Girl Power

HISTORY LESSON, 10TH AND VINE — Forgive me, here. I was going to go to bed. It’s 9:58 on Wednesday night and I feel like writing instead.

The Chapman girls have SPORTS on Thursday. Yeah, sports. One will run. One will watch teammates golf — injuries always stink.

All we ask of sports is that they teach them how to be a better person, a better student, a better friend. That their coaches push them to be the best they can be. For them to reach to achieve something maybe they didn’t think they could.

So, we sat and watched volleyball on this historic Wednesday night. No one in this house plays the state’s sport. Tried it, didn’t like it. Thought we may have to flee for somewhere else. But, what we do like to do is watch girls — women — excel and do their thing: running, golf, volleyball, basketball. You name it. We’ll watch it.

So we did and I sat here and I tried not to cry. But, it didn’t work. Ask John Cook.

“I have probably cried five times today,” the Nebraska volleyball coach said after his team beat Omaha at Memorial Stadium. Yeah, that Memorial Stadium. “I am not kidding. Several times I had to bite my lip to hold it together. It’s been a very emotional day.”

I cried because I couldn’t help but think about all those women who came before these on this night where 92,003 people came to Lincoln for volleyball. Those women, in Nebraska and everywhere.

My mom graduated from high school in 1968. Closest she could get in her teenage years to sport was the pep club at Geneva High School. Yeah, girls — apparently — weren’t tough enough back then. Whatever that means. In a town of 50 people, she played town team softball. Her dad was the coach.

She got into teaching, just like the man she married who was a coach. They had two boys, coached them all the boy sports and mom, well, she worked with the cheerleaders. And, by 1986, coach took on some girls. Girls basketball in tiny Hampton. Population, 432. Class D-2.

That experience changed my father for the better. The girls he coached brought him great joy, even if he did kick the stage on a bonehead play.

“Girls don’t sweat, they glow,” he would often say. A reference most of the time that meant their was joy in their hard work. They were simply excited for the opportunity to do their thing. His boys gave him and mom six girls. Sports and activities are how my brother and I (and our awesome spouses) have tried to teach them life.

And, so there we were on a Wednesday night in August. Watching history, but also thinking about it.

I wondered about those first years of Title IX. What it must have been like to be at the first girls state track meet or state volleyball tournament. The joy that must have been on those girls faces; even if it was just mom and dad watching. Others likely mocking them from far away in a newspaper office because they didn’t think girls should be playing. Don’t worry, I have seen the clippings.

Now, 92,003 fans on a summer night in August.

I thought about all those girls my dad coached and how they turned into great moms. And, that what brought him such joy after he coached them was to go watch their daughters (and sons) play in more state tournaments. But, it wasn’t just mom and dad watching now. The sports had grown. Opportunities had grown. Whole towns would come to state tournaments.

And, on this Wednesday, a world record in Nebraska.

I thought about my girls and the role models they have and what fighting for women’s opportunities have met for us as a society. I mean, Taylor Swift had a pretty good summer at football stadiums, right?

And, since we lost dad, I thought about all the chances it gave me to meet so many great girls and their moms who got to coach them. Nicole Kolbas and Addi Mowinkel and Britt Prince, and, well, that girl dreamer who got to serve in the stadium, Maisie Boesiger.

Almost two years ago now, I wrote this about Maisie’s final trip with her mom to the state tournament.

It won’t be Maisie’s last trip to Lincoln this week — she’ll play for Nebraska next fall — but it might be the one that ends up being the most special. Those last few practices and film sessions. The bus rides with her best friends. The life lessons from all of her coaches.

I think I was wrong. I think we one-upped ourselves on Wednesday night.

The evening of August 30th is going to fade away, probably sooner rather than later. Someone will figure out a way to sweep girls/women’s sports under the rug in the media and we’ll be used to it here.

We will keep preaching it’s lessons. Patience and perseverance. Hard work and sacrifice. Not so much that it will lead to a championship or a scholarship, but that it helps them down the road. That you can be anything you want to be and very few people will stand in your way.

On Sunday night volleyball coaches from across the state — some men, some women — will start sending me their weekly volleyball rankings. And, this winter, we’ll do the same in girls basketball.

And, instead of diving into the numbers, I’ll think about those coaches and the lives they are changing. Not just now but for the future. Because even now, we still have work to do.

“My coach told me that I run like a girl, and I told him if he ran a little faster maybe he could to.” — Mia Hamm

It’s 11:08 now and well past time for bed. You’ll read this in the morning and there will be a football game you’ll want to watch tonight, too. And, that’s okay. I do, too. Dad was a football coach, you know.

But don’t forget the lesson of sports. Sure, not all stories are the same and not all crowds created equal. You think you do a good job of recognizing it, but then Wednesday happened and you realize all the work it took to get there. And how much it will take to keep things moving forward.

For that we should celebrate. Soak it all in. And then march on with continued fight.

Make it this far? Thanks! Come along the Flatwater Sports journey with us. Subscribe to our Wednesday and Saturday newsletter here. Cover photo courtesy of Nebraska Athletics.