Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where Kim Maulky accidentally added us to LSU's team slack and now we know their war game plan for the Sweet sixteen. Prayer Hands, Prayer Hands, arm Flex American Flag Basketball. It's Thursday, March twenty seventh, and on today's show, we'll be talking to USA Today's Sports columnist Nancy Armour about everything from being a quote unquote national disgrace and her March madness takes, to Lindsay Vaughn's return to skiing and the philosophy that
drives Nancy as a journalist. Plus one sport makes an unfortunate return to the past, and another offers a glimpse of the future. It's all coming up right after this welcome back slices. Here's what you need to know today. Let's start with the NWSL where our coming soon FC jerseys are already out of style. The Boston expansion team's new and much anticipated name was finally unveiled on Wednesday,
the Boston Legacy Football Club Boston Legacy FC. The change comes five months after public outcry about the original name Boston Nation FC and the too many Balls marketing campaign that accompanied it. In a statement, the club's controlling owner, Jennifer Epstein said of the new name, quote, we aim for our values to reflect a city that breathes competition, passion, and pride, and to pay tribute to those who paved the way before us, including the game changers who helped
build previous women's professional teams in Boston. End quote. The club plans to unveil its crest and full branding this summer. My opinion, Legacy's kind of underwhelming. It doesn't feel specific to Boston or the area really at all. But I kind of do like the idea of fans yelling let's go Legs. I don't know, just has like a nice
rig to it. And I assume that the name has to do with creating a legacy for pro women's soccer in the town, or maybe a bit of a hat tip to the legacy that began with the Boston Breakers. I don't know. Legacy is a nice sentiment, and in the end, we know the name is usually the biggest thing when it's announced, and then isn't all that important
once the games begin. So I guess I'll just say Legacy better than Boss Nation, not offensive at all, which is a great start, and I guess let's get to the soccer, because I can't imagine a team more ready to get on the field and have actual games to talk about than the Boston Folks to the PWHL. You may recall that in yesterday's interview with hockey writer Hailey Salve and she said that pretty much every PWHL team was still in the running for this year's Walter Cup, except,
of course, for the sixth place New York Sirens. Well, the Sirens' ears must have been ringing because on Tuesday night they were losing three nothing to the Ottawa Charge midway through the second period, but scored six, yes, six unanswered goals in the third to win it six to three. What those six goals broke the PWHL record for most goals in a single period by a full two goals. The previous record was four. So I guess what they're saying is, don't count us out just yet. To track
and field. On Tuesday, World Athletics president seb Co announced that the organization is planning to reintroduce gender verification testing in order to maintain quote the integrity of the competition end quote. If the new policy is implemented, competitors in the women's category will be required to do a chromosome test using a dry blood spot sample or a cheek swab, and any athlete with a Y chromosome will be barred from competing unless they can show that they are quote
completely insensitive to androgens end quote. Now it's worth noting that World Athletics already has a near blanket ban on transgender women competing in the women's category, so this new policy is especially targeted at cisgender women with differences of sexual development AKADSDS. Gender verification tests aren't new in women's sports.
In fact, policies like the one World Athletics plans to reintroduce were the norm until the nineteen nineties, when they were abandoned after decades of athletes complaining about their invasiveness and scientific research showing their flaws and drawbacks. Now, if you haven't heard it already, listen to the podcast Tested. It's a six part series on the history of sex testing in sports that will offer a lot of context
and facts about this decision from World Athletics. We spoke with the quarter of the Tested series, Rose Evelyth, last summer on this show they wrote on Blue Sky of the return to this chromosome based policy. Quote, World Athletics is going back to mandatory sex testing for all women. This is something that was done for years but abandoned in the nineteen nineties because it was invasive, discriminatory, and
also useless. They continued, quote, some estimates suggest that one in five hundred women would test positive for a Y chromosome end quote. We'll link to both the Tested series and our interview with Rose in the show notes. Tavibs in Love Pro Volleyball. The two top teams in the league meet tonight, with number one Atlanta traveling to number
two Houston. We're in the final two weeks of the regular season, and while all six teams will qualify for the playoffs, Atlanta and Houston have been so good this season that this could be an early preview of what to expect in the finals. That match tips at eight pm Eastern tonight. Will link to the full Love schedule in the show notes. We got to take a quick break. When we come back. It's Nancy Armor joining us now. She's been a sports columnist for USA Today since twenty fourteen.
Previously spent twenty years with the Associated Press and has covered every Olympics since nineteen ninety six. She grew up a Packers fan and went to Marquette University in Milwaukee, but smartly came south to the greatest city in the world, Chicago, and she's never left. Meghan Kelly called her a goddamn national disgrace. It's Nancy Armor, Hi, Nancy.
