tues., Aug. 18 and the championship on Wed., Aug. 19 (7 p.m. EST)

Reasonable airtime given that this is Little League. Kids. Right?

Mistake. That is the Little League Softball World Series. Click here for Little League Baseball’s World Series broadcast schedule.

Softball games may be limited to three on TV, but from Fri., Aug. 21 to Sun. Aug. 30, you can basically watch 12-year-olds play baseball all day long (and into the night).

Between the three channels — ESPN, ESPN2, and ABC – broadcasters will bring you 36 – yep, THIRTY-SIX!! – Little League games (including consolation play).

The disparity in prestige and attention might be chalked up to the American passion for baseball over softball, if Little League didn’t have such a troublesome record on gender issues. Sure, it now “celebrates” the move to allow girls (following a successful civil complaint by N.O.W. on behalf of Maria Pepe of New Jersey in 1973).

But the move in early 1974 to start a Little League softball program has been seen by some, including Jennifer Ring author of Stolen Bases: Why American Girls Don’t Play Baseball (Illinois, 2009) as a strategy to steer girls into softball and keep baseball for boys. Today, there are few girls on Little League teams. (see post)

It may be unfair to blame Little League for what is a larger cultural truth: baseball is not merely a terrific game, but an institution that celebrates male power. But it surely is not an accident that Little League dugouts are loaded with Dads re-living their youth and it’s a rarity to see a ponytail on the field.

I am the mother of a boy smitten with baseball and Little League. I love the game and played as a kid. But as an organization (and an effective one  – is there a better brand in youth sports?) Little League is missing an important opportunity. This is not just about allowing girls to play, but encouraging them.

And if there is a Little League Softball World Series, make it as big a deal as Little League Baseball. Otherwise the message is that 12-year-old boys are just more worth watching than 12-year-old girls. And, as one who has attended my share of games, I certainly don’t think that’s the case.

By Laura Pappano

Let’s get over the woe-is-us tone that shrouds women’s professional soccer. Yesterday’s NY Times story captured the uncertainty league bigwigs feel around the (admittedly) very challenging task of filling soccer stadiums, and getting enough sponsor and ad dollars to give WPS staying power – and in a recession.

What’s troubling, however, is that WPS seems to want something it doesn’t have: raucous, beer-swilling, MLB and NFL fans (read: real fans). You know, the guys sports radio hosts describe as living in their mother’s basements and existing solely to follow every move of their beloved team and call in to talk about it?

It explains the origin of “fan” – that is “fanatic.”

In the Times story, Boston Breakers director of business development Andy Crossley says, “We need to get out of the ghetto of being a role model for girls.”

The quote was in the context of wanting to reach the men (again, read: real fans) who are taking the pony-tailed, soccer-playing daughters to games.

I dare say there’s not an exec in Major League Baseball who wants to get out of the ghetto of being a role model for boys.  (The stress, rather, comes because the jerseys of certain poor-role-model players suddenly become unmarketable.)

Why are young male fans courted and prized while young female fans are considered a sign of failure?

How will we cultivate a generation of season-ticket-buying female fans if we don’t value them as kids? (I suppose it’s a good thing Disney and Hannah Montana don’t discount the economic power of girls).

This is where WPS can learn from NASCAR.  A few observations:

1.    NASCAR has been all about serving the fans’ interest, creating the Sprint Cup Series to stir play-off-style excitement throughout the season, and this year mid-season changing the format of re-starts to increase the drama for fans. (Lesson: Don’t be afraid of altering the format).

2.    Drivers talk about the value of fan support and fans are known for shelling out and covering themselves in fan gear and buying sponsor’s products (Lesson: As a result, who wouldn’t want to sponsor NASCAR?)

3.    NASCAR’s fans base is changing – and that’s OK. An ESPN Sports Poll, for example, shows that today 60% of fans live outside of the South, 41% are female, and since 2000, the percentage of fans making $100,000 or more has doubled from 7% to 16% — and with that an increase in college grads (now one in four). (Lesson: You can grow beyond your original fan base)

4.    Still, the shifting fan base presents a challenge. In response to rising prices, drivers give away tickets to followers who feel priced out – even as execs think about what fans want. As one report quotes Richard Petty, seven-time champion and team owner: “We have to play the game a little bit different than what we did 15 or 20 years ago because society is dictating they want to see something different. It makes it really tough from NASCAR’s standpoint (of) what is the fan really looking for?” (Lesson: Be nimble and listen to your fans)

5.    Driver Jeff Burton actually likes kids among NASCAR fans: “There are a lot more families today, a lot more kid-friendly environments. Last week we went out to do hospitality on Sunday morning and there was a kid’s playground area with inflatable toys and all kinds of slides and all kinds of things. There’s been a huge effort to try to get children involved, which I think is a great thing.” (Lesson: Kid fans are not a negative; they are your future. Just ask the MLB and the NFL)

If pony-tailed girls are the core fan base of women’s professional soccer, work with that. There are other groups at games, too, including a report on the opening day of the L.A. Sol’s season describing the excitement among eight nuns from the order of the Eucharistic Franciscan Missionary Sisters (coincidentally dressed in heavy blue and white habits — the team’s colors), clutching T-shirts they’d won.

Guys who live in their mom’s basements may never buy a ticket to a WPS game. But who cares? Twenty years from now, that pony-tailed girl will want a luxury box.