With what seems like the whole world focused on the US presidential election for the last few weeks,
the topic of American football should fit right in.
Americans. Love. Football. Period.
I get it. Well, I don't get the love of football, but I do get a country's love of sport.
Canadians love hockey.
We do have some kids football teams in the big city, but we don't have near the emphasis on it that our south of the border friends do. I mean having a high school stadium?? We're lucky if we have a couple of soccer goalposts in need of paint and a baseball backstop
and bit of green grass showing on the brown.
And the parents, most of them, of the soccer, rugby and basketball players do turn out to watch a game. Hockey is a little different, everyone likes to watch a good hockey game and when my son played in the Northern Winter Games in 2006, the arena was standing room only.
Anyhow, this isn't about high school football,
but about a 9-year-old girl playing on her big brother's football team, amongst older kids.
She's good.
She's fast.
She's tough.
And as much as I agree that women can be involved in any sport
I'm just not sure about this one.
The article said she's 60 pounds and the heaviest kid is 150 pounds.
That's a hell of a weight difference.
The problem, as I see it
Is not necesarily a girl playing on a guys team
We have girls mixed in the the guys in our house league hockey teams
and even the odd one on the rep teams.
I think that they miss out on the "locker room camaraderie"
But they love to play.
Therein lies the hitch
This little girl evidently loves football.
Nothing wrong with that.
But how far will she be able to go?
Do they have ladies football in the States?
For all I know, they do in which case this is a moot point.
But in a few years, she'll end up with no where to expend her energy and talent.
And that's the shame of it.
Sure, she may get hurt playing with the boys
Any contact sport can hurt people
But 9 and 10 year olds can still be quite similar
when it comes to holding their own and the quicker ones can outrun the heftier ones.
A slight boy would be the same situation as a 60 pound girl
for now.
In a few years, those boys and girls will be growing into teenagers
where will she be then?
She may still be one tough girl
and able to outrun most of the guys
And if she still plays
Good for her.
I am just unsure about this whole issue.
Maybe, if she has leadership qualities, she may want to start
a ladies football league.
Or maybe she'll lose interest
Anyhow, I just wanted to sort this one out through my head and onto (paper)
But I am still as undecided as I was before.
Women's football has never caught on here in the U.S. It's been attempted, but not so much. I'm not sure what she'll do...perhaps she'll go into coaching...if she loves the game so much, that might be the best fit.
ReplyDeleteYou raise good points. Fundamentally people have to accept that male and female were created differently physically and emotionally. That doesn't mean that girls/women should be barred from areas of life where they are the equal of (or better than) boys/men, and many barriers have been removed, especially in career choice. But where the primary qualification is physical e.g. professional football (or perhaps even at the high school level) physical differences between male and female will result in girls/women not being qualified. I don't see that as discrimination but reality (just like most men would not qualify to play in the NFL).
ReplyDeleteHope she continues to enjoy football while she can compete, at whatever level.