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