July 24, 2008 — Making a welcome return

A few months ago, I wrote about head field hockey coaches who stepped aside to become assistants at the schools whose programs they built.

Add another one to the list: a very special one.

Robin Woodie, who was the TopOfTheCircle.com 2005 United States Coach of the Year for taking Fredericksburg Stafford (Va.) to a state championship, will return to the Indians’ sideline as a varsity assistant coach. Only this time, she’ll have her daughter Danielle beside her.

Thing is, since Robin Woodie left the sideline after her championship season, the Indians have done reasonably well without her. Stafford made the state tournament in 2006 and 2007, and made the state final a year ago before losing to Virginia Beach Frank W. Cox (Va.).

Welcome back, Robin.

July 23, 2008 — Hard women, hard tackles, hard choices

In the last dozen or so years of the women’s sports revolution, you have seen the occasional adoption of characteristics of men’s professional athletics.

Last night, however, was something different.

When the Detroit Pistons and Los Angeles Sparks got involved in a melee at the end of their game, it was the manifestation of the characteristics of their coaches. But it was also perhaps one of the first signs that more and more games in the WNBA and in women’s pro sports, are being seen as competitive.

Let me explain. When the WNBA, WUSA, and National Pro Fastpitch were formed in the late 1990s on the backs of Olympic, World Cup, or world championship teams, not many fans of the Hamms and Lobos and Richardsons understood that their heroines would be competing against each other on a regular basis. This put people whose utter fascination with the national team prevented them from seeing, say, Mia Hamm and Brandi Chastain as competitors rather than teammates.

In other words, the average fan who came to a WUSA or WNBA or WPF match didn’t actually root for the club — they came to see one or two players, often on opposite teams. The effect was, when a good play was made, the fans would say, “Oh, isn’t that nice?” instead of giving a throaty cheer to encourage their team.

In addition, potential paying customers had to wonder how competitive the women’s pro sports leagues would be. You would think that, in a league in which superstar players are seeded amongst the teams, the teams are likely to be relatively even. This led to great competitiveness in the WUSA from 2001 to 2003.

On the other hand, I wonder if the Houston Comets’ dominance in the early days of the WNBA created a kind of cynicism that the league’s front office wanted Houston or New York or Los Angeles to win since the three players on most WNBA publicity gear from the early days were Sheryl Swoopes and Cynthia Cooper of Houston, Rebecca Lobo of New York, and Lisa Leslie from Los Angeles.

Now, I’ve seen plenty of competitive juices flowing from watching field hockey and lacrosse for a long time. And from my seat watching a couple of dozen Washington Freedom matches, I can tell you that there was a fierce competitiveness and rivalry brewing not only between teams, but also between and within two strata of players in the WUSA.

Before the league began, the WUSA designated anyone playing for the United States in the 1999 World Cup finals as a “League Founding Player.” This went from the front line all the way to the backup goalkeepers. As a result, you saw some internecine rivalries even within teams when LFPs either got injuried, slipped in their quality of play, or, in the case of Michelle Akers, never even played a game.

The two-tiered system, I think, was the worst possible thing for the WUSA. The U.S. national team, although revered, also had a handful of weak links. Other players who didn’t make the ‘99 roster had much stronger overall careers in the WUSA than some of the LFPs.

That being said, the league had some of the finest competition in the women’s sports revolution during the league’s final year, 2003. In that Founders’ Cup final between Washington and Atlanta, you had players fighting for every ball, tackle, and chance. And although the gorgeous Abby Wambach header is the lasting memory, you must remember that, two minutes earlier, Atlanta had a player sent off for a foul tackle.

Now, in National Pro Fastpitch, the games are indeed competitive — if you can find them. Teams have jumped around from the original Southeastern locations. Even today’s teams are hard to locate. The Washington, D.C. team plays its games on a high school field in Chantilly, Va. The Philadelphia team plays its games in a public park an hour north, in Allentown.

But part of the competitiveness comes from the fact that many of today’s softball superstars train together full-time for the national team and never set foot in an NPF stadium except for barnstorming matches. In other words, this arrangement robs people of the chance to see a Crystal Bustos bomb blast or Cat Osterman’s near-perfect windmill pitching style.

The WNBA, however, has integrated its star players into the league. It has matured enough so that the franchises have developed distinct personalities — not only from the collection of players, but from the coaches.

Consider, for example, the coaches for the Detroit Shock — Bill Laimbeer and Rick Mahorn. Consider also the head coach for Los Angeles, Michael Cooper. Neither of these three NBA veterans backed down from anyone or anything as players, and certainly their players didn’t back down from last night’s altercation.

Commentators around the blogosphere and in the newspapers may talk about the shame of it all, or that it was a publicity lever.

The way I see it, the WNBA — and women’s sports in general — have now begun to hit a competitiveness apex at which players are willing now to do anything in order to win. To me, that’s progress.

July 22, 2008 — One in a million … or billion

A dozen years ago, I wrote a column detailing which 10 regional athletes I thought might have an impact in future Olympics.

