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Opinion

Women's sports deserve more respect

Cheycara Latimer
Opinion Columnist

As the 2006-2007 college basketball season winds down, fans and players alike are anxious to know who will be crowned champion of the NCAA Tournament. 

On the men's side, the final battle will commence today between the Ohio State Buckeyes and Florida Gators in the championship game. Florida is looking to win their second NCAA Tournament Championship, while Ohio State will be on a quest to win their first. 

On the women's side, Final Four play began Sunday with LSU versus Rutgers and Tennessee versus North Carolina. 

However, it is almost a sure-fire guarantee that the vast majority of basketball fans will be watching or attending the men's Final Four and championship games. 

Some say women's basketball is boring because it is predictable (for example, the same teams are ranked number one and the same few go to the Final Four). Others say it lacks the luster and excitement that men's basketball does, but that is hardly true anymore.

In the past few years, the final four teams have been changing quite a bit. In 2005, Baylor Lady Bears, who went 7-20 four years before, came out of nowhere and won the tournament, a first in school history. In 2006, Maryland, another first time tournament winner, beat the top-seeded Duke 78-75 in overtime. 

But no one seems to care that this has been one of the best women's tournaments in a very long time. 

Players such as sophomore guard Candace Parker, junior center Sylvia Fowles, senior guard Ivory Latta, and sophomore center Courtney Paris dominate the game and show the world that women can play basketball just as hard and just as well as men. Not to mention the fact that Parker plays two other positions than guard (forward and center) and that she can dunk and block shots with the best of them. 

Throughout the tournament, sports commentators have been saying Fowles is the Shaquille O'Neal of women's basketball. Her height, speed, agility and over-playing ability often not only perplexes players but coaches as well. 

Paris is a team all on her own. She averages a double-double every game and can maneuver her way through the paint like no one else. 

Then there's Latta. She has a whole "Latta" game. She moves quickly and is versatile in her playing style. 

And there have been more upsets in this tournament than in the men's. 

Take, for example, the Red Foxes of Marist College, the Cinderella team for this year's tournament. The team ranked 13 going into the tournament and was scheduled to play the number three seed Ohio State. Ohio State was picked to win but that didn't happen. Marist won 67-63. No one saw that coming.

However, anyone can quote stats and records made or broken. Anyone can say a player is the next Rebecca Lobo or Sheryl Swoopes. 

Many women's sports teams are very talented individually as well as a team. Take, for example, our own Sunshine Misa-Uli who plays volleyball and basketball. According to her volleyball stats, she's started in twenty-one matches and is one of four Lady Cougars to record more than 200 kills. 

The Lady Cougar softball team has an an overall record of 30-11 and is 19-6 at home. 

Often it's the women's sports teams that make a name for a school, not the men's. There are even a few schools whose women's teams are indeed better than the men's and advance farther than the men's in each sport's respective tournaments. 

However, people need to have the same respect for women's sports as they do for men's. Women's basketball doesn't lack the luster and excitement of men's basketball, nor is it played at a slower pace. Look at No. 7 Ole Miss. They ran circles around No. 2 Maryland and No. 3 Oklahoma and would have probably made to the Final Four if it weren't for the Tennessee Lady Vols. 

The fact of the matter is that women's sports in general have a lot more luster and excitement than most people will admit and give credit to. However, we have to ask ourselves why people do not regard women's sports as highly as men's. We should look past gender and instead focus on the level of athleticism. 

Latimer, a creative writing post-baccalaureate student, 
can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu