When a last-second shot gave Notre Dame the NCAA women’s basketball title in April, the best player on the team sprinted onto the court from the bench, in street clothes, to join the celebration. Arike Ogunbowale got the glory, with game-winning shots in back-to-back games, but center Brianna Turner is arguably the team’s finest talent — and her return this year from a knee injury is one of the main reasons why the Lady Irish have been picked to rule women’s hoops once again.
Turner is more likely to be cracking a joke than worrying about the grind or the pressure of a title defense. Before the start of the season, she wasn’t even sure when Notre Dame would play powerhouse Connecticut (it’s Dec. 2), saying with a shrug: “We all know we’re going to play UConn eventually.”
Turner grew up in Texas, the daughter of two college basketball players, Kellye and Howard Turner. As a child, she also played soccer and volleyball, but as soon as Turner got to high school it was all basketball — Texas universities were already recruiting her in middle school. But the only child “felt like being farther away immersed me into my environment,” she says, so she set off for elite hoops and academics in South Bend, Indiana.
… The former Wayne State volleyball player and sprint star says there’s nothing she’d rather do than compete for her country.
Brungardt, 28, found out at the end of October that she made the U.S. bobsled national team competing on the World Cup circuit. She’s one of the four brakemen who work with the two pilots on the squad. They push the sleigh at the start of the race and then stop it after it hits the finish line.
Speed and strength are a must, and the 5-foot-8 Brungardt has both. The World-Herald Nebraska girls high school athlete of the year for Norfolk Catholic in 2008 specialized in the sprints at Wayne State, and she can also squat lift 281 pounds. She survived a combine, rookie camp, trials and the selection committee to ensure her spot.
Injuries can be a major factor in determining athletes’ success in their respective sports. For BYU’s Sara Hamson, her knee injury has affected her playing time both in volleyball and basketball.
The 6-foot-7-inch women’s basketball center and women’s volleyball outside hitter suffered her injury before the volleyball season even began. Regardless of the setback, BYU women’s volleyball head coach Heather Olmstead said Hamson has been working hard on her road to recovery.
“Sara’s doing a great job,” Olmstead said. “She’s working hard and improving every day, and we’re excited to get her back next season.”
Pernille Harder, the first player to be announced as No 1 on the Guardian’s list of the 100 best female footballers in the world, has spoken about the honour of being chosen by a panel of journalists, managers and her peers.
Having beaten Australia’s Sam Kerr, the Ballon d’Or winner Ada Hegerberg, England’s Lucy Bronze and the France striker Eugénie Le Sommer to the summit, Harder, who plays as a forward for double-winning Wolfsburg, said: “It always means a lot when you know it’s a jury that really knows about women’s football. To be No 1 among all of these amazing players is fantastic.”
… How depressing that this should overshadow a worthy attempt to shine a bigger spotlight on the best of women’s football. Unfortunately that spotlight ended up highlighting how much more is still to be done until it is treated with the respect it deserves.
… Quade played one full rotation last season before subbing out because serve-receive turned into serve-receive error too frequently for coach Chris Tamas’ liking.
“For us to take the next step, we told her she needed to accept the six-rotation role,” Tamas said. “She had to be a back-row player and up her defensive game. She took it to heart and did all the work in the spring and the summer when no one was around. She’s just become a steady force, improving every day she’s been out there.”
“I didn’t have much experience with serve-receive,” Quade said. “It’s such a hard skill to learn. It requires so much attention on every single part of it. You mess up one thing and you mess up the whole pass. … As a hitter, if you are in the reception pattern, they’re coming after you every single time because they want you to pass the ball.”
Athletic Training and Sports Health Care journal from
Purpose:
To compare participation metrics by level of specialization in volleyball players and to determine if motivational factors were associated with level of specialization. Methods:
Female high school volleyball players (n = 102) between 13 and 18 years of age were surveyed from two local high schools. The survey questions were about participation metrics, influential factors, and sport specialization. Results:
Highly specialized athletes had a significantly higher training volume than lower specialized athletes in variables including months per year and hours per week playing volleyball. Obtaining a college scholarship was an influential factor for volleyball participation in highly specialized volleyball athletes (P < .001).
