Random thoughts after Week 1 in Rio

We are one week into the Rio Olympics and I have some thoughts-- well, a lot of thoughts, but here are some serious (and not so serious) personal highlights. I'll focus on the big three that sociologists like to think about: gender, class, and race.

One aspect of the gendered coverage I am less convinced by though is the motherhood. If you'd ask me in 2008 I likely would have given you a   different reaction, but the fact is that I have created two human beings since then. And, honestly, I am in AWE that people like Kerri Walsh Jennings and Dana Vollmer (Girl, I totally noticed in an NBC interview when you commented on when your *first* child was born-- could you possibly be swimming pregnant?! Walsh Jennings did do just that in London...) had children who are younger or the same age as my youngest and they are performing at the top of the world, sometimes better than before. Now, don't get me wrong, it's not like my body could do what they did before childbirth anyway. But I DO find it noteworthy that they are physically so amazing not that far removed (months!) from pregnancy and labor/delivery. Additionally, they sure ARE making a big deal out of Boomer Phelps and Michael Phelps being a new dad, so I think parenthood is a big trope and the reality is that Phelps didn't grow Boomer, so this is legitimately a big deal. And if anything shows how insanely powerful women are.

  • Class is the unspoken element in much of life, but especially in the Olympic games. An overt mention came from an unlikely source for me: my personal favorite gymnast (for her personality/leadership more than her gymnastics style), Aly Raisman. During an interview with Bob Costas after her 2nd place finish to fellow teammate, Simone Biles, Costas asked about the sacrifices they have made to get here-- like missed proms, Friday nights, etc. Raisman responded that in the end it's not a sacrifice because they were lucky to have *parents* (looking at you Al Trautwig) who not only paid for them to do this sport, but who COULD pay for them to participate. I rarely hear athletes, let along younger ones, mention this. It's clear Raisman's family is very well off (watch Gold Medal Families for evidence of this), but good that she pointed this out.
  • As the Games progress class and race become more entwined, especially as we move from swimming to track in Weeks 1 and 2 (Note though the historic swim[s] by Simone Manuel though- unfortunately complete with offensive headline!). The racial background of all the participants, and especially the Americans, changes noticeably. Some attribute this to the cost-- it costs "nothing" to run, but you have to have access to a pool to swim, for example. But this is changing.

Already since Track & Field began we have a new gender story emerging-- the father/daughter pair, and coach. In general this is more positive as it shows fathers investing in their daughters, a change Title IX helped enable. One big story that already occurred, on night 1 in a Field event was Michelle Carter in the shot put. Her coach is her father, Michael Carter, who won silver in the same event in 1984, making them the first father-daughter duo to medal in the same event. There are a whole bunch of other firsts associated with this duo (check some out here) and the backstory on her getting started in the sport, as relayed here, is fascinating. Look for more NFL father/coach and Field daughter stories as Vashti Cunningham makes her debut later this week...

One of the things I liked about Carter was her putting on lip gloss right after she won-- totally what I would have done, and taking NOTHING away from her incredible physical feats. It's important to remember this is a valid choice as well... But now I need to make some superficial remarks. I can't help it.

  • I couldn't find a picture but Costas was trying to power pose it the first few nights in studio and it was awkward. He's changed it now.
  • Katie Ledecky has one of the strangest hairlines I have ever seen. At first I thought it might be from a swim cap, but no one else has this so it must not be?! Her left side is soooo much further back than her right and it's all I can see when she isn't setting world records...

Katie Ledecky of the USA celebrates after winning the Women's 800m Freestyle at the London 2012 Olympic Games Swimming competition, London, Britain, 03 August 2012. Photo: Marius Becker dpa +++(c) dpa - Bildfunk+++

  • It simply cannot be possible that this Canadian synchro diving team couldn't find suits that actually fit.13942418_10206799600575204_62366869_n
  • When I watch tennis on Bravo and I see The Real Housewives of New Jersey promos, it reminds me that most of these women actually have no talent/skill. A mistake on Bravo's part to so clearly remind people of that?!

If you aren't following Leslie Jones on Twitter to get her thoughts on the Olympics (especially now that she is IN RIO), you are seriously missing out. SLAY ALL DAY USA!

 

Ready for Rio: Gold Medal Families

Today the Olympics officially begin! My whole family is very excited (Carston and I are especially psyched for gymnastics, and John for Track & Field, though Q is undecided...). IMG_8703

In honor of the Opening Ceremonies tonight I'm writing about Lifetime's docuseries Gold Medal Families.

