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WAY TO GO! LEARNING TO MOVE MOUNTAINS: TRIBUTE TO A SOCCER MOM "The kind of people that move mountains, Shasta, are the kind that can't take no for an answer".---My Mom, Cathy Walker, summer 1994.
Hi Women's Soccer World,
Being a "Soccer Mom" isn't just about running a taxi service, writing out checks, scraping mud off cleats, or being a swing-voter in the last presidential election. It's about helping your daughter discover confidence, strength, courage, and endurance through sports and carrying it over to other parts of her life.
In the summer of 1994, when I was eleven, my Mom handed me an insert from
our local paper. "Check this out," she said.
I flipped through it...page after page of advertisements and team pictures of all the local little league baseball teams. I kept turning pages, thinking that soon I would see pictures of the softball teams, and my own face proudly looking back at me. It wasn't there. "Mom, where are the girls' teams?" I asked.
"I don't know, but I'm going to talk to Frankie face to face this time. And you're going with me!" Frankie was the sports editor of our local paper. The paper rarely covered any girls' sports. I should know. My Mom had assigned me the project of clipping all articles and pictures of local boys' and girls' sports and filing them by gender.
Frankie was accustomed to Mom's frequent calls, but Mom wasn't accustomed to being brushed off. Mom had grown tired of the endless reasons that our local paper could not include girls' softball in its sports coverage. "The interest just isn't there. You're the only one that calls about this." "I just don't have the manpower to cover the girls' games." "There just isn't enough space to include articles on girls' softball."
With me in tow, Mom began visiting Frankie. It's much more difficult to brush someone off if they're standing at your desk, and more difficult still, if they force you to see an issue from the eyes of a child with the child standing right there. Frankie melted. He supplied Mom with a cheap 35 mm camera, and Mom submitted photos and write-ups of the four state-bound girls' softball teams for free. They appeared as only one or two paragraph blurbs in the paper with an occasional picture. In the meantime, reporters and photographers were paid to cover the boys' all-star, district, and state games. They received huge write-ups and pictures. The boys'
newspaper photos and clippings filled two accordion folders and the girls' clippings wouldn't fill an envelope.
And this was progress...
"Mom, look at this! Do you know what this means?" I was stunned. I had avoided thinking about the bad implications for girls that this disparity represented. I felt defeated. But to Mom, it represented something else entirely.
Mom sat in the chair next to me and the pile of clippings. She looked directly in my eyes. "Some girl, somewhere, couldn't take no for an answer. She picked up a bat and ball, and she took millions of girls with her to play."
She leaned in closer, tapping the tiny pile of girls' clippings. "A mother and daughter picked up a camera, pen, and paper, and they introduced a few thousand people to these girls who play. The kind of people that move mountains, Shasta, are the kind that can't take no for an answer."
That summer and fall, Mom moved mountains. She continued to take pictures and write articles on girls' soccer, softball, and basketball---free of charge. The one or two paragraph blurbs became several paragraph articles with photos. She made sure the University of Arkansas was faxing women's athletic information to our local paper, then she would follow up the faxes with phone calls to Frankie wanting to see it in tomorrow's paper. Today, our local paper covers girls' and womens' sports with the same enthusiasm as the guys.
Never, NEVER, take NO for an answer!!!
Shasta © Women's Soccer World May/June 1997 |
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