Hello, Sarah, how are you.
I'm pretty good, real quick on that. Megan Kelly thing as someone who has myself faced the wrath of the right wing news programs, and also very disappointing when you learn about it, because someone's like, my dad saw you on Fox News and you're like, oh, that's too bad for you. How did you react or feel when Meghan Kelly and Greg Guttfeld and others sort of sicked their viewers on you for the column that you wrote about Don Staley and her support of transparticipation in sport.
I mean, I consider it a badge of honor. You know, if I'm pissing them off, I must be doing something right. That's kind of how I look at it. But yeah, it is always weird that when somebody tells me that or oh, I was watching Fox News and I'm like, oh god, no, please, right, yeah, I And I mean you know this, you get it all the time. I'm
still caring. You know, there are days that it depends upon how much coffee I've had or whatever, but I mostly just don't care because I and this is going to sound arrogant, and I don't mean it too, but I know that I am on the right side of history and issues like that, and it shocks me and enrages me that we haven't caught up to the rights of that right side of history yet, but I know we eventually will. So I am perfectly okay with taking
up my positions on that. And if you know, the Megan Kelly's of the world don't like it, I don't much care.
I actually completely agree, And when I ended up in that sort of like washing machine of garbage, I felt very strongly about my opinion in my perspective. But also it still sucks when you have like thousands or hundreds of people in your men cheese being terrible. So I'm sorry for that and also agree with you. You're on the right side of things, and it is a bit of a badge of honor. I want to talk about this women's NCAA basketball tournament. But first you just got
back or you still are there covering downhill skiing. Yes, very big weekend for a big name. You got to see forty year old Lindsay Vaughn take silver in the Super G at the World Cup Finals in Sun Valley, just four months after coming out of retirement. There were a lot of emotions from her, can you take us there? And what you saw on herd?
Yeah, so she was and all the skiers were a little bit disappointed because the downhill on Saturday was canceled. They had gotten roughly six inches of snow here in sun Valley overnight and then winds kicked up, and you know anything about downhill skiing, you don't want to be having people going sixty seventy eighty miles an hour and going over jumps when there's like a gust of wind blowing.
That would not be safe for anybody. So Lindsay's last race was the Super G on Sunday and she started low in the order, which if it's better to be starting the higher up, those are tending to be the you know where the track is the best, you know before it gets broken down, And she just crushed it. She she had that fine line of being super aggressive but just being on the very edge of being out
of control, but she wasn't out of control. And when she crossed the finish line, like when people, you know, because the stands are the fans are watching on the big screens, and the roar that went up when she crossed the finish line was just like, I'm getting goosebumps now thinking about it. Yeah, and she was so thrilled. I mean, you know, it's a she's forty years old, oldest woman by a long time to win a World Cup medal, World Cup Finals well yeah, Wold Cup medal
and World Cup Finals medal. It was her first podium appearance since in a World Cup since twenty eighteen World Championships twenty nineteen. And she's also been dealing with you know, she was retired for five years, and she's been dealing with some people who when she came back, were saying, why are you doing this, you know, questioning hermotives, saying, oh, there's no way you can do this. So there was, as she said, there was relief. It wasn't that she
ever doubted herself, but it was really satisfactory. To be able to shot the people who did doubt her up.
You wrote a great column about it's not just about Lindsay, but every other female athlete that we don't even know what they can do and how long they can do it for. And the science is behind and the resources are behind. But as we are helping fuel and serve and heal female athletes later in life, they are getting more opportunities to prove that our limitations were probably artificial for a while. And she's just the latest example. It's
a great story. Everyone to check it out. Also, you wrote about an up and comer that we should keep an eye on Lauren Masuga, someone we should know ahead of next year's Olympics.
Probably, yes, very much so. She and her sisters. Lauren is she's hilarious personally, but she is a really good skier. She's just twenty two. She won the Super G in Saint Anton earlier this year. She made a downhill podium in the World Cup. She made the Super G podium
at the World Championships. She's really become a factor And as of right now, there's there's one more race on Thursday, but as of right now, she is the top American woman in the down in the overall standings, which is you know, we haven't seen that the last couple of years. It's always, you know, it was either Mikayla Shiffern or it was Lindsay Vaughn. And now we've got somebody new.
And because of missing a bunch of events because of the injury and whatnot. But still, yeah, all that being said, yeah, something to keep an eye on for sure.
Yeah, And she's got a great story.
She is.
