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A rather ignorant sports fan wrote to Stuart Scott about women's athletics. The question and answer were published in a recent issue of ESPN The Magazine. Mike from Chicago asked ...
Please answer this for me, Stuart, and no PC crap: Why does ESPN insist on putting women's scores on bottom-line tickers? When real sports fans catch a score in passing, they think a major upset occurred, only to find out it was a women's game.Stuart Scott smacked the guy around a bit with his answer.
Mike, I don't do PC jive. You're saying men's college sports are important and women's are not? This is not a matter of your being right or wrong - it's a matter of your being ignorant. How's that for PC?There's a lot to take away from this and I will start with Mr. Scott. Stuart Scott is, simply, the best of the ESPN commentators and at this point I'm not sure anyone else even comes close. In the days following the glory years of SportsCenter, when Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann ruled the airwaves, the majority of the ESPN commentators were a bore. They all seemed to be a clone of one another. Not so Stuart Scott. He brought his personality to the job and was always a joy to watch. Of course, this isn't a sports blog so lets move on.
Mike from Chicago should learn that "importance" does not equal "popularity". As Scott further put it in his answer ...
We report women's scores because they're important. Because, like their male counterparts, the women who play have families who've invested years in their development. We value girls who want to play when they grow up as much as we do boys.In other words, just because a sport that involves men is more popular does not make a sport more important than those sports that involve women. We could talk about equality and its importance, but I fear the subject would be a bore to Mike and he would just fall back on the PC line.
Here's what really got on my nerves about Mike's the question. It's an appearance of our old friend, conservative outrage. ESPN wasn't broadcasting a women's game instead of a men's game. They weren't even treating it as more important. They were simply showing the score at the bottom of the screen. This is worthy of outrage?
Mike reminds me of the guy who calls an automated number and gets upset that they have to press one for English. These people aren't outraged that our government may have tortured people. They aren't outraged that conservative banking interests have brought our economy to its knees. They are outraged because they have faced the most minor of inconveniences. It's sort of pathetic if you think about it.