I did pick a goalie who had a supporting role for the U.S. women’s soccer team and a pair of ice hockey players, all of whom won gold.

The rest? Complete busts.

At least I have a better percentage than the nation of China, who has a pool of some 300,000 retired professional athletes, some of whom live as wards of the state. I heard a heartbreaking story this morning about skier Zhao Yonghua, who is diabetic, but her taskmasters for China’s national governing body kept making her train. She is now bedridden.

And starting tonight, HBO’s Real Sports is going to broadcast a segment about the physical toll on the athletes in the American gymnastics system.

So, when you’re being bombarded with all of the Olympic previews, hype, and stories of hometown glory, I ask you to spare a thought for those who didn’t make it.

July 21, 2008 — Because I’m a complete egghead

This came in the mail this evening.

Having been one of those little kids who could solve a Rubik’s Cube in under a minute, I’m quite happy now.

July 20, 2008 — Amongst the “artcars”

Every year I go to an outdoor street festival during which one of the prime attractions are a number of automobiles which are painted in a kaleidoscope of colors, festooned with objects, or altered in shape.

These are known as “artcars,” which are street-legal (at least, in most states) rolling works of art.

The first time I ever saw something like an artcar was back around 1986 in Cambridge, Mass., when I was walking to a friend’s apartment in January. The car had a color-block scheme resembling the artwork of Piet Mondran.

Now, there are many folks who customize their cars these days. You see it all the time on cable TV shows, where people alter the look of the cars, buy big stereos, big tires, metal-flake paint jobs, pinstriping, and elaborate artwork.

Artcars, however, are much different from lowriders or custom cars. For one thing, you can’t just pay a few thousand bucks and expect to get an artcar back from the paint shop. The artwork ranges anywhere from abstract to primitive. Some people develop themes for the cars, or have even taken the trouble to fabricate pieces, such as the Massachusetts telecommunications executive who drives a car that looks like a Princess desk telephone.

One extreme example of an artcar is the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir. Dozens of novelty robotic fish and lobsters have been mounted to a 1980s-era Volvo 240 DL and, with obviously more power than can be contained in one car battery (the owner uses several), creatures bob and weave and perform to songs ranging from The Hallelujah Chorus to Bohemian Rhapsody.

It’s quite impressive.

These cars are examples of dozens of such artcar enthusiasts around the country, many of whom are featured in a documentary called “Automorphosis,” which is surely coming to a film festival, public TV station, or independent video store near you.

In the film, one artcar enthusiast has not only festooned his van with pennies, he is wearing an Elvis jumpsuit fashioned out of copper pennies. A Mexican-American is driving a vehicle shaped like a reclining statue of the Virgin Mary, made completely out of license plates. Another one is a completely chromed 1970s-era Oldmobile.

And a man from Georgia created an artcar by mounting a number of horns — including a 20-foot-long ocean liner horn that can be heard up to 25 miles away — on its roof. One of the great moments of the documentary occurred whilst the artist was being interviewed. A neighborhood kid in the background was running through the shot with his fingers in his ears, in anticipation of a sonic blast from the car. “A well-trained kid,” I thought.

At the festival, I lounged in the artcar section with my friend Theresa and others, getting a kick out how people reacted to seeing the artcars. For some enthusiasts, that reaction is the payoff for all of that hard work.

It’s kind of the same with my fascination with vernacular jazz partner dancing. A woman stopped me at the drugstore the other day to compliment me on an outdoor demonstration a bunch of us had done recently. Normally, my self-deprecating personality doesn’t allow me to absorb the compliment.

But I walked a little taller and with a bit more confidence that day.

July 19, 2008 — Oops, my bad

The Spanish women’s field hockey team is going to Beijing after all.

The FIH announced early yesterday that the doping allegations against two players were not enough to invalidate their victory at the Baku qualifier in Azerbaijan this spring.

The statement said that Gloria Comerma, an attacker, had tested positive for an unnamed substance, but the FIH statement went on to say that “she established that there was no fault or negligence on her part.” A second unnamed player was tested, and no positive result came of it.

I find this interesting, in light of some of the daily results of doping tests at this year’s Tour de France. You see, it wasn’t so long ago that riders would evade suspension for substances found in their bodies, because it was the country of origin which had to revoke a rider’s privilege to compete.

That led to some interesting decisions on the part of national governing bodies. Italy’s cycling authories did not suspend rider Gilberto Simoni after he tested positive for cocaine during the 2002 Giro d’Italia, the world’s second-most prestigious stage race.

Today’s World Anti-Doping Agency rules make these kinds of shenanigans much harder. But it appears that these kinds of things are not idiot-proof.

For example, nobody has been able to explain why, when Floyd Landis made his winning move in the 2006 Tour de France, he tested negative for performance-enhancing drugs the day before and the day after the critical stage, but had positive tests the day of (which shouldn’t be possible, given the natural cleansing action of the body).

And nobody has yet been able to explain why the unnamed Spanish player had a “positive” test for some performance-enhancer just after defeating the host nation at the Baku qualifier, when the host Azerbaijanis had the most to gain.

