ing to the women’s games,
having to prove yourself
while the men do not and the
pressure
to look good
a f -
t e r
sweating for 90 minutes
straight, for instance. I won-
dered, then, how these reali-
ties play out on the collegiate
level, where one’s sport is
not a hobby but a job in
the public eye.
Student-
ath-
l e t e s
are
al-
ready under a lot of
pressure from having to bal-
ance schoolwork, games and
practice, so how do their dif-
fering identities — like which
sport they play, their gender,
race and socio-economic sta-
tus — and the intersectional-
ity of these identities impact
their ability to thrive in ath-
letics and academics, as well
as their self-esteem, identity
The University of Michigan
has 13 men’s and 14 women’s
varsity sports, but if you’re
not an avid sports fan, you
are probably only familiar
with two: men’s football and
men’s
basketball.
Indeed,
these
teams
a r e
central to our
campus spirit and iden-
tity: The fall football season
builds a sense of camara-
derie even for those who
barely watch the games, and
the March Madness tourna-
ment is another excuse to
get drunk and excited over a
maize-colored jersey. Much
of these sports’ popularity
comes from American cul-
ture and tradition, as well
as the history of the athletic
program, but it is sustained
through powerful market-
ing and resourcing — which
is possible, considering these
sports are the major drivers
of revenue for the University.
The NCAA’s model, which
has shifted from providing
holistic academic and athlet-
ic opportunities to optimiz-
ing profit, has led to the cuts
of many D1 athletic programs
and hindered the growth of
already existing ones.
For women’s athletics, this
model can be an even deeper
threat, as retaining popu-
larity and viewership has
proven difficult for these
teams in the past. Not only
do women athletes have to
break through patriarchal
stereotypes about who sport
is for (traditionally, men) and
which sports are “better” to
watch (i.e. claims that men’s
How women student athletes navigate college life
MAGDALENA MIHAYLOVA
Statement Correspondent
This March, outcry arose
during the NCAA March
Madness
tournament
when Sedona Prince,
a forward for the
Oregon
Ducks
women’s
bas-
ketball
team,
posted a Tik-
Tok
compar-
ing her team’s
weight
room
to that of their
male
coun-
terparts.
The
men’s
weight
room was an ex-
pansive gym full of
machines, equipment
and free weights. The
women’s weight room was
a single rack of dumbbells
and yoga mats. The NCAA
claimed it was a space issue,
but the TikTok clearly shows
that the women’s area had
ample room for a full gym.
And while the internet ex-
ploded in discourse and de-
bate, many women athletes
expressed that these dispari-
ties are nothing new.
Indeed, this controversy
is a reflection of a great-
er issue in sports and
in society overall.
Women
athletes,
and
especially
women athletes
of color, are not
only paid less
for the same or
better
work,
but they are
denied
equal
economic re-
sources
and
facilities,
do
not receive fair
marketing
and
coverage
and
suffer
stereotyp-
ing,
sexualization
and
discrimination.
Despite the passage of
Title IX in 1972, women
athletes today — at the club,
high school, collegiate and
professional levels — face
substantial
roadblocks
to
true equality. And while the
University of Michigan does
a good job supporting its stu-
dent athletes who are wom-
en, the institution of sport
overall is still skewed to sup-
port men and their success.
As a woman who grew up
playing competitive soccer,
I am well aware of the social
disparities that occur on and
off the field — less fans com-
and worldview?
I spoke with seven women
from six different sports
— track & field and cross
country, gymnastics, rowing,
field hockey, softball and
lacrosse — in the hopes
of learning about their
experiences as wom-
en student athletes
at the University.
As a non-student-
athlete,
I
have
witnessed within
myself, and among
other peers who
don’t play college
sports, a tendency to
make assumptions or
stereotypes about stu-
dent-athletes, especially
with gendered, racial and
sport-specific lenses. And
while these seven women
graciously allowed me a look
into their academic, athletic
and personal lives with com-
mon themes linking their
experiences, this article is
merely a glance into
the
di-
verse,
complex
in-
stitution of sport.
Dr. Ketra Armstrong, profes-
sor of Sport Management and
director of Diversity, Equity
& Inclusion for the School of
Kinesiology, touched on the
idea of a universal student-
athlete experience during a
Zoom interview.
“I’m always hesitant to paint
that experience as a mono-
lith,” Armstrong said. “It
differs if they’re a Black stu-
dent or a student of color.
Or if they’re a student of
color, and they’re female and
they’re an athlete playing
what is considered a ‘mascu-
line type sport.’ So there’s a
multiplicity of identities that
are at play when you look at
those two buckets of be-
ing a student and be-
ing an athlete.”
Indeed, identity
impacts experi-
ence; even so,
there are the
typical
ob-
stacles
most
women
ath-
letes face ev-
ery day. Sex-
ist comments.
Body image is-
sues. Social and
political engage-
ment. Viewership
disparities.
These
are encountered in the
classroom or while com-
peting; women athletes suf-
fer many of the common
grievances of the patri-
archy and those that
come with their
sport.
“They’re try-
ing to deal
with a lot,”
Armstrong
s a i d .