Conclusions:
Highly specialized players were participating at levels that exceed safe sport recommendations, which may increase their risk of injury. These habits may be influenced by the potential of a collegiate volleyball scholarship.
I have the opportunity to work with a number of female athletes at the NCAA Division I level, specifically young women competing in softball, track & field, and rowing. Through this experience, I’ve gained a certain perspective regarding various groups of young women who are incredibly devoted to their sports—in some cases, they are competing at the collegiate level as the culmination of 10-15 years of commitment and dedication to their given event. With regard to rowing, they are often beginning a new athletic endeavor altogether!
All too frequently with these female college athletes, their sport-specific skills are highly developed, but take the glove out of their hand or the spikes off their feet, and the weaknesses in their athletic foundations are quickly exposed. (Many coaches will recognize that these observations are not unique to female competitors, either.)
Michelle Obama set the record straight during an appearance at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Saturday night, one of the many stops on her Becoming book tour. Speaking about work life balance, and finding a way to excel in your career and marriage, Obama spoke frankly about what works and what doesn’t — and that the expectation of “having it all” isn’t always feasible.
“That whole ‘so you can have it all.’ Nope, not at the same time,” Obama said. “That’s a lie. And it’s not always enough to lean in, because that shit doesn’t work all the time.” The crowd erupted at hearing the former first lady say “shit,” and Obama quickly apologized. “I forgot where I was for a moment!”
I’ve known Emilie Fournelle for almost a decade. She is one of the most sought-after product experts in Montreal right now, for good reason: her leadership style, entrepreneurial spirit, make-it-happen attitude and energy make her a huge asset to any tech organization.
Emilie and I worked closely together while at SweetIQ – and now we grab lunch whenever we can (I mentioned her in my last post… you might remember). With all the discussion around diversity in tech, and the spotlight on Montreal as a hub for AI, – I wanted to hear Emilie’s views on all the topics that are buzzing right now.
… For years, I had heard rave reviews from peers and colleagues about the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC). When I joined Strava, I was excited to learn that Strava would be represented at the conference both as a sponsor and attendee contingent. And I was one of the lucky seven employees sent to GHC on Strava’s behalf.
Prior to the event, I was unsure of what to expect. I had attended conferences of comparable size in the past, many of which felt daunting and impersonal. Despite my excitement about going, I had my doubts that GHC would be able to live up to the hype. Could a conference pull off 400 sessions and 800+ speakers without compromising quality? Would I make meaningful connections in a sea of 20,000 people? How would we be able to prove that GHC was a worthwhile investment for Strava from a recruiting standpoint?
Sky Blue FC, the pro women’s soccer team co-owned by Gov. Phil Murphy, is pulling its support of a proposed Ocean County sports complex that may have housed its new stadium — just hours after media reports in which environmentalists voiced outrage, NJ Advance Media has confirmed.
Critics were especially concerned over how developers plan to cut down thousands of trees to make way for the 200-acre project in Jackson.
“Due to environmental concerns that have been brought to our attention, Sky Blue FC is withdrawing our support for the Trophy Park project application,” Tony Novo, the team’s general manager, said in a statement late Thursday night.
… For nearly two decades, LSU has been practicing an ACL surgery that the consensus of sports organizations considers far too risky.
The results, [Jack] Marucci said, have shown that LSU’s decision was both innovative and safe.
Over 17 years, LSU has repaired the ACLs of 39 football players, and only one player suffered a re-tear — a success rate (97 percent) that equals or exceeds the success rates that have been reported from the nation’s standard method of surgery.
Here’s what sets LSU apart: Marucci said the average time that it takes for an LSU player to return to practice from surgery is 4.8 months — a timeline several sports physicians consider impressive.