With the Olympics coming up, there could be more charges and countercharges that could make some of the early 1970s-era anti-doping wars look like child’s play.

July 18, 2008 — Letting go of old technology

Yesterday I saw an interesting sight when I walked past the patio of a restaurant near my building. A woman had plugged in an old computer about the size of a small electric typewriter into an exterior electrical outlet and was cranking away on it, apparently getting something done with a stack of 3 1/2-inch floppy disks at her side.

The scene was kind of funny, given the fact that laptop computers with high-capacity batteries and hard drives, complete with WiFi capability, are affordable and available to most everyone.

I used to have designs on being able to make my own “tower of power,” but not the actual construction of a desktop computer. I instead wanted to be able to connect my laptop to a tower including a hard drive, a CD drive, and an optical drive, all in the Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) format.

Building that tower, over the course of a few years, were like building the Tower of Babel while Sisyphus was rolling a ball up its parking garage ramp. Yep, it was that frustrating. When technologies such as FireWire and the Universal System Bus (USB) came out, it was all over for SCSI.

Now, early last week, I saw something in an off-price computer store that made me shake my head. The item in question was a 16-gigabyte USB drive about the size of your thumb (which is why I call it a “thumb drive”), selling for about 100 bucks.

Not so long ago, purchasing 16 gigabytes worth of computer storage was a hefty, if not impossible, enterprise. Look at this chart to see how, over time, prices have gone down as capacity has gone up.

Look at the 1999.09 entry which shows a 16 GB hard drive for $379.98. Now, consider that $100 gives you the same storage space in a 60-gram device instead of a metal and plastic contraption the size of a brick.

Amazing, huh?

July 17, 2008 — The worst possible time

In the 33rd minute of last night’s U.S.-Brazil women’s soccer match, Abby Wambach collided with Andreia Rosa while contesting for the ball near the Brazil penalty arc. Though the camera panned away from the collision to follow the ball, I thought to myself, “This is a bad one.”

Early this morning, the worst was confirmed: a double-leg fracture, which will be surgically repaired this morning with a titanium rod.

It’s the fourth roster change that Pia Sundhage has had to make in the months leading to Beijing 2008. First, U.S. captain and legend Kristine Lilly got pregnant. Then, Leslie Osborne and central defender Cat Whitehill tore their ACLs. And now, this.

It’s not the first time this has happened to the U.S. team before a major competition. I was witness to Michelle Akers’ last competitive match, a scrimmage against Russia in College Park, Md., during which she hurt her shoulder. She left the team before Sydney 2000. Before the 2003 World Cup, Danielle Slaton, Siri Mullinix, and Shannon MacMillian had knee problems which were only compounded when Brandi Chastain broke her foot in the opener against Sweden. And Heather Mitts tore an ACL and Wambach broke her toe in the runup to the 2007 World Cup.

Here’s what gets me. Brazil, last night, didn’t play Daniela, Christiana, and Marta — their three best attackers. I am amazed that U.S. Soccer didn’t have the sense to do the same.

July 16, 2008 — A gem of a field hockey life

If you’ve never heard of Tiny Vidano, you’re not alone.

After all, besides the Native American game of Toka, you’d be hard-pressed to find any sort of stick-and-ball field games in the Southwest.

That wasn’t the case 30 years ago, when Vidano turned Albuquerque Highland (N.M.) into a veritable field hockey dynasty. Even before the dawn of Title IX, there were only a few cities in New Mexico with the sport: Roswell and Santa Fe, along with Albuquerque.

Vidano, who got her degrees from Illinois State and the University of Michigan, moved from her Illinois home to Albuquerque in 1948 and never left. She helped form a state athletic association in New Mexico, and helped Highland fund its girls’ sports with community service projects (remember: these days were not far removed from government-funded projects such as the WPA).

She served as coach for numerous female sporting events at Highland, such as basketball, volleyball, tennis, ping-pong, and speed-a-way, a Gaelic football variant. Between 1955 and 1957, Highland’s female athletic teams never lost a game. Her field hockey teams went undefeated in 1974 and 1975 and won state championships on three other occasions.

And perhaps that’s because Vidano put her heart and soul into instituting statewide field hockey competition in New Mexico, something which, regrettably, has died out.

Vidano passed away March 20, 2008. I think it’s up to us in the field hockey community to re-kindle what she did in non-traditional field hockey areas of the United States.

July 15, 2008 — Bloggers, unite!

Members of the U.S. field hockey team are currently blogging in the lead-up to Beijing 2008.

Here’s the lineup thus far:

Sara Silvetti and Lauren Powley, through The Citizen’s Voice newspaper in Scranton, Pa.

Rachel Dawson: Beijing Bound and Beyond, through Lenovo

Michelle Kasold: Road to Beijing, through Lenovo

The U.S. Field Hockey blog, powered by WordPress

It also seems Julie Foudy has been a bit of a behind-the-scenes mentor for the U.S. team, thanks to her ESPN Olympics blog.

I’ll be adding these to a secondary blogroll to the right of this text.