This one's for the girls

Steph and I were recently in Pelham to see one of our friends.

Her oldest daughter, Jamekia Dawson, is a rising junior who will play for the Pelham High basketball team this season. Mekia is the kind of young lady that every school loves to have - smart (an ‘A’ average), funny and polite. She’s a great player, too.

We’ve kind of adopted her as our niece - even though she’s an Alabama football fan. She’s talking about a career in journalism. I could see her being the next Robin Roberts or Linda Kohn.

Anyway, Mekia recently wrote a report for one of her classes about “Sexism in Professional Basketball.” I asked her to let me take a look at it. Hopefully she received an ‘A’ because she deserves it.

She offers several good talking points about a controversial subject. I’ve included her report below:

Today in the United States, a new era in women’s basketball is beginning. Although this phenomenon is taking place, many fail to take note of this due to many people still believing that women athletes aren’t as good as men athletes.

In my opinion, this is a sexist statement. There are plenty of women athletes that are just as good as the men, such as L.A. Sparks superstar Candace Parker, who was nominated Rookie of the Year in her 2008 season with the Sparks, and Katie Smith of the Detroit Shock, who last year led the league in three-point shooting. Sure, they don’t have the high amounts of testosterone as men, but there are women who have more heart and perform better (without steroids) than men.

The viewing of professional sports is what brings sports-crazy Americans together (and what separates professional women and men athletes.) It’s absurd that TV stations such as ESPN and ABC play nearly every second of the NBA season and only a small percentage of the WNBA season. I’m not sure about the other 300 million Americans in this country, but I get tired and bored of seeing NBA games with the men dunking every game. It’s almost predictable who is going to make it to the playoffs every year.

On the other hand, the women’s game is entirely different. In my opinion, the women’s games are more exciting because you never know who is going to pull off the upset or in some cases, even occasionally dunk. Why can’t ESPN, ABC or any other TV stations show all of the men and women’s games? It would give us short-attention spanned Americans more entertainment throughout the year and give the WNBA more publicity for the women. And besides, the leagues do not have conflicting schedules, considering that the NBA is during the winter-spring sports season and the WNBA season is mainly during the summer months.

I also realized that money runs everything in the sports world. Unfortunately, women are not paid nearly as well as the men. According to www.chacha.com, the average starting salary for WNBA players is $37,000, compared to the average NBA salary of about $5.6 million per year. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that those two salaries aren’t even close to comparing. It is utterly ridiculous that NBA players are being pad that much more money just to bounce a ball.

As a bonus, endorsements often occur with many of the professional athletes. Large scale companies such as Nike, Adidas and Gatorade only seem to look out for mainly the NBA players and not the WNBA. Sure, Candace Parker got a deal with Gatorade (according to www.volunteertv.com), but the endorsement is only filling their pockets and not hers. Many companies think that women shouldn’t be endorsed only because they get a better profit from the men and not the women. Maybe if Nike or Adidas would actually notice raw talent instead of huge dollar signs in their eyes, then the women would be endorsed more, and not struggling with their salaries.

Through all of this injustice, I think it is amazing how these strong women play hard for their lousy salaries and endorsements. They make great role models for aspiring players like myself. Although this hidden injustice cannot be erased, maybe within the next 10 years or so the corporate sponsors of both leagues could make compromises to solve this important issue in the sports world.