Figure upstages finesse

By Erin Hussey

Last Saturday was Women in Sport Day, and, to commemorate the occasion, Santa Clara athletics invited about sixty young girls to the Gonzaga basketball game.

It was as if I had travelled back in time. Once clean sleeves dripped with maroon and purple finger paint. Letters got smaller and smaller across the page, words were spelled wrong, and Broncos looked like potbelly pigs. It was beautiful.

But when the signs were dry and the girls were in the stands, my regalement of the event changed.

"Whoa, look at that girl, she's so skinny," squeaked a voice behind me. I subtly looked over my shoulder to see a group of 8-year-olds nodding in agreement about one of the basketball players on the court.

Instead of being mesmerized by the level of play out on the court and making a comment like "did you how far she shot the ball?," the young girls were more interested in what the basketball players looked like.

But when tennis player Anna Kournikova isn't praised because of her backhand but rather because of her backend, who can blame them? Outward appearances outshine talent in sports all the time. Just the other night, my friend explained how "No one can ever be 'Tom Brady hot.' "

But the worst part about all this isn't the fact that many spectators know more about what an athlete looks like then what their game record is, but that athletes, especially female ones, are beginning to sacrifice their talent for their image.

In a recent study published by the Ohio State Department of Sports Psychology found that despite an athlete's superior fitness level, 40 percent of athletes thought that parts of their bodies were too fat. Of that, 60 percent were women.

Instead of seeing how fast they run or how hard they swing, they see imperfections. It doesn't matter how strong their quads are but how big and "fat" they look.

But when will athletes ever be judged on sheer talent and not muscle tone?

A nutritionist once suggested me that we should look to Special Olympic athletes for inspiration. They actually concentrate on what they can do, not what they look like while they are doing it.

If only more people could realize this then perhaps the next time Women in Sport Day rolls around, girls will scream "nice shot" instead of "she's skinny."

* Contact Erin Hussey at (408) 551-1918 or ehussey@scu.edu.