200 Candles on the Cake with Big Citrus

flown by. We've enjoyed every second that we've spent creating the women's sports hangout you always wanted, cultivating the women's sports community you've always needed, and bringing you the star stake stats and stories of the athletes, teams, and leagues

you simply must know about. So today, in honor of the beautiful community we've all built together, we want to celebrate our longtime slices and welcome the new slices, the rookies, the seedlings who are just starting to sprout with the little show education to catch everyone up on what they might have missed. Our big old Celebrication episode is coming

up right after this. Welcome back Slices. That's you, the lovely listener, you're called slices, like the orange slices handed out at halftime or at the end of a good game. Get it. And here's a little bit more you might need to know to follow the show. The Everyday Good Game team is Me Mesh and Alex. Mesh is a DMV loyalist and a former college hooper who didn't care much for defense. When they're not working on this show, they're a color commentator for their alum William and Mary,

among other places. She's also a child, and because she's still in her twenties, often doesn't get my references. Sometimes I'm too old for producer Alex too. They keep me in check and remind me to explain things to our younger listeners. You know, old fashioned stuff like rotary phones, dial up internet, and how it's possible to have an

attention span longer than a goldfish. Alex is a research fiend who enjoy deep dives into collective bargaining agreements and knowing everything there is to know about obscure Olympic rules and regulations. If you ever have a burning question about the top five closest Olympic lose races, she's your girl.

things somehow tend to come up regularly. Collectively, we're known as Big Citrus. So how did we get that name? Well, back in December, we got kinda tired of having to say each of our names every time we introduced ourselves. Plus, since y'all had such a cute name, we were kind of jealous, so we put it to a vote Iago style.

Of course, vote early vote often you slices narrowed our options down to coaches, senior slices, the grove, Orange Blossoms, good gamers, good Sports and peels, and in episode one O eight, which dropped December sixteenth, the three of us did our final deliberation, settling on Big Citrus. In hindsight, it's a pretty cool name. Just know that we've got better morals than Big Pharma, Big Tech and all those

other guys. We only use our powers for good. We regularly have Big Citrus conversations now dissecting happenings in and around women's sports competition. Alex brings for research and Olympic expertise, Mech brings their basketball player slash analyst knowledge, and we all bring our opinions, lots of opinions. It's truly one of my favorite things about our show, and you slices who have been around have told us repeatedly how much you love those conversations too, so we'll keep bringing them

to you now. Most shows we start out with the need to know the women's sports news of the day that you frankly can't get anywhere else. As the only daily women's sports show of any kind, we just want to make sure you're updated on the trades, scores, business deals and more going on every single day in the women's sports world. So in a twist on that. Last week we asked you longtime slices what you think new listeners need to know about our show, and we got

some awesome responses. So here's what you need to know today, Good Game with Sarah Spain Edition. Let's start with the glossary of terms things you might hear us say on the show or talk about on the show. Mish and Alex help me out with this one. One of my favorites. Hoops and gay shit and footy in gay shit and fucks and gay shit, and you get the point. All the great gay moments you can only find in women's sports, where teammates and opponents share wedding vows, beds, babies and

breakup stories. It's not good sportsmanship. They're lesbian stacy google it newbies.

psyched or excited about something. No, niche didn't invent it, but she did introduce us to it.

an important topic, So definitely check that one out. As for which episodes you slices think our little seedling should listen to in order to truly catch our vibe, here are some of our faves that you suggested. Pamela Mudway said, Welcome to the Good Place, the very first episode definitely sets the tone, and August thirtieth, Hoops and Gayshit, which is not only a great episode but the start of a must know good game phrase.

I love a good brain squish.

There really is nothing like it out.

and build women's sports. We give regular updates on the team, which competes in the Heartland Division of the usl W League, a pre professional women's soccer league that gives players a place to keep competing and helps prep some other players to go on to the NWSL or pro leagues abroad.

the current gains for granted. We love that, Sandra, you're an og and a trailblazer, and we love that you're listening. All right, we got to take a quick break. When we come back, we crack open our history books, stick around, welcome back slices. Now here a good game. We do a handful of recurring segments, many of them aimed at helping folks learn the history of women's sports, passed highs and lows of their favorite leagues, maybe the stories of

the athletes who paved the way. What good is knowing a record was broken if you don't know who's said it the first time. Right, So here are a few segments you can expect to hear pretty regularly. First, there's yes and now this one's all about giving props on a recent accomplishment while simultaneously honoring those who did it first and aren't given enough flowers, or paying homage to the folks who laid the groundwork for it to be possible.

