I had ambitious plans for summer 2014. My schedule was supposed to include traveling, sports writing, and accomplishing professional goals. Instead, an unexpected summer-long house guest (also known as my two-year-old niece) turned my world upside down.
For every parent out there, you know exactly what happened next. In the beginning, our relationship was rocky. She wasn’t used to me, and I wasn’t used to her. However, by the middle of the summer we bonded. Eventually, I looked forward to spending my afternoons at the zoo, the library, or playing rounds of mini golf in the backyard. Our evenings, which I previously spent writing, became a choreographed dance of flipping television channels back and forth between her favorite programs and mine. She patiently paid attention to my preferred sports programming, and together we sat side-by-side and watched women’s sports history unfold.
We saw the WNBA become the first professional sports league to celebrate the LGBT community with its WNBA Pride initiative. We beamed while watching Michele A. Roberts smash the glass ceiling by being elected as executive director of NBAPA and the first woman to lead a men’s professional sports league’s players union. We applauded former UCLA women’s basketball guard, Natalie Nakase, as she joined the NBA’s LA Clippers’ summer league coaching staff. And we cheered forMo’ne Davis as she threw strikes at the Little League World Series, and shared her dream to play in the WNBA.
In each passing moment, I yearned for more free time to cover those stories and share my voice with the world. In the end, I realized that the most important person who needed to hear my thoughts about women in sports and “The Summer of Firsts” was sitting right next to me.
While she was too young to understand my commentary or the magnitude of what was transpiring right before her eyes, I could not help but imagine my little niece becoming the next Roberts, Nakase, or Davis. Although, I quickly realized when her generation reaches Davis’ age in 2025 or graduates from college in 2033, these “firsts” will be a distant memory. Not because we will have forgotten about them, but it is my hope they are common place.
“Every time we have a ‘first’ we break a new barrier, we open a new door,” said legendary women’s basketball coach, Lin Dunn, moments before she accepted the Boost Mobile Pioneer Award at the WNBA’s 2014 Inspiring Women Luncheon. “Every time we break a glass ceiling, something good happens for women.”
What have you told your son or daughter about gender diversity, women in sports, and “The Summer of Firsts?”
Do they know that opportunities for gender diversity in sports start the moment when someone speaks powerfully and explains that they can accomplish anything regardless of their gender? Do they know that the WNBA exists solely to provide opportunities for young talented athletes to fulfill their dreams? Do they know about the league’s brand charter, which states that WNBA athletes are messengers of what women and sport can do for society?
Veteran Democratic political strategist, Donna Brazile, discussed gender diversity during her address at the Inspiring Women Luncheon. She commented that sports taught her how to face uncertainty, take risks, and power forward. For Brazile, gender diversity is not about replacing men, but asking them to “scoot over and make room.”
By making room, we create opportunities for talented women such as Becky Hammon, to advance from being a 16-year WNBA veteran to becoming the first full-time and paid assistant female coach in NBA history.
“Women continue to do great things, and there is no reason why women cannot be in the mix when it comes to things of the mind,” said Hammon to FORBES.com when asked about her journey from WNBA player to NBA assistant coach.
“I thank the original pioneers who made a way for the WNBA. Everyone wants to jump ahead to the Spurs chapter, but let’s not forget the previous chapter and the groundwork that was laid before I ever stepped foot on a WNBA court. To me that is always the bigger message, people have done greater things.”
Tonight, as the WNBA Finals enters Game 3 (8 PM ET, ESPN2) and the 2014 season gradually comes to an end, another chapter in women’s sports history will be made. Consider watching the finals with your son or daughter – tell them about what’s possible when the sports landscape is open and available for strong, powerful women to participate. One day, I know I will sit down with my niece down and tell her again and again about the summer when we watched women in sports make history.
