March Madness: Inaugural Ballers and how the first Women's Olympic Basketball Team paved the way for future generations of female athletes

        Last week I attended a fantastic high school basketball game that featured two of Wisconsin's top ranked teams,.  With stunningly athletic NCAA Division 1 prospects, salivating college coaches, rowdy student sections, and an electric tension in the air, the game was an instant classic.
        Flashy ball skills, hard nosed defense, artful assists, knock down 3 point shooting peppered the see-saw battle that  Wisconsin's major newspapaper, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal was onhand covering.
Who were the guys that were playing?
Step back, fellas, this was a girls game!
There's no denying how far women's baketball has come in the years since I was a high school zip in the late 1980's.  Back then,  the student section was reserved for the guys games, and if memory serves me corretly, many of the gyms would only pull out one side of bleachers for the girls games.  Talk about disrespect!
        Thankfully, we now get to catch our local high school girls under bright lights and packed gyms!  And they are living up to their hype every night. In fact, one can't watch female athletes now without marveling at their athleticism--and its not just basketball.  Teens today have grown up in an era peppered with amazing female athletes like Brittney Griner, Mia Hamm, Danica Patrick, Serena Williams, and Allyson Felix dominating their respective sports.  But it's easy to have a short memory, lack a retrospective eye, and forget how female athletes were treated not too long ago.   Lack of equal opportunity, recognition, appreciation, and respect are just some of the ways women have been slighted or minimalized in their sports in the recent past.
       Today's young girls are not only talented athletes, but they listen carefully, watch attentively, and are keenly aware how society treats female athletes.  Self reflective opinions are formed in elementary school gyms, and the attitudes these girls develop about sport and how they fit in this world in their youth may influence how they see they world as a teen and adult.  
       Veteran author Andrew Maraniss, in his latest book Inaugural Ballers:  The True Story of the First US Women's Basketball Team, explores an evolutionary period of history in women's sports.  More specifically, Maraniss explores the impact that the 1976 US women's basketball team had on the trajectory of females in sports.   Maraniss uses this event and the members of that 1976 squad to illustrate the fortitude of these women athletes, how they fought for the same respect as men, and just how profound an impact these players and their medal  performance had on future generations of female athletes.
       With Inaugural Ballers, Maraniss is not just speaking passionately to young female athletes, but he's  educating them in hopes they become influencial catalysts of change.  There's a certain "passing of the torch" message that resonates in this book, and an inspiring plea to today's female athletes that they build on the progress and sacrifies that previous generations of athletes have made.
         It's no secret that I have long been a fan of Andrew Maraniss as YA author.  You can look back in this blog for enthusiastic discussions of his previous books.  Inaugural Ballers is no different, written in classic Maraniss style, bringing lively prose onto the court with essential facts and fascinating back stories.  The book is full of great photos to compliment the text that give some visual orientation that younger readers crave.  Maraniss is a meticulous reseracher and tells his story with colorful details that appeal  to the mind and senses, which  is his trademark skill in successfully connnecting with the young adult audience.
        Maraniss has long been a voice for those athletes fighting for respect and social justice.  In his previous works, Maraniss has brought light to the likes of Perry Wallace, the first African American basketball player in the SEC,  and Glenn Burke, the first openly gay MLB player.  What makes Maraniss so relevant and remarkable as a YA nonfiction writer, is that much like his subjects, he is not afraid to take on shadowed topics and start tough conversations about issues that, quite honestly, young adults are increasingly trying to be hidden(some call it "protected") from.
     Maraniss is the gold standard when it comes to sports nonfiction for teens, and his expansive catalog of books faithfully accomplish the following objectives for teens:
1.   Honor the history and the pioneers of the sport and the impact on development.
2..  Educate on where things stood in the past, where they currently stand, and what the future can look like in the sport.
4.  Understand how certain athletes not only were trailblazers for their sport, but how they overcame obstacles, whether personal or societal, to advance the sport.
5.  Introduce, fairly, colorfully, and accurately, people and events that impacted the development of the sport or person.
5.  Provide motivational and thematic lessons generated from the content that young readers can unpack and take with them to use not only in their sport, but in their lives.
 
     Some highlights from my dog-eared pages of Inaugural Ballers--ones that I'm sure your patrons will appreciate- are this:
Be the heroine of your life, not the victim  These were the thoughts of Pat Head when she came back to school with a Silver World University Games medal in 1973.  While she was stunned by the respect she received, it was clear the message for female athletes was that if you want respect and change, you must be proactive.  This is such wise advice for today's girls.  It may not be fair to have to fight harder than the guys for respect--but as the 1976 Olympic squad demonstrated, staying silent has no benefit either.  
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Mom said sports aren't for girls- This is the sentiment that Nancy Lieberman's mom passed on to her when she displayed an affinity for playing sports.  Even in 1976, female athletes were often referenced as "manlike" and those athletically skilled were viewed with a sexist skepticism.  Lieberman found a safe haven and acceptance in sports, and her story represents the history of sexist discrimination against women athletes in the Olympics and the pressure the team felt in repreesenting a new generation of female athletes, constantly having to prove themselves as not only worthy athletes, but as females who were "normal" in the public eye.

Female athletes bearing the burden of the sport on their shoulders
Before a huge semifinal game that would ensure a medal, Coach Moore delivered a passionate speech that stressed the significance not only of the history they would be making, but the path that they would cut for future female athletes in envisioning themselves climbing that mountain toward recognition, respect, and equality in sports.  While this may have been inspiring, it had to be truly intimidating for the girls to realize that every game could be a defining moment on the success, funding, and recognition for their sport.  Not only did they bear the burden of gender bias, but their contingent success could possibly dictate the future path of the sport itself for females.

"She searched her school library for books on women athletes and found none." 
This Lieberman library experience may be one of my most soul searching anecdotes from the book.  As a librarian, not only do I put a lot of stock in the impact of sports books, but I feel that a good sports collection is one that represents a fair mix of sport, race, and gender.  This story about Lieberman actually made me go back to my nonfiction sports collection and take a peek at my representation of women.  Not only was I pleased that I had a strong female representation in my collection, but I was amazed by the breadth and quality of literature about female athletes circulating, spanning a breadth of sports from basketball, softball, running, tennis, golf, surfing, and so on.   Clearly this is a bigger topic for another day, but this is the kind of soul searching as a librarian that one does after encountering a line like this.  ​

       The week before Christmas. our girls basketball coach stopped by my library and asked for a book gift suggestion for his 7th grade daughter who is a basketball nut.  Playing AAU ball since third grade, she lived through her dad's State Championship run 2 years ago and models her game after his future UCONN star recruit KK Arnold.  A classic "gym rat", female style!  I immediately gave him a copy of Inaugural Ballers to check out, and as he beamed after the holidays,  it proved to be more than enlightening to his daughter!   A girl like this is clearly in the wheelhouse of the audience Maraniss is intending to connect with, and one wouldn't have to look hard to find others girls like her to recommend this book to.

         I've said this before, and I'll say it again:  We need Andrew Maraniss more than ever to keep writing books like this.  In fact it's imperative, because if someone doesn't speak to the next generation of athletes like Inaugural Ballers spoke to the Germantown coach's daughter, these kids will never know the full story, and sadly, may never realize their full potetial.

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