I met Dany Heatley!

I have been following Dany Heatley for a few years now. He’s talented, good looking, a little cocky, and has a past, basically all things I’m attracted to. As soon as he was traded to the Minnesota Wild, I got one of his player shirts and looked at the schedule to see when the Wild visited Dallas, TX to play the Stars (closest NHL team to me in Oklahoma). February 4th was the date so once I got a friend to tag along with me, the planning began.

If I was going to drive all of this way to see ONE player, I figured I had to do something to get noticed. A sign was the best way I thought, and I wanted it to be clever and cute, of course. I picked the brightest lime green poster board I could find and sparkly cut out letters (typical). But what should it say? If you have not seen the Ottawa Ghost videos, check them out. There is a lot of language in them, just a warning. Well, he dubs over Dany’s interviews and he always says “I’m a f*cking all star” and I knew Dany has seen the videos so I figured that would be something to play off of the videos. I made the sign say “Dany you are my f-ing allstar”. I even got it laminated. I don’t do anything half way.

Some how we got into the American Airlines Center early.  I wanted to snag a good spot during warm-ups to show my sign on. I was just hoping Dany would even LOOK at the sign; I got much more than that.

My friend and I were just standing there and I hear some footsteps behind me. I turned around and there he was, DANY HEATLEY. I couldn’t believe it. What were the chances that he would have just walked out?! He started to head over, and then I told him I made a sign for him and showed it to him. He smiled and told me “thank you”. Then we took a picture together. I told him that I have been following him from team to team the past few years. He went over to sign a kid’s jersey and then I asked him to sign my t-shirt. I had to borrow the kid’s sharpie. Then I asked for another picture because I didn’t like the first one. I said I came a long way to see him so I wanted a good picture. He didn’t hesitate to take another one with me and then he said “thanks for coming out”. I asked for a hug, he hugged me and then he went back to the locker room.

THEN I FREAKED OUT!!! I was shaking. I called my mom right away! I went into total fan girl mode.

Warm-ups came, and my sign was quite the hit. I got a lot of looks from the Wild players. My friend kept telling me that people were talking pictures, pointing and looking at it. I even made it on the jumbo tron with it!

The game was great, and we had amazing seats. Dany had eight shots on goal, but didn’t score. Wild lost the game in a shoot out, but made it out of there with one point.

I could have floated home yesterday! The weekend was perfect in every way, and I MET DANY HEATLEY! My next sports trip might be hard to top this one; the bar was set pretty high.

Senior Project Done!

I’m done with my project. I turn it in today and all that’s left if to show it off at the senior project fair on April 27^th. This project went better than I thought it would. I love that some of the posts took a different direction. My goal was to address the issues that female fans face and make people aware. The other goal was to show how awesome and knowledgeable female fans are and the female fan profiles turned out way better than expected. I feel like I achieved what I set out to do. I wanted to do 14 posts and I ended up with 24 because of the popularity of the profiles. This project was perfect for me; it was something that I love and I put all of my heart into it. I can say that this project is best work I have done at The University of Tulsa.

I want to thank some people because I couldn’t have done this without help. I’ll start off with thanking my Uncle Joel for coming up with the name for my blog. Chris Plank and Jeremie Poplin for having me out to a remote and in the studio. Kelly Hines for going out to lunch with me, talking with me and doing the profile. You’re a great role model to me. Craig Baker for writing me two posts and giving me some great insight and material. Thanks to all the women who did the profiles, they turned out great. Thanks to my parents for helping with costs and post ideas. Thanks to my advisors, Dr. Jensen and Dr. Brewin. Last but not least to Doug Houvener, you helped me the most out of anyone and really supported me. I couldn’t thank you enough!

I will keep blogging even though the project is done. I’ve enjoyed this too much to stop now.

