It’s 2022. Time to give female sports phenoms Valieva, Clark, and Rodman our attention | Opinion
A February 2022 Sports Quiz:
What is the name of the Russian 15-year-old figure skater who just became the first woman in history to land a quadruple jump at the Olympics?
What is the name of the University of Iowa women’s basketball player who has scored 40-plus points three times this season, including twice in the past three games?
What is the name of the NBA Hall of Famer’s 19-year-old soccer-playing daughter who just signed a $1.1 million contract with the Washington Spirit?
If you are like most typical American sports fans, you probably couldn’t answer any of those three questions without checking Google. That’s a shame.
It’s 2022. According to the latest statistics, 43 percent of high school athletes are female, and 40 percent of college athletes are female.
And yet, Kamila Valieva, Caitlin Clark and Trinity Rodman remain relative unknowns compared to the male stars who dominate sports media coverage and the social media universe.
Last week, Feb. 2 to be exact, marked the 36th annual National Girls & Women in Sports Day. The annual celebration honors the accomplishments of female athletes. It also inspires girls and women to play sports and be active, to realize their full power and become strong leaders in sports and life. This year’s event also kicked off the Women’s Sports Foundation’s commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of Title IX.
Title IX, the groundbreaking gender equity legislation, is most famous for its impact on expanding opportunities for women and girls in sports. In 1972, there were just over 300,000 women and girls playing college and high school sports in the United States. Now there are more than 3 million. Back then, only one in 27 girls played sports. Now it is one in five.
I never played a high school sport. My daughter played 14 years of soccer, club and high school. Aside from the fun she had and friends she made, she became more confident and learned lifelong lessons about goal setting, teamwork, time management, sacrifice, winning and losing with grace, and running toward the ball not away from it.
Although we are a week late (Hey, it’s Miami, we’re not known for punctuality), it seems a fitting time to recognize the recent achievements of Valieva, Clark and Rodman.
If you watch nothing else of the Beijing Winter Olympics, find a way to watch Valieva skate. Look her up on You Tube if you must and then mark the calendar for Feb. 15 and Feb. 17, which is when the teen sensation competes. She will skate a long program with three (yes, three!) quadruple jumps in it. A quad jump is one in which the skater launches in the air and does four rotations before landing. Last week, during the team competition, she became the first woman ever to land a quad at the Olympics.
Midori Ito of Japan was the first woman to land a triple axel at the Olympics in 1992, which was remarkable at the time. What Valieva is doing is even more mind-blowing. She has already recorded nine world record scores in her short career. Although she has not yet won the Olympic gold medal, the combination of Valieva’s leaping ability and balletic grace have experts calling her the greatest figure skater of all time.
Read that again. The greatest figure skater of all time. At 15. Don’t miss her.
As for Clark, the Iowa basketball player, chances are good that if a male college basketball player from a Top 25 team had scored 40-plus points three times this season and averaged 38.7 points, 9.3 assists and 6.3 rebounds over three games last week he would be a household name by now.
Clark is well-known in women’s college basketball circles, but she is worthy of far more recognition.
The sensational sophomore guard on Sunday scored a career-high 46 points and had 10 assists in a 98-90 loss to 6th-ranked Michigan. She was 10-of-20 from the field, 6-of-13 from three and played all 40 minutes. Clark has seven double-doubles on the season and five triple-doubles. She became the first player in college basketball history to record 30-point triple-doubles in back-to-back games.
She led the nation in scoring as a freshman and earlier this season reached the 1,000-point milestone in the second-fewest games in NCAA history. The only player to get there faster was WNBA MVP Elena Delle Donne when she was at Delaware.
ESPN analyst Jay Bilas wrote on Twitter: “Iowa’s Caitlin Clark is the most exciting player to watch in college hoop, male or female. She is a straight-up baller!”
Clark, who grew up in Des Moines, has become a hometown hero and the Iowa women’s basketball team Twitter account (@IowaWBB) is a must-follow for her highlights. Yesterday’s caption: “No literally…we’re out of caption ideas at this point.”
Finally, Rodman, daughter of former NBA star Dennis Rodman, just re-signed with the Spirit for four years in a deal worth $1.1 million, according to the Washington Post. If so, it is the richest deal in NWSL history.
The Newport Beach, California native was drafted second overall in the 2021 draft and was named league Rookie of the Year after scoring seven goals with seven assists, including on the championship-winning header by Kelley O’Hara.
Rodman was also voted U.S. Soccer Young Player of the Year after scoring nine goals for the United States in the Under-20 CONCACAF Championship. On Monday, she was added to the U.S. national team roster for the upcoming She Believes Cup, which kicks off Feb. 17.
Will she ever be as famous as her father? Probably not. But this young soccer talent is worthy of notice on her own merit.
Tune into the Olympics next week. Tune into the next Iowa women’s basketball game. Tune into the She Believes Cup. And remember those three names. It’s 2022.