She's got two sisters. One sister is a mogul skier, one sister is a ski jumper, and each one of them is on their national team. So you could have three sisters at the Olympics next year. It's it's crazy. Yeah, it's a wonderful story.
All right, let's talk coops because you're joining us. About a year after Caitlin Clark and the Clark angel Reese rivalry helped women's basketball break countless viewing records and breakthrough onto the big debate shows, which sort of changed where it sits in the sports landscape, you wrote about how the enthusiasm hasn't left the college game just because Caitlin has What are we seeing? One year later in terms of some of the numbers and also excitement.
Yeah, well we've seen you know, big ratings. Again, it used to be like I remember last year, in the year before, when a women's basketball game would get a million viewers, it was like, oh my god, that's you know, that's just huge. You know, this year there were a ton of them.
At least half a dozen, you said, by yeah, just in the regular season.
Yeah, and you know, we've seen it more in conference championships. In the tournaments. Clark might have been the gateway for some people to come in, but once they got here, they realized like, oh, there are great other players, you know, whether it's ju Ju, whether it's Paige, whether it's malaysa full Wiley, Like, you know, people realize that this that
the game is actually really darn good. And so I think we've seen that carry over in the regular season, and corporate sponsors and people with money have realized that, oh, you know, there's I don't want to say that there's necessarily that men's sports has hit a ceiling, but there's a lot less room for growth than there is in
the women's game. And people who know a lot about sponsorships and advertising half recognize that that, hey, if we want to make some money, this is a real growth opportunity for us, And so they're putting money into women's sports, which is terrific to see.
Yeah, I want to get to some of the spots that we're seeing and what we can expect during the rest of this tournament. But you've now introduced yet another term for Kaitlin Clark. You said she might be a doorway, a gateway, So I'm going to go gateway drug, gateway drug to start, just like snorting all of women's college basketball and other sports. I usually call her the match for the bonfire. It was already built, but then you needed that little match to really set it a blaze.
But I'm going I like gateway drug. Like gateway drug. That's good. Let's talk about that. You mentioned the average price for a thirty second spot in the story that you wrote for this year's women's NCAA Championship game has more than doubled from last spring, going for about four hundred and forty thousand dollars, according to Sports Business Journal.
So how important is it for the business and the sponsorship side to sort of lead the way so that they can convince late adopters in front offices, media outlets, or otherwise that women's sports is a massive economic opportunity.
It's huge, and I think when we have the sponsors, or when you have the people with the money at stake, when they've invested, when they have gotten involved, there is no going back. Because we saw in the late nineties early two thousands, we saw big numbers, whether it was the WNBA or whether it was a college game, and then there was a backslide. And we can discuss all of the reasons why, but when you have these people who are investing, they're not going to let this backslide
because they have too much money invested. Now there's too much riding on this. So I think it's huge that you know, the game itself has gotten better, We've seen that in the tournament itself, especially at the upper levels, but the fact that there's you know, we're seeing commercials
with page and juju. This is mainstream. And so now that there is a foothold in mainstream conversations or that that women's sports are part of the mainstream sports culture, it's really hard to say, Okay, we're going to go back to where we were five and seven years ago. It's you know that that ship thankfully has sailed, and it's just you know, are we going to see the rocket fuel growth that we have the last couple of years. Probably not, But are we going to see steady and
sustain growth. Absolutely?
Yeah. We do need to not expect every year to be able to say and we broke another record, and we broke it down the record because eventually I need to just be sustained in positive growth. But it can go backwards, and if it does, it's usually because of intention. What we often do is act like it's a natural response to the product, but usually someone with a big
amount of power is the one impacting that backslide. And I know I talked to you for an article you wrote a couple months ago, and as we were talking, you were getting ready to talk to Mark Shapiro, who was in programming, uh in charge of programming for ESPN. When they buried the WNBA and ESPN two, it was averaging over a million and a half plus households on you know, each of its first three seasons before that move.
What did you tell you about that? Because I think that's worth talking about too, is are we is there potential for that to happen again, if someone in charge decides that they want to bury it.
I'll take the second part first. I don't think so, because I think we have seen enough. I think there is there are enough data points, there's enough demand now from viewers and from from from people to realize that, hey, this is worthwhile programming. This is going to get ratings as long as we've promoted, as long as we give it, you know, put it in the right spots. It is, it is worthy.
You know.