Because what's happening today only matters in the context of what's come before it. For example, one of our faves was from our December twentieth episode, A Yes and about USC superstar Juju Watkins take a listen. Last season, in the final year of the Pac twelve Conference, Watkins let a resurgence in SoCal, helping the Trojan to their first number one seed in the NCAA Tournament since nineteen eighty six,

and she scored nine hundred twenty points. That's good for the most points by a freshman in D one history. Speaking in nineteen eighty six, though, what was going on back then? Who led that team to a number one seed in the attorney Well, that would be Cheryl Miller, arguably one of the best to ever lace them up.

The forward was a four time All American and three time Naysmith Award recipient, and to this day she still holds USC records for career scoring with threeenty eighteen points, rebounds fifteen hundred and thirty four, rebound average twelve rebounds per game, and free throws mate seven hundred. Miller led the Trojans to back to back NCUBA championships in nineteen eighty three and eighty four, and she dominated with Team USA as well, winning a gold medal at the eighty

four Olympics. For her impact on the game, she's been recognized as both the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer and a Women's Basketball Hall of Famer. Now, if you recall, we also told you yesterday that another recent college hoops superstar, Caitlin Clark, will have her jersey retired at Iowa at the beginning of February when the team faces off against what a coincidence USC. Of course, that honor is extremely well deserved. Clark changed the trajectory of the entire Hawkeyes

program and of women's basketball at large. Pretty cool, right, We'll get this, folks. Miller had her jersey retired too, during the eighty six season while she was still playing. Miller's was the first basketball jersey USC retired ever, regardless of gender. Shout out to the delightful and insightful Jordan Robinson for reminding us about this through a post on Blue Sky. We'll link to that in the show notes. So yes, ju Ju Watkins, Yes, Caitlin Clark, and Cheryl Miller.

Because Cheryl Miller was her and frankly still is, she got her Flowers at WNBA All Star Weekend this summer and was selected to coach Team WNBA. During the All Star Game, her squad won one seventeen to one oh nine, beating a team of players roster for the US national team that went on to win gold in Paris. Now, the WNBA didn't exist when Miller graduated from USC, and her career was also cut short by severe knee injuries. But ask your favorite player's favorite player who their favorite

player is, and we bet at Cheryl Miller. All right, so we've also got our what the Facts presented by elf Beauty. We use these segments to illuminate shocking or infuriating stats and facts, you know, the things that make you say, what the fact. A great example of this was our segment from November fifteenth discussing USA Hockey's complete and total muck up of their twenty fourteen Olympic jersey design and unveiling. This honestly still chaps my ass. Take

a listen, let's go back to twenty fourteen. USA Hockey is hyping the unveiling of the Nike design jerseys that the men's and women's hockey teams will wear at the upcoming Sochi Olympics and Paralympics, and in a press release and in a press conference with men's players, they didn't

invite anyone from the women's team. USA Hockey excitedly announces some of the details on the jersey, including the fact that they had paid homage to pass USA gold medal winning teams by stitching the years nineteen sixty and nineteen eight inside the collar. So cool, right, Only problem they didn't include the year nineteen ninety eight, the year the women won gold in Nagano, Japan. Incidental, Accidental, doesn't matter.

What matters is that a whole room of people at USA Hockey, a whole other room full of designers at Nike, and god knows how many other rooms of pr people and marketing and everyone else simply did not consider the women's team. These were the jerseys that they would be wearing, jerseys that they would put on to represent their country and to realize the accomplishment of their life stream, and

they were forgotten about entirely. And how about the sled hockey team that won gold in two thousand and two and twenty ten. They would be wearing those jerseys at the Paralympics without their accomplishments honored either. This is just part of a long pattern from USA Hockey, and this slight was one of many that inspired the twenty seventeen

women's team to threaten a boycott. Just two weeks ahead of the World Championships that were set to take place on home soil in Michigan, the players announced they were boycotting quote unless significant progress has been made on the year long negotiations with USA Hockey over fair wages and

equitable support end quote. USA Hockey tried to get scabs, it didn't work, and ultimately the women got a four year contract with most of their demands met, and went on to win not just those World Championships in Michigan, but gold the next year at the twenty eighteen Olympics. They shouldn't have needed to fight so hard for basic

respect and acknowledgment. Truly, what the fact? Next up a segment we call the Good Game Hall of Fame, where we shine a light on great women's sports stories that should be known, spread widely, and chatted about regularly over

beers at the local bar. There are endless examples of men's sports lore becoming common knowledge for sports fans from Michael Jordan's flu game, to Wilt Chamberlain claiming to have slept with two thousand women, to MLB Hall of Famer George Brett poop and his pants, and the lobby of the Blagio. It's about time we start sharing women's sports Lord too. So in the ten months that we've been doing shows, we've put up eight plaques in the Good