The 8-part 1-hour each episodes followed 6 Olympic hopefuls (artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, two divers, a swimmer, and a boxer) on their road to Rio (or not). While at times I would have liked a longer focus on individual athletes (each segment compressed a lot of short snippets on different athletes), overall I found the series riveting.

l_gold_medal_families_premiere_key_art_horizontalThe things I liked:

  1. I love that the series focused on diverse families. We see immigrant families, a single-parent family, a same-sex family. We see only children, an adopted child, a mixed race child. We see families that are quite well off and families that aren't. You get the idea. In short, it shows America.
  2. I really liked that the show didn't just focus on the "star" children, but also the parents, and *most* importantly the siblings who made sacrifices themselves over the years. Some siblings, like Aly Raisman's brother Brett, seem heavily invested, while her sisters are less so (perhaps a same-sex dynamic at play there). Others train together. All miss out on time and money devoted to the Olympic hopeful, which is important to show.
  3. While some of the training in certain sports was shown more than others, I really enjoyed that they showed how hard these young people work both "in" their sport and outside of it. For example, the divers weren't just shown diving, but also doing gymnastics-like training using computers and mats outside of the pool. They also showed rehab and weight training for the swimmer, etc. This is one of the explanations for improved Olympic performances overall, so it was nice to see.
  4. Sadly, but importantly, it also showed those "left behind." Historically the Olympic stories focus on triumph and who makes it. Perhaps because this was about TRIALS it was inevitable that many would be left behind, but it is important to show. It appears most are young in their respective sports and will continue. Check back in four years.

Room for improvement:

  1. If a second season (or Winter Olympics edition) happens, I would have liked some explanation of how each of the five sports handle Trials. It's clear that some happen much earlier than the Games begin. Why? How does that impact preparation?
  2. Connected to that is that little context was given overall for how good these athletes were. (Spoiler alert!) Two of the athletes are in Rio, one not surprising at all, given she is a repeat competitor. But how realistic were the chances when only *one* rhythmic gymnast goes, for example, or only 2-4 swimmers in each event. We never get a sense of how many are vying for limited spots and if the featured athletes are contenders, almost sure bets, underdogs, or just getting experience.

For many athletes just making *any* Olympic Trials is a success. And for others, especially those outside the US, just making any Olympic team is a major success. While we will be focused on medal counts, and colors, the next fortnight, its' useful to remember those performances truly are extreme outliers.

Enjoy the Games, and lookout for another possible medal-worthy performance from Aly Raisman's parents!

 

Fantastic Lies and TRex: Documentaries and Sports in American Society

Wow, I haven't blogged in three months. Why? Most of my time has been taken up by the course I am teaching this semester, a large lecture class at Brown called Sports in American Society.

[It's not that I haven't been writing at all. I've published several book reviews in some of my usual outlets like Brain, Child and The Providence Journal.]

Basically if I'm not in class lecturing or leading discussing, I'm preparing to lecture or lead discussion, or meeting with students, or re-doing the course reading, or re-watching the course documentaries... And, yes, even reading/watching to tweak things for next year's iteration of the course.

In that vein I've recently seen two powerful documentaries that are each so good I just had to write about them. And if you plan to take my class next spring, know you will be watching them (one is so good it just might even make an appearance this semester).

  1. T-Rex

This is the story of Claressa Shields, a teenager from Flint, Michigan (yes, that Flint) as she struggles to make the 2012 Olympic team in women's boxing-- the first year women's boxing was ever offered at the Olympics.

I was lucky enough to get to see this at the Providence Children's Film Festival, where the Producer, Sue Jaye Johnson, spoke to audience members following the screening.

Claressa, who started boxing at 11, is a compelling character, so she plays a huge role in making the film work. But she is also surrounding by a compelling cast of characters (sister, parents, boyfriend, and most significantly, her coach and his family) who make the work sing. Their personalities combined with the long history of boxing and its connections to social mobility in this country (ok, yes, and also with violence) make this a film that will resonate within the sports community.

But T-Rex goes a step further in terms of linking Shields' story to issues of inequality, race, gender and universally admired themes like determination, hard work, and perseverance. For those reasons I not only want to assign it to students in my course next year, where we look precisely at sports through the lenses of race, gender, and history, but I suspect that when T-Rex is released on Netflix this summer it will make waves.

Not to mention that Shields' expected Olympic performance should help. She's already getting early press in NBC's Rio promos and it will be most interesting to see if endorsements ever come through for her, a la Gabby Douglas. At least this Olympic cycle, unlike last, there aren't any silly calls to have female boxers wear skirts (which I previously blogged about in my now defunct blog series Shrinking and Pinking).