Shapiro, I think has I don't necessarily want to say he's come to see the error of his ways, but he says that he was brought in to fix ESPN's ratings and he didn't want to air anything that was going to be a potential drag on the ratings, which that's chicken or the egg. You know, where were you putting women's basketball. You were putting it on ESPN two. You were putting it at weird times, like you know, of course you weren't going to draw as well when
you're doing that. If you had given it the time slots, if you had given it the promotion that NBC had those first few seasons, I think it would have been a different story. Now, does he not like women's basketball? He says, no, that you know that he's a big fan. Yeah, he's actually an iowagrad. So he's a huge Caitlin Clark fan.
He you know.
He says it was all about ratings. I am am not wanting to have a drag on ESPN ratings.
And quality of play, he said, I remember, Yeah, the quality of play wasn't ready for ESPN, which is interesting for a network that will air Little League World Series and other things. And also I think when you go back and watch, yes, absolutely, the talent has improved. When you go back and watch like Tisha Pennicero and Cheryl Swoops and these players from the early years, there was
a ton of talent. There's just not that well produced as far as like game production and and game entertainment opportunities, and it just didn't look as high value when you were watching it. But the play wasn't the problem.
No, I agree with that. And if the play had been the problem, then you could say, well, then why was NBC getting the ratings that they were. So it's you know, any excuse, and I'll use the word excuse, any excuse that you can give for doing it. There is a very easy rebuttal for it.
Yeah. So this is the first time ever that women's teams that advance in the tournament will earn their schools and conference money quote unquote units. We've talked about these on the show before, but can you talk about how that change, even with a much smaller pool of money than the men's side, will affect the future of women's programs and investments across the space.
Yeah. First of all, can we just talk about the fact it is twenty freaking twenty five and women are finally getting paid for me in the tournament?
I agreed, But also at this point, when I say it's twenty twenty five, it's actually like all bets are off, like, well that it used to be like this is the year whatever, so we should be No, at this point, it's like what the is going on pretty much all the time in twenty twenty five. But agreed that it should not have taken this long.
Yeah, yeah, that's true. You know, this is this is monumental. The basic explanation or why units are important. Schools that make the tournament, they earn money for their conferences. The money goes to the conference. The conference then doles it out to the schools. It's very similar to what what they do with the with football and the bol you know the Bowls series that there's a there's a pot and then it goes out to the different conferences and
trickles down to the schools. That money is significant because that's what you put back into your program. That is what you can use to improve facilities. That is what you you can use to go to the tournament in the Bahamas or a tournament why where you are going to get better competition in the non conference season. That is money that you can spend to upgrade your coaching staff, or add a dedicated nutritionist, or expand your coach at your pool of assistance, all of these things which are
these are building blocks. So you know, you do that, your team gets better. You know, that means that you win more games, which means you get more money, which means you can do this. It's it's the it's the foundation that men's teams have always had and that is part of the reason that they've had the growth that
they've had. You know, it's the same thing as we've seen with any other women's sports, like with soccer, if you don't put money into your product, you can't expect that you're going to get the best product, as you know, the best result, right, So this is to me, this is huge. Again, it's not the same pool of money as the men are getting. It's it's not any We're close, but it's a start, and it's I think we are going to see the dividends fairly quickly.
Do you think there's to be an impact from Juju Watkins's injury on interest in this year's Sweet Sixteen and going forward? I know it's heartbreaking.
I'm so. I mean, I'm sad for her because she's such an amazing player, but yeah, I'm sad for the tournament and I'm sad for women's basketball because Juju is she might not be quite at Caitlin Clark's level, but she is darn close. I mean, I can't tell you the number of guys, especially teenage boys that I talked to who loved Juju. They just think that they love the way she they love her game. They just they they're mesmerized by her. So yeah, it is a bummer.
It's I don't know how much the tournament is going to take a hit because the committee was stupid and put USC in Yukon in the Elite eight. So it's not like we're you know, and I don't know that. I don't know a whole lot of people can be Ukon at this point, So I don't know that USC would have gotten to the final four anyway with Juju.
But we do lose out on that matchup, which was was going to be a ratings bonanza and so much fun.
Absolutely, you know, the and this is I hate to say this, but we will be talking about Juju the rest of the tournament with the what ifs, you know, if USC loses two K state, which I don't see that happening either, but you know, what would it what would have happened if Judu had been here. So she'll still be in the conversations, but it's not going to be nearly the rock would have been.
Yeah, I think I might actually cry if she's sitting on the bench with a gentleman god knee brace watching her team, I think I might actually cry.
Yeah, and I'm going to be in Spokane, so like if you see somebody leaping at court side, that would be me.
Okay, well, we'll be sort of take a screen grab and then circle you and post it everywhere. Nancy, you've been writing about sports for decades. I wonder how you've seen the folks in charge of the places at which you've worked changed their approach to women's sports coverage.