Sexist Language in Sports

Sexist language, especially in sports is something that has bothered me for quite a while, and both men and women do it. I see it and hear it a lot. This player is a pussy, bitch, or a faggot; he hurt his vagina, you throw like a girl, he cried like a little bitch, the list goes on.  People make a player’s name into a feminine one, like turning Sidney into Cindy. I hear people watching women’s sports calling the players hoes, bitches, cunts, dikes, etc. Why is it that in order to cut down or talk crap about another player we have to compare him to a female, a homosexual, or a sexual object? I know it’s how we have all been conditioned; we grew up with what a man and a woman are supposed to be and the gender roles they are supposed to fulfill. Society devalues women’s traits and roles in life & in sports. If the worst thing you can call a male is a bitch or a pussy and comparing him to a woman, then what are you saying about women here?  This sexist language is bothersome to me, because I hear it all around me– even during this project from men who were helping me with this blog. They don’t even know they’re doing it. When I went to 1430 the Buzz’s studio in February Chris Plank asked for female callers to call in since I was in the studio, and the very next caller called in and said “we already have female callers call in, OSU Justin and USC Brian”. No one even flinched but me. Not five minutes later as I was talking to the guys about this, someone comes in and they tell them about my project and he says “oh I see why you’re here then, you’re talking sports with two females right now”, needless to say I was not amused.   I heard it the other day when I was at a baseball game. The on field DJ was talking during a dizzy bat race between a boy and a girl. The girl was whooping up on the boy and the DJ humiliates the poor boy by yelling “you’re gonna let a girl beat you?”

More and more women are becoming fans and want to work in the sports business and just have to deal with this language that is offensive and misogynistic. I went out to dinner with a guy friend and we were talking about this. He told me sports have always felt like a guy’s locker room, women were not allowed and they’re used to saying what we want, no matter how offensive or sexist. He felt it was wrong though.

Language is created by the world we live in. Next time you call Sidney Crosby “Cindy”, think about what you’re really saying.

Images of Women in Sports Media

I logged onto a sports radio station’s website because I wanted to listen to their station while I was at work. I was horrified by what I saw. There were a lot of scantily clad women on the page, and only one had to do with sports except for the cheerleaders and surfers they have on the page now. The thing that surprised me so much was the tab they had at the top of the page entitled “Babe of the Day”. Underneath this tab you can chose from “Babe of the day”, “M.I.L.F of the day”, “Wet on the net”, “Get in the skin”, “Naughty Girls”, and “Thong of the day”. Now, they have this as a side bar as well as a tab. There are just as many half-naked women on there as there is sports news. I asked one of the radio personalities at the station about their website. I was told that the station does not have control over the site and that the company they belong to has a format for the site. I was also told that I was probably one of four women who had ever even logged onto the page and that media is content driven and that these scantily clad women were content. Click pictures to enlarge.

I then had an idea for this post. What if we placed scantily placed men in the same spots that these women were in? What do you think when you see this? I know men would have an interesting reaction if the next time they logged onto this site and saw this.

I saw this film documentary in a class two weeks ago called “Playing Unfair: The Media Image of the Female Athlete” and it put things in a different light for me. The media does not treat female athletes any differently than women on this sports radio website. Pat Griffin makes a good point in this film:

“Who’s controlling the images that we see in the media, and I think particularly if you look at sports media, by and large, the decisions about what images are portrayed, what images are being used, who gets coverage, are still made by men. They’re part of the culture that sees women in a particular way. And so I think they prefer to see women athletes portrayed in a more feminine way, it’s more comfortable.”

Talking about people valuing women’s sports is another post for a different day, but I think they are tied together. What I’m trying to show is that women on these sites are not being shown playing a sport, cheering for a sport, or even have anything to do with sports. Mary Jo Kane talks about this in the film:

“[…] the images that you see of women being physically powerful and strong and contrast that to the images of women athletes as little sex kittens, it’s an enormous difference. And it is such a powerful contrast that I would argue that it is exactly why those images are suppresses. Because sport is all about physical, emotional, and mental empowerment. And so what do you do with all these women who are becoming great athletes and learning the lessons of empowerment and self respect and pride that you get from participating in sport? How are you going to keep that force at bay? And one way that you do that is to do a very time honored and tested mechanism of keeping women’s power at bay and that is to sexualize them, trivialize them, and marginalize them.”

I decided that if I was just going to show men in the same ways women are on this site then I was just sexualizing them and not really making a statement. I’m not saying there isn’t a place for sexy looking people, but if you apply the test of symmetry to this sports radio site it fails. Men and women are not being represented the same way on this site.

Here is how it could be, women and men both being known for their sports fandom, ability and knowledge of the game.

