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Coaches' Corner: All You Can Ask For - Mar 09, 2007
posted by: Josh
Former Stanford cross country coach Dena Evans shares some thoughts from her recent experience on National Girls and Women in Sports Day. Sometimes we commemorate holidays by going through the motions. We hope we at least appear to embody the values those special days are supposed to instill and reinforce. It’s not that we don’t sincerely believe in the importance of these issues, but the oft repeated commemorative exercises often become habit without continuing to forge new ground. However, every once in a while, they do. February 7th represented the 21st annual celebration of National Girls and Women in Sports Day. Stanford University, like many other institutions across the country commemorated the day with an event preceding one of its own athletic contests, the February 10th women’s basketball game against University of Washington. While the AAUW presented a discussion on Title IX issues, the Bay Area Women’s Sports Initiative (BAWSI) hosted a free clinic for local kids, featuring Stanford student-athletes. BAWSI, an organization founded in the spring of 2005 by soccer stars Brandi Chastain and Julie Foudy, along with the former WUSA CyberRays General Manager Marlene Bjornsrud, exists both to support the efforts of current female athletes, and to promote the benefits of fitness and health to young girls. As they expanded operations to the San Francisco peninsula, I found myself enlisted to help organize the clinic. A plan was formed to rotate groups of kids through four sports specific stations. With representatives from three teams with previous participation in BAWSI initiatives signed up (soccer, volleyball, and gymnastics), I e-mailed Mark Talbott, the coach of Stanford’s newest varsity sport, squash. Within the hour, he replied, and by the end of the day, squash had become our fourth and final station. The clinic started slowly. The February rain relocated us indoors, and it took a while for kids and their parents to make their way from our first location to Burnham Pavilion. As is often the case, what appeared to be a disappointing development proved to be an asset in the end, as our planned activities could now include equipment we would not have been able to use otherwise. The volleyball players, a contingent including almost the entire NCAA runner-up squad from last autumn, provided one-on-one coverage for the kids that had shown up at our originally planned start time. Soon, the influx of latecomers and an entire youth basketball team visiting the clinic resulted in a surge to 75 kids. We had anticipated a clinic where we would attract only girls. The event was marketed to area Girl Scouts and similar groups, and the t-shirts provided to participants featured the BAWSI logo, a longhaired woman leaping over the San Francisco Bay. In an equally casual, but upon reflection, electrically positive way, several boys came without one hint of reluctance and with plenty of enthusiasm. They thanked us for the t-shirts, didn’t appear to think twice about accepting the guidance of the female student-athletes, nor the presence of the many girls around them as peers. Eventually, all of the girls and the boys present rotated their way to the squash station, Stanford player Caitlin Crowley, with a bag of racquets, balls, and some protective glasses, explained a game that was “kind of like tennis.” There, they got a chance to hold a squash racquet, get some tips and some time to hit a few balls against a padded wall, and watch a minute or two of video about the sport. Even kids who learned how to do a forward roll or cartwheel for the first time that day had probably heard of or seen gymnastics before. Everyone knew about soccer and volleyball and had most likely tried it out before in some way. Squash, however, was completely new. As the group gathered at center court of Burnham Pavilion following the last rotation, the girls and boys got a chance to lob some questions at the student-athletes, cheer for them, and be cheered for themselves. The mood was buoyant, celebratory, and fun, exactly as it was designed to be. Then, the reasons for having the event became even more resonant. Asked how many had heard of squash before that day, perhaps one or two hands were raised, but asked how many knew about squash now, all 75 or so hands were quickly aloft. As the group headed out to the women’s basketball game in nearby Maples Pavilion, parents received fliers for future opportunities, and had brief conversations with those putting on the clinic. One family approached, mom, dad, and daughter all beaming. “Thanks so much for putting this on,” the dad told me as he shook my hand, “this was great - she loved it!” Perfect. Kid plays sports, kid has fun, parents are happy, what more can you ask for? And then, from the little girl, the importance of commemorating National Girls and Women in Sports Day came full circle. “I’m going to start a squash team at MY school!” Ok, now I get it. That is what we could ask for. 
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