Well, I think we're covering it now, first of all, And I have been very fortunate in that I have almost always had a female sports etter, like my boss is almost Yeah, that's unusual. It's super unusual, and I didn't realize like how good I had it. I started with the AP and the sports editor for a long time was Terry Taylor, and so there was never any you know, any kind of oh, you can't do this, because the person running our entire department was a woman.
So there was never any kind of that, you know, some of the crap that my colleagues got at their places. And then when I moved to USA Today, Mary Byrne was my first editor, and Roxanna Scott is our editor now. Actually, our entire leadership team is female in USA Today Sports, which is tremendous. So you know, from that perspective, that
hasn't changed for me. But I think the emphasis and the recognition that we need to cover women's sports, not just not because we should, but because they are sports and we need to cover them and use that word, that connective tissue. We need to write about the transactions, We need to write about the fact that, you know, Cody McMahon went into the transfer portal today as opposed to just doing you know, great features, which there's a
place for those, but we need to treat on the sport. Yeah, exactly. So I think that's where I've seen the biggest change.
You know, you mentioned earlier, Caitlin being this gateway and changing the way that people see the larger sports world as women's sports and particularly women's basketball as a part
of sports. And I feel like I've been during my time at ESPN, I had this view of radio, podcasts, television, writing, even producing, and at each turn I would see how different decision makers and gatekeepers scanned the news for what would go in that show, What do we want to talk about on Around the Horn, what do we want to talk about on my nightly national radio show, my podcast,
everything else? And I feel like Caitlin was the gateway drug where they had to start scanning for Caitlin news, which meant NCAA Basketball News, which then meant WNBA News, which now has sort of opened the door ajar for maybe NWSL and other things too, because instead of just saying what's happening in the four major men's pro sports, they now think what's happening in this larger group of things.
People are interested in it and demanding. I think we silo sports on this show, women's sports for a reason and for a purpose. But I hope eventually everyone will just talk about sports. What do you think is still getting in the way of us being able to just say sports and everyone knows that that could be women's, men's whatever's the news of the day.
Yeah, I think it's just time. I hope that it's just time that, you know, we're seeing people when they talk about the NCAA tournament, we're talking about the whole thing. You know, we could be talking about pagebackers, we could be talking about Cooper Flag.
I think it's just and just Cooper Flag because that is the only name of a men's college basketball player I.
Know, Okay, good one, same, the only one.
I don't know a single other name.
And you know what, there were plenty of people who before the tournament started felt that exact same or thought that exact same thing, like Cooper Flag, Yes, got that one. The rest of them, man, I don't know. So yeah, I think it's just you know, stars help, big names help. And so the fact that we have had this gift with going from Caitlin Clark then to Pagebackers, to Juju,
to Hannah Hidalgo and Olivia Miles. You know, we've we've had this line of stars and then you know in the w n b A You've got Fee, You've got Stewie, You've got you know, Angel, you have all of the people. And I think that as you know, as that pool of stars, as they get more recognized in the in like the public domain, whether that's through commercials or appearances places, I think that that's going to tear down whatever boundaries continue to exist, at least I hope.
So, yeah, I agree. The last decade has seen a pretty drastic shift in standards and expectations when it comes to the behavior of the leader of our country and other politicians of the media. And I wonder, you know, you write a lot about the intersection of sports and social issues. Have you seen or felt a difference in how you're writing has been assigned, edited, or received, depending on who's at the helm.
No, And that is one thing that I have been very fortunate. I've never been told to write something, and just as importantly, I've never been told not to write something. Now, if I am writing, especially these days, something about the president and you know, him turning his little interview during the National Football Championship game into a campaign spot, do my editors take a closer look at it? Does it get maybe a second or third read? Of course, But
you know, I'm okay with that. But no one is saying, oh, you can't write that, or we just had somebody write that, so you can't write that. I mean, there's there is none of that. There is a you know, yeah, if you want to take on tough issues, if you want to take on tough topics, go for it. Just we'll just make sure that you know every I is dotted in there, every T is crossed.
We recently have this hockey writer from the Athletic Kaylee Salviannon. She's one of the few like major women Talkeey writers, and we talked about how she has to be thoughtful about her coverage because her impact is outsized as one of the few go to voices in the space, And I wonder how you think your role has a columnist on women's sports has changed as the women's sports space
has changed. How much do you have to be aware of how what you say, or your reporting or your journalism is impacted by the space in which it lives.