“They’re
trying to
be
stu-
d e n t s ,
t h e y ’ r e
trying to
be athletes
and they’re
trying to be
citizens
…
citizens of the
campus,
citi-
zens of the com-
munity, citizens of
the world. So that’s
a lot to ask of a person
to do and to do it success-
fully and impactfully.”
And yet, just as they do on
their field, court, track or
floor — they push through,
they persevere.
“Athletes,
particularly,
they’re high performing,”
Armstrong said. “They’re
resilient, first and foremost,
let’s not forget that. They’re
resilient.”
***
games are more exciting), but
they have to fight for equal
representation in marketing
and media. The NCAA was
criticized this year not only
for the weight room fiasco
but also because of its March
Madness Twitter account.
Its bio reads: “The official
NCAA March Mad-
ness destination
for all things
Division I
N C A A
Men’s
Bas-
k e t -
b a l l .”
It seems
unfair
to
claim
that
“just not enough
people
like
watch-
ing women’s sports” when
there’s barely a mention of
the
women’s
tournament
— how are you supposed to
get new fans if people aren’t
aware of the games?
It’s a phenomenon that LSA
fifth-year
senior
Nadine
Stewart, a lacrosse player
studying
Biopsychology,
Cognition and Neuroscience,
described to me over a Zoom
call. Stewart explained how
the
University’s
women’s
lacrosse
games
are
not
televised; rather, they are
streamed on Big Ten Net-
work Plus, which requires a
paid subscription.
“Some
people
obviously
don’t have (BTN Plus), so
they can’t watch, so we can’t
really get a huge following,”
Stewart said.
The Michigan women’s la-
crosse team motivating each
other before a game.
This lack of proper represen-
tation is also visible in the
sports media. In one study
of sports news in Southern
California, it was found that
while women and girls make
up 40% of all athletes, they
received only about 4% of
news coverage.
Closure
RACHEL MCKIMMY
Statement Correspondent
Graduation looms on the ho-
rizon. For every college stu-
dent, the idea of graduating
college holds a bittersweet
flavor, caught between the
satisfaction of accomplish-
ment and the sadness of
goodbyes. For some, it holds
more of one than the other.
It is sometimes hard to tell
which is stronger. Some-
times, the bitterness wins.
At 21 years old, I’ve been a
college student for five years
and have been at the Univer-
sity of Michigan for three
of them. I took courses at a
community college for two
years in my childhood state
of California before trans-
ferring to the University. My
mom encouraged me to apply
since her and my stepfather’s
resident status would trans-
fer to me. One acceptance
letter and months later, I
was living much closer to my
mom and my sister Sydney’s
family, which I liked because
I could visit them any time I
wanted.
I look back on the clueless
18-year-old from the mid-
dle of nowhere in Northern
California, who was over-
whelmed by the University’s
size and the sheer number of
people during her first few
weeks of class. I remember
how excited she was to wake
up to snow on the ground.
That girl could never have
imagined
that
her
path
would bring her this far or
to this particular place. That
her senior year would be
spent shut away in an apart-
ment off-campus. That by
now she would have accom-
plished and lost so much.
It was only three weeks into
this winter semester that I
received a phone call from
my sister that our mom had
passed away. She lived only
25 minutes away from me,
but I hadn’t risked hugging
her in over a month because
of the risk of coronavirus
contagion. She lived alone,
having separated from my
stepfather a couple of years
ago. The only hint I got that
something was wrong was
that she wasn’t responding
to my texts. I didn’t know
she was gone until almost 24
hours after it happened. She
was only 57 years old.
Her funeral was simple. We
wore masks and social dis-
tanced. We ordered a bou-
quet of flowers in her fa-
vorite color, purple, looking
as much like a bouquet of
wildflowers she would have
picked herself as we could
make it. I played her favorite
music and put together a long
slideshow of photos of her,
even though she never liked
having her picture taken. We
felt we needed some event to
celebrate her life, to mark the
fact that she was gone even
though we couldn’t believe
it, couldn’t accept it. Closure
was the idea, but we felt and
still feel no closure.
I mark every accomplish-
ment now in my mind on a
calendar of months since
she was alive. My first col-
umn in The Michigan Daily
this semester was spread out
on her coffee table when we
went to her house to begin
packing her things. She had
said she planned to frame it.
Since then, I published my
first article in a non-student
publication and I won a Hop-
wood Undergraduate Non-
fiction Award: the outcome
of efforts she witnessed but
of which never got to see the
rewards. On the one hand, I
can’t imagine having done
any more or better in my un-
dergraduate career.
But on the other side of that,
I thought that I would be tak-
ing graduation pictures with
her now. She would be telling
me how proud of me she was.
I still haven’t taken any grad-
uation pictures.
This chapter has a bitter end-
ing for a lot of people, with
not a lot of closure. I know
this is not the senior year any
of us imagined, distanced
from friends and family and
normal life.
Members of the Michigan women’s
softball team pose for a photo in the
Law Quad.
The Michigan women’s field hockey
team celebrates a win after a game with
Northwestern.
The Michigan women’s
gymnastics team celebrates
winning the Big Ten Champion-
ships in 2019.
Eileen Kelly/Daily
20 — Thursday, August 5, 2021
Statement
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com