Can Your Favorite Player Be Hot?

I’ve never understood the assumption that just because a female thinks their favorite player is good looking that means they aren’t real fans, or knowledgeable.  When I did my female fan profiles, I did not see one of them put that their favorite part about sports was the hot guys. I know a lot of those women have favorite players that they think are good looking just like me, but these are hardcore fans we’re talking about here. We fell in love with sports first and the players later. I have about 6 or 7 players that I follow (3 are on teams I have loved since birth) and they are all attractive and that’s part of the reason they’re my favorites. Those are my boys and I am very loyal to them. It adds something more to the game that I already love.

I cheer for my team harder than most fans, but if Justin Abdelkader of the Detroit Red Wings (story of when I met him here) scores a goal watch out and plug your ears, or Brennan Boesch of the Detroit Tigers hits a homerun or a great play in the outfield, or if Rick Porcello also of the Tigers strikes someone out. You will never see anyone watch a baseball game as intensely as I do when Porcello is on the mound; nothing will distract me, phone is put to the side, all conversations stop. I live and die with every pitch.

There are many reason why people pick different athletes to be their favorites; personality, where they are from, and talent. Why can’t one of them be looks? Did a little Twitter poll and the answer I got was if the only reason you like your favorite is because of looks then you better know your stuff and the sport or you’re not going to be taken seriously.

I have a guy friend who loves Diana Taurasi, just for her looks. When she came to Tulsa to play the Shock he went to the game just for her. Does anyone think twice about that, call him a groupie, or question his knowledge? It’s okay for men to go to beach volleyball for the bikinis, but women can go to a baseball game for the baseball pants?

I know sports, I know my stuff, and my favorite players are hot so if you’re gonna question me you better know YOUR stuff!

Female Fan Profiles: Kristie (My Momma)

Kristie Kay Lacy

Teams: Detroit Tigers, Lions, Red Wings, Pistons, Tulsa Golden Hurricane, and Michigan State.

How long have you been a sports fan? I was born one!

What/who got you into sports? My dad, from watching Detroit Tigers and Lions game on television.

What’s your favorite part about sports? Going to the games, wearing the gear, talking sports with people, and guys liking that you like sports!

What is the biggest problem you encounter being a female sports fan? As a kid, sometimes the boys would not let me play!

Social Networking

My entire life, I had one female friend who was into sports like I was. She was a Dallas Cowboys fan and one of the only women I could talk football with. But then came Twitter—practically a self-controlled chat room where you can talk with a ton of people at once. Not only has Twitter given me Detroit fans to talk to, (since I am a 1^st born Oklahoman, but was raised a Detroit & Michigan State fan) but it has also given me something I have lacked my whole life: female fans to talk to. I’ve had a positive experience with male fans as well and I have not had much trouble at all being taken seriously. When I watch games we all watch together and talk about the games—bad calls, nice plays, everything.  I have a forum to talk all sports and I have had the pleasure to talk with fans all over the country and even in Canada & Norway.

During my spring break this year I went to Detroit, MI to go to a social media event/fundraiser called H2H2 (Herm to Hockeytown 2), revolving around a Detroit Red Wings game. I had only met 4 people in person the summer prior in Detroit before this trip. It was a chance for all of us who have been talking to each other (for some of us, quite a long time) to meet in person and hang out. The coolest thing about this event is that a few women helped plan it and there were a lot of women in attendance. It was so great for me to be at a game with female fans that were so knowledgeable about the game. I wasn’t even the person who traveled the furthest; I came from Oklahoma, others from Arizona and North Carolina and one from Norway.

Not only has Twitter helped me with the having an outlet to talk sports, but it has helped me a lot with this project. I met Chris Plank from 1430 the Buzz, Kelly Hines, a sports writer for the Tulsa World, bounced ideas off all of my friends online, female friends volunteered to do profiles, and my friend Doug (who I have never met in person) set up my WordPress, made the logo and other graphic related things, has edited every post and has been a great sounding board for me. I think my whole project would have been different without Twitter and Facebook.

As a communications major, there is a lot of talk about the effects of social media on life. I can say without a doubt the effects have been a positive for me, not only in sports, but in my life.

Pictures from my trip to Detroit!