It has been said over and over that women athletes are not tough enough and that the competition lacks the tenacity that makes male sports popular. In early November BYU and New Mexico’s women soccer teams proved this ideal wrong. The two teams played very aggressively making many dirty plays that one could expect to see in an MMA match. The game was filled with illegal elbows to the ribs, “accidental” punches to the face, and tackles intended to take out their opponent. Most newsworthy though was when New Mexico’s defender Elizabeth Lambert grabbed BYU forward Kassidy Shumway’s ponytail and threw her to the ground. Lambert was clearly out of line for her actions and they were very unsportsmanlike and even more unexpected because she was a girl. This story made headlining news on ESPN because of the nature of the game, if it weren’t for the fighting it probably would not even have been shown on TV. It is a sad reality that women’s sports need something extraordinary to happen to draw attention to the sport. Women athletes are rarely on ESPN for doing something good or performing well but as soon as a fight breaks out or there is a big scandal emerging it will become a story. Another example is in the WNBA in 2008 when the Detroit Shock and LA Sparks got into a brawl in the last five seconds of the game. This was probably the first WNBA fight and was newsworthy because of the fight not the game. To be fair even in male sports fights are always shown because that is what people want to see. The only difference is that fights are expected in a men’s game and uncalled for in a women’s game so society forgives male athletes much sooner than female athletes.
Catch the Action Here for the soccer brawl: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNmPybFK2_o
and here for the WNBA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7kyCwcuRbI
Eric Fenzke
Kin338I TU/TH 2-315
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2 comments:
Great article, I had heard that this soccer game was rough, but wow... #15 for NM was needed to be red carded a couple of times. She got away with a lot of stuff on the field. I would have to agree that it is shocking to see this kind of rough play in women's sports though I think that the media attention toward this kind of unsportsmanlike behavior would be the same regardless of gender because of how the actions relate to the sport; it is not normal to see this type of hockey contact in soccer.
Shawn Higgins KIN338i 2-3:15
Elizabeth Lambert did in fact crossed the line between playing rough and being violent.
I have played soccer for more than ten years and I have seen many, if not all the fouls that typically occur in a game. Unfortunately enough most fouls that happen in the field without the ball being present in the play are not caught by referees. Anyone could start a fight with someone without the referee noticing unless the ball is in play around the area where the fight takes place. As a matter of fact, this off ball behavior happens frequently in my soccer games and it is used as a form of intimidation towards other players.
Lambert did in fact deserved a red card during the game, yet it was not given to her (the fault happened when the ball was not around) but would it really be necessary to have Lambert get kicked out of soccer team at New Mexico University for this one day of intense aggressive behavior? Or should the referee(s) be fired for not being able to control the soccer field in a "fair play" as encouraged by FIFA?
-Hugo Alarcon-
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