Game Hall of Fame. Sylvia Fowls dunking in her final All Star Game at the age of thirty six, her first in game dunk in thirteen years, the first US women's national team in nineteen eighty five who set the stage for years of US soccer dominance. Cheryl Swoops and Candace Parker returning to the court after pregnancy. Superfan Prince throwing the Minnesota Links a postgame party at Paisley Park

after their twenty fifteen WNBA title win. Former NWSL star Merit Matthias's legendary tweets about her acl being torn by

another player. Legendary Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summit racing back to Knoxville to give birth to her son, Tyler so she wouldn't give birth an enemy territory, Carolyn Peck gifting South Carolina coach John Staley with a piece of the NCAA Championship net after leading Purdue to the title, and Staley continuing and extending that tradition with other black head coaches in basketball, Anne Wisconsin's Kirsten Simms calling her shot,

asking for the penalty show in the NCAA Hockey Championship and burying it. Now, there's one story in particular that inspired the Good Game Hall of Fame, and it's who else but the ninety nine Ers. Take a listen from our very first episode, the traffic Jam and the ninety

nine Ers women's soccer team. The players were stuck on their bus complaining about all the traffic that they were in as they were trying to get to their World Cup opening game at Giant Stadium, only to find out that the traffic was for them seventy eighty nine hundred and seventy two fans en route to watch their game. That's such a cool story, Faudy talks about it. Julie Foudy of the ninety nine Ers team, sitting on the bus, what is all this traffic? We're going to be laid

to the game. Oh, my God, it's for us.

love and books written or suggested by our guests. That list has included Locker Room Talk, A Woman Struggle to Get Inside by Melissa Ludkey, Hail Mary, The Rise and Fall of the National Women's Football League by Frankie de la Creta and Lindsay Darkangelo, Slaying the Trolls by David Berry and Nefertid Walker, and The Fast Track Inside the Surging Business of Women's Sports by Jane McManus, and so many more. And if you want to see the full list of book wrecks in the Good Game Book Club,

you're in luck. All because of the hard work of one particular super slice, Aaron raw who has compiled not only all the books we've recommended so far, but also all the podcasts, documentaries, essays, shows and stories that we've shouted out, and all the merch we've highlighted, from Moolah Kicks to Play a Society to our very own Good

Game with Sarah Spain merch. This spreadsheet that she sent us might have made Alex cry full tears, and it definitely made the entire team get a little misty eyed. You rule the most Erin. We'll link to the spreadsheet again in our show notes so you can catch up and keep up with everything we've recommended. By the way Erin for all your hard work, I'm going to be sending you a little surprise as the unofficial show historian.

You more than deserve it. Now we've got a couple more repeating segments that you'll come to know when you listen. When we shout out positive facts, good game, good Game fact you, and where else where we spotlight things that only happen in the good place that is women's sports. But for now you get the picture. Basically, we relish the opportunity to teach and learn more about women's sports, how we got here, who the major players are, and

what obstacles still stand in our way. It's great to know where we are and get excited about where we're going. But we can be so much more tactical and intentional about growing and expanding when we know our history too. We got to take another break when we come back the good place, the correct number of stars, and a

call to action welcome back slices. As we reflect on two hundred episodes, I thought about the very first brainstorming sessions that we had about the show, and I actually went back and found some old notes and emails, and as we thought about what the show would look like, there were a bunch of words that we wrote down

like what we wanted it to feel like. Some of those were welcoming, inclusive, warm, safe, funny, fair, honest and starky, not annoyingly earnest, and not constantly griping about how unfair things are. We thought, if our listeners were going to hang out with us every day for thirty to forty minutes, it should be fun and funny while also sometimes rightly

complaining about shit. Our north Stars at the beginning were Tina Fay, Amy Poehler, Samantha Bee, Don Staley, Chelsea Handler, Sue Berd, Michelle Obama, Billy Jean King, all these really smart, badass, successful, funny, unfuckiable women with a very clear point of view and perspective. We wanted the show to highlight that athletes and women's sports are multi to me, and that when we let them be authentically themselves, everybody wins. Same goes for fans.

We can all be masculine, feminine heroes, villains, funny, serious, competitive, physical, loving, mothering, fashionable everything. We can be men or women or non binary folk who just love women's sports. We wanted to be sure we showed that women's sports can be X's and O's game recaps, strategy and tactics, and also be stories about a player's favorite clothing brand or beauty rituals

or dating life. It can be about demanding more investment and better coverage, and about celebrating the team's leagues and networks that are getting it right, changing the game, and shaping the future in ways that should be applauded. Now. I said on the very first show that women's sports

is the good place. That's actually what I wanted to name the show, and I thought that because going to a game in the women's sports world means being in a place that's inclusive, fun, kind, competitive, exciting, and full of a diversity of people, all of whom you just know that you'd want to party with after the game ends. I always think that, looking around the stadium, everyone here looks cool and awesome, and I want to party with them.