Each football season ignites a drumbeat of media interest in concussion; all year round, research on the subject is flourishing. But despite substantial scientific progress and an uptick in public awareness, fundamental questions are still unresolved.
Is there a way to reliably identify when someone has experienced a concussion? Why do some people respond to the same impact differently than others? Can we prevent these injuries? And how should we treat them?
Since 2015, researchers at Virginia Tech have been participating in the most comprehensive concussion study in the world. The massive project, funded jointly by the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the U.S. Department of Defense, has received an additional $22.5 million to support two more years of research at universities across the country.
Wherever it lands in the upcoming World Cup draw — which will be held in Paris on Saturday at noon ET — the United States Women’s National Team will go into next year’s tournament in its familiar perch as favorites. The U.S. has been the most dominant team in the history of the event (which began in 1991), capturing the Cup three times and winning more matches (33) than any other country. Along the way, Team USA has given us multiple generations of superstars, the latest of which includes names like Carli Lloyd, Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe and Tobin Heath — all of whom figure to represent the Stars and Stripes in France next summer.
But this won’t quite be the same roster as the one last seen hoisting the World Cup in 2015 (or even the one America sent to the 2016 Olympics). Likely gone are goalkeeper Hope Solo, forward Abby Wambach, midfielder Lauren Holiday and defenders Meghan Klingenberg, Christie Rampone and Ali Krieger, among others. And while the U.S. has perpetually been able to retool on the fly with the emergence of even greater young talent than before (remember Morgan’s breakout performance as a 22-year-old at the 2011 World Cup?), there’s growing concern that the next generation won’t be as ready to carry the torch.
Specifically, the U.S. results at the youth level — including both the Under-17 and Under-20 Women’s World Cups — have been pretty mediocre in recent years.
Football is a team game, but every team is made up of individuals. And if there’s one thing about fans, it’s that we love individual players to rally behind.
And there are plenty to choose from up and down the Women’s Super League. From Arsenal, running away with the league; to recent champions Manchester City and Chelsea, as well as Birmingham City and Reading, in the chasing pack; down to struggling teams at the bottom like Brighton, Yeovil, and Everton.
Here are some of the best picks from StatsBomb’s WSL data.
Geno Auriemma leaned back in his chair and considered the new reality in women’s college basketball.
He’s spent years trying to convince everyone—the media, but most of all his team—that unless they played at the nearly-perfect level expected at Connecticut, there would be consequences on the floor. But the truth was, Breanna Stewart’s Huskies probably weren’t going to lose regardless.
“I think the honest truth is that you become numb to anything other than: how do we create scenarios where our guys have to fight through them?”, Auriemma said. “Then now, you have to completely switch gears and go, we actually have to fight through shit.”
There are plenty of people who think women are not qualified to coach men’s sports (trust us, we talked to them). But trailblazers in the industry are breaking through barriers, little by little.
The forward, still only 22, has proved a big success in France but has grown so disillusioned with women’s football in her homeland she has turned her back on the national team
Recently, in commemoration of Women’s Equality Day, two-time NBA MVP and three-time NBA champion Stephen Curry wrote an op-ed in The Players’ Tribune entitled “This is Personal.” In the article, Curry spoke of the ways in which his upbringing by his mother Sonya Curry and his marriage to Ayesha Curry influenced his perspective on the matter of gender equality. Curry added that the birth of his daughters, Riley and Ryan, helped him appreciate more fully the plight of women in our society. He wrote that he and his wife now see the world “through the eyes of these daughters of ours, who we brought into this world, and now are raising to live in this world.” Curry concluded that his experience as a father of a daughter meant that “the idea of women’s equality has become a little more personal for me, lately, and a little more real.”
Our own research published at Public Opinion Quarterly confirms Curry’s view, showing that men who have a daughter as their first child are more supportive of policies to promote gender equality – including Title IX — than are those who have a son first.