2. Fantastic Lies

Fantastic Lies is the latest installment in ESPN's worthy series, 30 for 30. But Fantastic Lies takes it to another level as this documentary, directed by Marina Zenovich, is truly compelling. The pace, the presentation of evidence, the way the interviews are woven together combine to leave the viewer thinking, questioning, and, in my case, feeling gobsmacked at the end (particularly when it came to the updates on individuals involved with the scandal).

I think the only suggestion I would have made is that I wish they had covered a bit more about the history of lacrosse in North America, especially its Native roots, and how that relates and doesn't to its contemporary prep school links-- and how the Duke situation halted or helped the growth of lacrosse, acknowledged today as one of the fastest growing organized sports in the U.S.

In terms of how it relates to my course this quote about sums it up:

A former public editor for The New York Times explained why the Duke Lacrosse case was the perfect media storm.

I would add to this that it was a sport, an elite one at that, at a highly selective institution, which amplified things even more. Sports reflect, refract, transform, and multiply larger society and subcultures with which they are associated, as this documentary so eloquently shows. Look, you only need to check out all the memes last weekend from the Duke-Yale basketball game to see that these stereotypes remain unbelievably powerful.

So I'm hoping to show Fantastic Lies the last week of the semester, especially because one of the accused, Reade Seligmann, ended up transferring to Brown.

Stay tuned!

Pint-Sized Phenoms: Golden Teenaged Dreams

Some people just really luck out in the name department. Sixteen-year-old Arielle Gold recently won a bronze in snowboarding at the X Games.

Arielle Gold by Christophe Karabeva for EPA

Seventeen-year-old Gracie Gold came in sixth at the 2013 World Figure Skating Championships. But both will be aiming for gold at the 2014 Sochi Olymics.

Gracie Gold at 2013 World Championships by Tom Sczerbowski at USA Today-Sports

They won't be the only teenage stars gunning for gold in Sochi: seventeen-year-old Mikaela Shiffrin (who I've written about before) solidified her position as gold medal-favorite in Sochi when she won the world slalom title last month. [Another fun Pint-Sized Phenom update this month is that Caine Monroy, the nine-year-old cardboard arcade entrepreneur, inked a deal with William Morris!]

While fourteen-year-old racer Kaz Grala won't be able to compete in the Olympics, he is revving his engine for NASCAR, even though he is still quite young. Only an eighth grader he's expecting to go pro soon.

And because we don't want to forget non-athlete pint-sized phenoms, check out first grader Zora Ball. At seven, Zora is the youngest person to create "a full version of a mobile application video game." Perhaps Zora will challenge sixteen-year-old Lauren Marbe, who was just announced as having one of the highest IQs in the world.

Even without "Gold" in their names, it's clear that these pint-sized phenoms have golden futures. It's always amazing to keep track of such impressive kids in a variety of activities... Even if it is humbling!

Shrinking and Pinking: Shifting Sports

New shifts in sport have been all over the news lately. Danica Patrick is the first woman to shift into the pole position (the top qualifier) at the Daytona 500. And while the International Olympic Committee's unexpected and shocking decision to drop wrestling from the summer Games impacts more men than women, it's telling that women's wrestling was only recently added a few years ago. Lolo Jones is another summer Olympian facing a shift in sport. The hurdler announced in the fall that she was going to try her hand (or legs, I should say) at bobsledding. After making the team as a pusher, she actually won a gold at the World Championships late last month!

Lolo Jones competing in bobseld, Martin Meissner AP

It'd be pretty amazing to see her in Sochi after London; and hopefully no fourth place this time around.

Another London Olympian just made a sport shift as well. Canadian synchronized swimmer Tracy London has retired from her sport, but picked up a new activity. What is it? Pole dancing!

Photo by Celia Lavinskas

London and her company emphasize the health and acrobatics associated with pole dancing, and de-emphasize the other connotations. At least she isn't Suzy Favor Hamilton, right?!

While I usually emphasize female athletes here who are fighting or breaking barriers, male athletes often have to deal with difficulties and tough, sexist sports connotations as well. Here where I live in Massachusetts, male gymnasts were shocked when high school gymnastics was cut from the roster of approved sports. Even more shocking was that the spokesman for the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, Paul Wetzel, spoke derisively of it as a "girls' sport." His comments provoked a backlash-- but not enough of one to help save the sport, which will likely become a club endeavor.

Just goes to show that shifting (of attitudes) still needs to happen when it comes to male sports as well. Given his thoughts on girls/boys sports, I'm guessing Wetzel won't be rooting for Danica Patrick in the Daytona though (he might like London's "pole" position better)... But I will!