So as we were noodling around that, we thought, how do we create the podcast version of the Good Place? What would it look like to create something new? What do we take from other shows and men's sports podcasts that we like, and what do we leave behind that doesn't serve us? How do we create a community that inspires folks to belong to it without relying on toxicity or meanness to rally people together. You might already know this, but research sadly shows that people respond to negativity and

engage more with anger and criticism than positivity. And of course, we know way too many examples of shows and websites that have big fandom basically centered around cruelty and or ignorance. So we wanted to really work to bring people together around a shared love of something instead. And that's why on the very first show we were already soliciting names

for you slices. We knew you would be a huge part of this show, and we do want to keep hearing from you, collaborating with you, and hopefully more and more in the future actually meeting you and getting everyone together at games and events. You all bought in so fast and you made this a real community so quickly. It's genuinely tough to express just how grateful we are.

From Slice Joey Maldonado making women's sports schedules so we all know where and how to watch stuff, to Aaron roj Show spreadsheet of our suggestions to sixty plus abuse slices helping invest nearly two hundred thousand dollars in Minnesota Aurora FC. From your hilarious emails, your great guest suggestions, and your delightful voicemails, it has all been just so incredible.

And of course all the folks rock in the good game with Sarah Spain merch, especially the ones I got to see in person at the Final four, and all of you sending me your photos wearing the merch. It's just an amazing feeling. By the way, if you haven't gotten yours yet, Breaking Tea dot Com, slash Spain is where you go, and we are planning to roll out another color or two soon, so keep your eyes out for that. You are all a mass part of the show. You basically are this show, So we thank you so

much for listening. In fact, every show we tell you that we love that you're listening, But we also tell you we want you to get in the game every day too, So slices and seedlings, this is the call to action that's part of pretty much every show, the good Game play of the day. If you're new here and you haven't already done so subscribe to the podcast. We've done a lot of awesome stuff in two hundred episodes,

and we don't plan on slow and down. And if you're not new, can you please send one episode you really like to a friend, a colleague, a family member, just anyone you think might love our show. If we're going to keep building this Good Game community, we need your help. Also, we're always fielding suggestions for guests and segment topics. Do you really want to hear from someone? Do you have some bizarre what the fact? A guess? And maybe a submission for the Good Game Hall of

Fame or the Good Game Book Club. We want all of them. Send them our way. You can hit us up on email, good game at wondermedianetwork dot com, or you can always get at me on social Spain two three two three on Instagram, Sarah Spain on Twitter, slash xan Sarahspain dot com on Blue Sky. We also always throw the contact info for producers me Alex in the show notes too, and we always tell you this on

every episode. Ratings and reviews help our podcast so much, and on every episode we give you this reminder, don't forget to subscribe, rate and review, and then we show you just how easy it is to review stuff like this. Folks who subscribe rate and review our show, rating five out of five stars, just like they're given us review.

We love a slice you can take direction every show we tell y'all to subscribe, rate and review, and so many of you have listened, like Abina two, who gave us five stars and wrote best part of my day. And this podcast has everything smart, questions, funny people, great takes on women's sports and gets me excited to watch new sports and Happy Transfer, who wrote in part no episode disappoints and a must in the library of anyone wanting to be up to date and in the know

about everything happening in in sports. Also shout out to TeX's NYC, who said, in part, thank goodness I found this podcast and telling all my college friends about it, reviewing and spreading the word about the show. Now that's a super slice. I know you've heard the phrase subscribe, rate and review so much that it might at this point basically sound like the adults in the Peanuts movies

like the waw Waw waw Waw. But honestly it really helps us, y'all, especially when there are still jamokes chiming in with the one star and saying, you know, go Trump liberal trash. Yeah, so let's go ahead and get enough fives to drown out that one star. What do you say? Now, it's your turn, rate and review. If you're not sure how, just go to the show's main page on Apple Podcasts, scroll down until you get to

the stars, and click ratings and reviews. Thanks y'all, and thanks to all of you for listening, whether this was your two hundredth listen or your first. We'll see you tomorrow when we shine a light on Throttle Therapy with Catherine Legg, one of the other awesome shows on the iHeart Women's Sports Network. We'll be spreading the love for the rest of the week, so make sure you tune in Good Game slices, Good Games Seedlings, you time. Can

you just chill for like one second? At this rate, We're gonna be on an episode four hundred before we know it. Good Game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart Women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network, our producers are Alex Azzie and Misha Jones. Our executive producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan, and Emily Rudder.

Our editors are Emily Rutterer, Britney Martinez, and Grace Lynch. Our associate producer is Lucy Jones and I'm Your host Sarah Spain