I don't know how much I think about that because I never really want to think about the potential impact, because I don't want to make myself pull back or you know, think twice about saying something for fear of either pissing somebody off or you know it. Obviously, if I'm going to be causing harm, that's a completely different story. But I don't want to. I'm not going to. I'm not going to not take a tough stance because I worry that it might damage the women's game or you know,
a women's sport or a female athlete. And to me, that's hopefully aside of the growth of the game that I write the same way about women's athletes, women's teams, women's leagues as I do and have written about men, and I think we should. I think that's the way that we should be handling it. So I tend not to think about those types of things. Again, like if it's the potential to do harm, that is a completely different conversation.
But just right, I think that's where we're kind of in a sticky spot right now, because agreed, yes, we need to get past the cheerleader phase and be able to be honest and critical because that's a space that
sports needs. And also, to your point, if there is harm caused because of an misunderstanding about the space or the nuance that's required to work in it, it is different than men's sports, where, for instance, the safety of women athletes, they have less money for security, or there's more intersectional issues around race, gender identity, sexuality in the way in space, So if you're not aware of those when you're asking questions or setting up interviews, you might
potentially cause harm to your point, So yeah, it's like this, just the more people have been in the space and know it, the better usually because usually they're coming to it with an understanding. Versus if you parachute in for your one story and you don't know how it works, it can be sometimes insulting to the athletes. I know.
Sue Bird has talked about how our interviews are sometimes just the same four pop points off our Wikipedia, and she can just tell immediately, oh good, thank you for reading. And here comes the question about something wacky in there that everybody thinks they're the only one to ask me about. Yeah,
it's complicated. I mean, you know, we've had other journalists in here that I think their approach of everything should be the same as the men's game can be harmful, and so it's it's how do I make sure I'm being fair and critical without making a space that's already subject to so much toxicity even more poisoned.
Yeah, I think I I do this. I've done this since the beginning of my career in sports. Is I kind of go into it assuming that I don't know much because like, for example, I never played football, and so when I started covering Notre Dame, which was my first like full time beat, there were a lot of things obviously that I didn't know. So I asked a lot of questions and things that never made it into print.
If they weren't questions from an interview perspective, they were a hey, help me understand this, or what am I not seeing? Or how should I be looking at that? And I've kind of you. I've kind of carried that forward with the rest throughout the rest of my career. So especially because I do cover a lot of different things, so I might not be necessarily parachuting in, but I'm not in that space day to day, so I make sure to ask people like, Hey, what do you know
about this person? Or what should I know when I'm covering this or about this? Or I didn't know about that? Can you explain that to me? So I'm in addition to being a sports junkie, I'm just like an information jockie.
I want to know all of the things. So I've always kind of operated that way, and I think that's a really I think that's an important thing with covering women's sports, because you're right, you can do there is the potential for harm unintentionally, right, but you need to be aware of that.
So of course, part of that is just being willing to learn and evolve. And I when I was starting in the business, I would hear someone say that they had twenty years experience, and I would be jealous. I'd be like, oh my gosh, they're insight, They're acclaim all the things they've done and now that I have about twenty years experience, I realize that immediately signals to people
that I'm of a certain age. Right, oh, twenty years Okay, Well you have reached thirty years experience, and I wonder if you check in with yourself to be sure you're evolving with the times, applying the knowledge you've gained, while still staying open to what it is you don't know.
Yeah, absolutely, you have to, because it's you know, avolve or by basically whether it is using technology or keeping up with what is currents in popular culture, all of those things. It part of it is you don't want to look like a dinosaur. But also you need to
meet the people that you're covering where they live. And in sports, we're mostly covering people who are in their teams or twenties or thirties, some forties, but most people who are much younger, and you need to have an understanding of who they are, the challenges that they're facing, what is important to them, what things they might you know,
think are important that maybe my generation doesn't. You have to at least have an awareness of all that I think, and not to say that you know it makes you buddies with them or anything like that, because that's not a thing anyway, or that's not what you should be going for anyway, but to have an understanding so that you can you can go in with a base knowledge and someone have a respect for where these these people might be coming from at this age or where they are in their life.
I completely agree that connection that comes from at least trying to get on their level. In some way. I do struggle because I don't want to spend even more time on social media. I don't want to be on TikTok all day so that I can know what trend they're doing, but I do. I'm like, I want to know why they're doing that, so I don't say something dumb around these younger athletes, but also like I have shit to do. I don't have time to pay attention
to that. You know, your bio at USA Today reads in part I definitely know I don't have all the answers, but I'm always looking for more of them, And that seems to me at the heart of most great journalists, both curiosity and a desire to learn more, but a desire to learn, evolve and get answers, even if you know they might change. So I wonder about questions and answers. If you can think of a question you've changed your answer to as a result of research or time or experience.
