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That question came up again the other day. The one about whether female basketball players could beat male players.
We were listening to a teleconference interview with Sheryl Swoopes, and one of the reporters asked her how many games she and her teammates had actually won while filming the Spike Lee commercial. (FYI, they played from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and only lost two games.) Sheryl added that the National Team often scrimmages with men and the women easily hold their own. I could feel the next question coming.
'Do you think you could beat a men's college team?'
'Sure,' Sheryl answered easily.
'Division I?' the reporter asked, just a hint of skepticism in his voice.
'Sure,' she replied evenly.
'So you could make it to the Sweet Sixteen in the men's tournament?'
'Definitely.'
I looked at our publisher. He shook his head 'no.'
The incident bothered me for a while. I almost wished she had just said 'What difference does it make?' Or 'We might be able to beat a Division I men's college team on their worst day if we played our best game, but other than that, it'd be unlikely, and now that that's out of the way, can we talk about WOMEN'S basketball??'
But Sheryl has probably heard the question enough to handle it in her sleep and besides, she apparently believes the women on her team have as much capability as most men do. Whether she's right or wrong, nobody really knows for sure.
What is bothersome though, is the implication that if women are going to be taken seriously, they need to prove that they could hold their own against men. It's tiresome, it's sexist, it's old -- the notion that women's activities hold value only if they are accepted in the eyes of men. And in competitive sports, that value seemingly has to arise from the ability to play against, and emerge victorious over, men. Then they'll respect us. And not until.
And what is the likelihood of this occurring? Not great. There are differences in physiology that make men, on the whole, stronger and larger. This is an irrefutable fact. Does it make men superior? Well, if you measure that superiority by the potential to score more points in a game of women against men, then the answer would probably have to be yes. Are there women who can see the floor, handle the ball, understand the game and make the right moves as well as men can? Undoubtedly. Is it possible that there are as yet unmeasured areas in which women excel in basketball skills? It's quite possible. But does it matter? Probably not.
Still, there are actually some good reasons to compare the games of men and women. Among them is the fact that in competition, comparison is the name of the game. Women's basketball is a relatively young sport. There is not enough history to have produced a yardstick against which to measure performance. As in swimming in the last 20 years, women's skills in this sport have improved, and continue to improve, at a tremendous rate. In swimming today, women's race times have reached the levels of men's times in the '60s and '70s. The question may be not 'How good are the women?', but 'How good will they become?' What are the limits? We have begun to find that there are limits, as the rate of change in the world records in swimming and track show. We haven't come close to those limits yet in women's basketball.
In men's basketball, arguably, the game hasn't changed that much in the last 20 years. If you want to measure against a fairly stable standard, men's basketball provides one -- which is what men tend to want, and women sometimes buy into.
And from there comes the speculation that no matter how good women are, just put them on the court with men, and we'll find out the real truth - that women would be nothing if only they had to play against some real competition.
Let's look at it this way. Maybe it isn't a very PC comparison, but if you had to measure the ability of high school players, aged 14 to 16, would you do it by comparing them to players ages 26 to 28? In some aspects, perhaps you would, and we'll get to that. But for the best analysis of the skills of the younger group, you would compare them to others in that group. Who makes the best passes? Who is the strongest? Who has the best court sense? Who is the quickest?
The integrity of those players would depend upon their standing within the group. It would not be to their detriment to have skills at a different level than that of players who were taller and more developed physically. There would still be inherent value to their athletic endeavors and interest in watching competition among them.
In truth though, as far as looking to an outside standard with which to compare those players whose skills far surpassed those in their own age group, an estimation of skills with that older group would be certainly be in order. And it may well be that this is what is occurring now in women's basketball. If they are being taken more seriously as players, the question then occurs -- well, just how good are they, anyway?
But it's a dangerous line of questioning, and one that easily leads into areas that denigrate women's sports. 'I only want to watch the best,' some say, 'and women aren't the best.' Then why watch men's college players when they aren't as good as the pros? Could it be that the style of play within a group that is not, on the whole, quite as tall, quite as strong, or quite as talented is still fascinating to watch not only in spite of, but maybe even because of, these differences? Isn't it interesting to watch players who emphasize strategy over backboard-rattling dunks? If a men's college team played a men's pro team, the game wouldn't be much to watch. We wouldn't need to see the college team easily beaten. The enjoyment comes from watching the college players face others of similar talents and abilities. Can't the same be said of women?
Obviously, the answer is 'yes,' but the fact remains that men's athletics are valued without having to prove themselves against the yardstick of anyone else's success. And yes, there will always be the arguments back and forth about who would be a better baseball player -- Barry Bonds or Mickey Mantle -- and people will attempt to make comparisons based on every kind of statistic, but no argues that even if Mickey couldn't have attained the status he enjoyed in the '60s in today's baseball, he doesn't deserve the attention he got. If you must compare apples and oranges, you can't argue that apples don't deserve their place in the produce section just because you think oranges are better.
The more I thought about it, though, I liked Sheryl's answer. She believes in herself and her team, and apparently she is ready to face the sorts of questions that will inevitably arise whenever the territory of the old guard is threatened by the new. And the questions more often seem to be about her team's potential to win the gold in the Olympics than they do about how it would stack up against a men's team these days, which is a giant step in the right direction.
But I still wish she didn't have to answer those questions at all.
6/4/96
