Let’s have a nice post today. Try to avoid anything controversial or political.
Hey, how about women’s sports?
Don’t worry, not going to delve too deeply.
But I recently noticed something odd at a recent college volleyball game I took my daughter to. I had to text my friends to ask, “Is this sexist?”
As a general rule, anytime you have to ask a question like that, the answer is yes.
As an example, the Oklahoma City minor league baseball team changed their name this year from the Dodgers (and before that, the RedHawks) to the Oklahoma City Baseball Club.
At first I assumed this was a permanent change, reflecting a new trends in team names. Soccer teams in Europe regularly go by “Football Club.” When the Washington Redskins decided to drop their controversial name, they went with that moniker. Now they’re the Commanders, but I kinda feel like Washington Football Club was cooler, more distinctive. Commanders is so forgettable.
The new hockey team in Utah is going through a similar transition. The were the Phoenix Coyotes last year and the NHL said Utah couldn’t keep the team name. Utah, of all places, should not be allowed to keep team names from old locations after creating the worst juxtaposition in professional sports: “Utah Jazz.” Since they only had one offseason to pick a new name, they’re going with Utah Hockey Club for their first season.
But it turns out that the Oklahoma City Baseball Club already had a new team name ready to go. Then they wondered if the name might be offensive.
Spoiler Alert: it’s offensive. I don’t even know what the possible name was. In this decade, if you have to ask if something is offensive, the answer is always yes. Hell, you could call them the Oklahoma City People and someone, somewhere would be offended.
What annoys me about this story is that they didn’t reveal WHAT the potentially offensive name was. It’s not like they want to have the discussion of whether or not the name is actually offensive. Instead, they want to pay themselves on the back for being sensitive. Call them the Oklahoma City No Offense Buts.
Competitive Offendedness seems to be the real sport everybody’s playing.
My guess is they were looking at returning to the 89ers, which was the team’s name up until the late 1990s. But 89ers refers to the settlers who came to Oklahoma in the Homestead Act land grab of 1889. Of course, that land was grabbed from someone. If you look at a pre-1889 map, it probably shows Oklahoma as “Indian Territory.” Not that the Indians wanted to be there, but there was a whole Trail of Tears thing where the government promised them that, if they moved this one last time, to land that no white person wanted, they’d be fine. If not, they’d be genocided.
Then the white guys decided they wanted that new land, after all.
So yeah, if the Oklahoma City Baseball Club was thinking of returning to the 89ers, maybe taking a year to brainstorm ain’t a bad idea. Come to think of it, if they wanted to return to RedHawks, that might be problematic, too. I think that was on the Washington Redskins’ shortlist, but was determined to be too wrapped up in Native American culture.
Good luck, Oklahoma City Baseball Club.
But to return to my initial quandary, I’m still not entirely sure I was being sexist.
Here’s what I found odd: There were cheerleaders at the women’s volleyball game.
Not many, to be sure. Only nine of them, eight of which were female. So this clearly wasn’t all the cheerleaders on campus. Considering it was a Saturday, I assume most of the cheerleaders were at the football game, which was on the road that day.
I don’t know what sort of calculus goes into which cheerleaders go to the football game and which ones go to the lesser events. In high school, there’s really only one sport per season they cheer at. Football in the fall, basketball in the winter. And half the cheerleaders quit after football because that’s the one they want to cheerlead for.
Plus, a number of high school cheerleaders play other sports. Soccer, softball, tennis, badminton. Most of those sports are in the winter and spring.
So in high school, there are fewer cheerleaders at a basketball game than a football game, but it doesn’t mean they’re the B squad. This usually works out better, because there’s less room in a gymnasium than a football field with a track around it.
The only women’s sport that interferes weigh cheerleaders in fall is volleyball. So I guess they COULD cheer at a volleyball game. But they don’t.
I realize that, in theory, cheerleaders are there to, you know, lead the cheers. Hence the name. Their job is to get the crowd going, to rile up those rubes. They’re there for the fans, not the athletes.
And yet… and yet… The star quarterback ain’t takin’ the drama club president to prom.
Even if we grant that cheerleaders are there for the crowd, volleyball is still a weird sport for them to attend. Football is a game with five seconds of action followed by a minute of inaction. Perfect time to lead some cheers. Game specific cheers, even, like “Sack that quarterback, yeah, sack that quarter back!” or “First and ten, yeah, do it again.”
Volleyball is the opposite, where a rally might take thirty seconds and then another one starts ten seconds later. What are they going to cheer? “That was a block! Hickory Dickory Dock!”
As a result, the volleyball cheerleaders sat in the corner for most of the game. The only times they cheered was during a handful of timeouts. In each set, there’s one media timeout and two team-specific timeouts, although in the game we watched, each team only used one. These timeouts are one minute long, so the cheerleaders don’t even come out to the middle of the court. They stand up, sway a little, shake some pom poms, make one of those human payramidy things, then sit back down.
I did not feel led to cheer.
You know who did some good cheering? The volleyball players!
It’s a great sport where they congratulate each other after each point scored and give each other a “we’ll get ’em next time” after each lost rally. The girls not currently on the court have cheers and dances catered to what’s going on in the game. At this particular game, whenever there was a video review (something that seemed odd considering there was only one camera), the bench players got down on their stomachs and wrapped their hands in front of their eyes as if they were spying on a lion in a safari. Great and timely. And when the review came back in Sacramento’s favor, you know what we did? We cheered.
Plus, the volleyball players were cuter than the cheerleader.
Not that that matters.
Except it kinda does.
No, I’m not going to question or hint at the sexual orientation of the players. But if I were to… Aren’t volleyball players, of all the major women’s sports, the most likely to be heterosexual?
Except for cheerleaders, maybe.
But now, after commenting on the relative attractiveness and sexual orientation of various female athletes, let me state why my initial observation wasn’t sexist.
I wonder what those volleyball players think about the cheerleaders.
This wasn’t intramurals. While Sacramento State ain’t exactly a volleyball powerhouse, it’s still Division I. Considering there’s no professional volleyball (side note, why is there no professional volleyball?), Division I college is pretty much the pinnacle of that sport. I imagine those players worked their asses off to get there. They were probably not only the best volleyball player in their high school, but maybe their entire district. They’ve probably been going to practices for ten to fifteen years.
The cheerleaders, meanwhile, had to… be willing to wear short skirts and wave some pom poms.
Yes, I know cheerleaders have to be fit. They practice and prepare. Most are excellent dancers that memorize complicated routines. Even if those routines consist of the same moves over and over. Some might even be at the school on a scholarship.
But these weren’t those cheerleaders. It was a Saturday on a college campus. The A-squad, and probably the B-squad and C-squad, were all with the football team. This group were the ones who couldn’t figure out an eight-count.
At one point, they did a cheer that went (in the same cadence as counting 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7): S-A-C (Space) S-A-C-R-A-Men-To. Meaning they weren’t really leading cheers for the college, but for chewable mint candies.
So I have to assume the volleyball players rolled their eyes at these cheerleaders. Said, “Do what youre gonna do, ladies, but we’ll keep the crowd excited on our own, thanks.”
Meaning my initial comment WASN’T sexist.
Everything that came afterward? I claim no responsibility.
The Writing Wombat 