A question that I answered differently now because you can see the impact is why why does it matter that, particularly in women's sports, that so many of the coaches are male? What is what's the reasoning for that? And I think originally I would have I looked at it as you want to have a coach who can relate
to their athletes. And obviously, and you know, not to say that that's goingted to be the case for everybody, but a female coach is probably going to be able to relate to female athletes a little bit better because they have experienced some of the same things. But I think now I look at it more of you know, like when Muffatt MacGraw went off on her you know thing about not hiring male coaches at the Final Four
a few years ago. It really made me made me think about it and look at if we are not in we meaning like the coaching people, If if the younger generation, if the next generation is not being trained, is not being you know, put in place to succeed that that has a detrimental effect in a number of
different areas. You know, Mikayla Schiffrin two years ago said specifically, I am hiring a woman coach, a female coach, because we need to have more women coaches in skiing, and hopefully this will, you know, inspire other people to hire women coaches or inspire other women to get into coaching. And so I think the way that I look at the importance of having women coaches in women's sports has has changed or has expanded from what I would have initially thought.
Yeah, I agree. I think also I used to push back on statements like muffets about over corrections sometimes because I would think it was about fairness, and fairness would be whoever the best person for the job is, and you can't even decide in advance by gender, because then that's not the way we want them. To look at it in reverse, when you're looking at women for predominantly male jobs, or even something like you know Ruth bay Ginsburg saying like how many women on the Supreme Court
is enough? And she's like all of them?
Right?
There were there were these things that felt extreme to me, And I think there's a joke that you know, everybody gets more conservative as they get older, except for progressive
women who just become more and more radicalized. And I'm I'm definitely like living that because now I'm at the point where, like all of this overcorrect until we die, because at this point it's not working to be fair and equal when we know that one half of not one half of the population, not all men hashtag, but that there is a massive part of the population that would push back on anything that changes the status quo.
And it is as much an agenda to want things to say the same as it is an agenda to want them to change. But we get demonized for desiring change way more than people get demonized for wanting them
to stay the same. And so at this point we do kind of have to just start over correcting like mad in order to try to get to a space not only where there's a better equality of representation, but to your point where young people growing up see it, and then it becomes the norm without needing to overcorrect, because it's established as something that is more all Right, I just went on a rant. Sorry, I've been thinking about that lately.
No, I totally agree with you, and I think there's so much power. Like I went to Kansas City last year for the first game in the current stadium, which again twenty twenty four, and it's the first time we have a purpose built stadium for women's sports, Like that's just absurd. But the current had a player who I think she was sixteen at the time or had maybe
just turned seventeen. It was her first NWSL game and she will never know a time in her career where there was not at least one stadium built specifically for a women's team, and that that might not sound like a huge deal, but it is. Like and when we were talking before about not being able to backslide, things
like that matter. There are stakes in the ground. There is concrete that has been over that you cannot you know, you can't just knock that down, or you can, but it's gonna be freaking expensive, right, And that's how you get changed when you have things like that. And I think it's yeah, so if we don't over correct it, if we don't make this an emphasis, we're never ever going to get permanent change, or we might get it for a year or two and then it could backside. So yeah, I'm right there with.
You all right, we write it. Don We write it. Don Nancy, Thank you so much for the time, Thank you for joining, for you're inside, thanks for continuing to write great stuff. We'll keep reading it. We got to take another break when we return. A moment that didn't take long to earn a spot in the Good Game Hall of Fame. Welcome back, now slices. When it comes
to sports, every hall of fame has different rules. Almost all of them required that an athlete be retired in order to be eligible for induction, while some require a waiting period of ye three years or more. But here a Good Game we make our own rules, which means we're allowed to induct a player whose Hall of Fame worthy moment happened just a few days ago. That brings us to the latest edition of the Good Game Hall
of Fame. Yes, the Good Game Hall of Fame, where we celebrate women's sports lore, the kind of legendary stories we should all know by heart, just like we know about Babe Ruth's called Shot, Bill Buckner's Air, and Merkles Boner Google it your pervs. We've got some catching up to do in women's sports, though, so grab another plaque and find a good place on the wall. Today we've
got another inductdee. Last weekend's NCAA Hockey Championship featured the Wisconsin Badgers and Ohio State Buckeyes, and it came down to the wire, featuring one of the most chaotic endings
we've seen in a long time. Trailing three to two with under two minutes left, the Badger's got two lucky breaks, first when Ohio State got hit with the penalty for too many players on the ice, and then with just eighteen seconds left, when an Ohio State defender covered the puck in the crease and Wisconsin was given a choice to assess Ohio State with another minor penalty or take
a penalty shot. That choice was easy. Legendary Wisconsin coach Mark Johnson told the ref they'd take the penalty shot, and then he turned to his players, asking who wants it now. It's worth noting here that Johnson knows a little something about pressure himself. He was a member of the nineteen to eighty US Olympic men's team that won
gold and defeated the Soviet Union. He scored two goals in that game that earned the title of Miracle on Ice a performance that helped him earn induction into just about every hockey Hall of Fame. But let's get back to the present. So Johnson posed the question and down on the ice in front of him, Kirsten Simms hand shot up. That was that. The twenty year old from Plymouth, Michigan, skated confidently to the center of the ice, and her penalty shot was a butte the definition of a dangle.
With the game tied three to three and headed to overtime, and he guesses who scored the game winner just two forty nine into sudden death overtime, yep Sims again asked about the hand raised. In the postgame presser, Sims, like a true hockey player, credited her teammates with the decision take a listen. I mean, I can't really say it was like initially my choice. I had everyone on the bench screaming sim Simms, you do it, you do it.
So I was like, you know what, whatever, I was like, coach is gonna need to see my hand go up for me to actually go so and what about our coach? Would Mark Johnson of Miracle on ice Fame have raised his hand in that moment?
I was asking several people after. I don't know if I wanted, if I was playing, I would take the shot, just because again, it's like nothing. You got to be as free as you can be right in that moment. You can't be thinking about anything other than I'm going to score.
Talk about pressure. Welcome to the Good Game Hall of Fame, Kirsten Simms. We'll find a nice spot for that plaque. By the way, we love that you're listening. But you know we want you to get in the game every day too. And this one's easy. If you bought some merch, send us a photo. We've already gotten a handful of people sending us pictures wearing their T shirts and sweatshirts from Breaking Tea, but if you got one, we want to see it. It makes us so happy every time
we get sent one. And if you haven't yet, obviously go to Breakingtea dot com slash Spain and get you a good gay merch rocket, take a photo, set it to us, and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. It's easy. Watch Boss Nation. Sorry. Boston Legacy FC once again using men's sports to hype their new women's team, rating five out of five. Eye rolls review. Now listen, the Boston folks have taken more than enough of a beating for their slip ups during this ramp up to
an active team. Need a reminder the name, the too many Balls campaign, the long delay before this rebrand, the ongoing issues with their stadium plans, not mentioning the Boston Fleet or any other women's sports teams past or present in that infamous intro video that featured every men's pro team in Beantown, and also, weirdly, Tom Brady reacting to
a goat balls reference. So I hate to pile on, but after one post on Instagram announcing the new name, the next post, a shared post with the team's supporters group, read can't wait to support the home team. Everyone loves a good comeback story, right with a screenshot of the old name Boss Nation aligned next to the Super Bowl score from twenty seventeen from the third quarter when the New England Patriots were down against the Atlanta Falcons twenty
eight to three. Below that, the new name Boston Legacy, next to an aligned with the final score of that Super Bowl, the Patriots winning thirty four to twenty eight, a legendary comeback win. I get it. Sports law in any town is just sort of a universal language that everybody speaks, and that comeback win was one of the most legendary games in sports history. And they're poking fun
at their own terrible start, which I like. But when so many of the complaints about your initial rollout involved centering men's teams in the video, centering the idea of men with the too many balls garbage, and not including women's teams, then what brainiac thought rolling out Yet another reference to men's sports was the move here. Yes, it was a post that originated from the supporters group, but the comments make it clear that many supporters still don't
like the constant references to men's teams. Now listen it. They want to post this in a month or two. Absolutely, it's funny, but for the official admin account to make this their second post after the name change announcement, it just holds too much weight in my opinion. Also, is the comeback really complete if you're already fumbling the rollout of the new name with the same mistakes that you made the first time and clearly heard from a bunch
of fans that they didn't like. Side note, the team also posted a quote from a Wall Street Journal story about the rebrand and the new name, titled she hit the Button and all Hell Broke loose. How the sports team everyone hated came back but then almost immediately deleted that from their Instagram. Curious. Anyway, We're rooting for you, Boston. Just maybe hold back on the whole team everyone hated
coming back until you actually come back. Let's just finish this rollout of the new name and try not to step in anything else, and then I'll celebrate. Now it's your jurn y'all right, thanks for listening, See you tomorrow. Good game, Nancy, Good Game, Kirsten Simms h World Athletics. 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.