"The Glass Grandstand"

I listen to NPR practically every day, and while I love all of their commentators, I must say that their sports contributor Frank Deford is my absolute favorite. He has the amazing ability to seamlessly combine sports and society issues so that even though you might think you are listening to a story about basketball, you really are getting deeper insight into how our society operates, even when it comes to gender.

For example, one of Deford’s most recent stories headlines “Women’s Team Excels; Will America Notice?” This story focuses on the success of the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team for impressively winning “65 games in a row — and, incredibly, all 65 by double digits.” Deford also notes that players Maya Moore and Tina Charles may possibly be the two best players in college and “[w]hen has that been the case, in any sport, ever?”

Deford then goes on to discuss how while this historic team is dominating the sport of basketball, the rest of the country does not seem to notice. Indeed he wonders why women’s team sports seem to get far less attention than men’s when it is perfectly willing to rally around individual female athletes like Lindsey Vonn at the Olympics, Danica Patrick on the NASCAR track, and Serena William’s at the Australian Open.

In a way that only Deford can, he coins this phenomenon as the “glass grandstand” because even though more and more women are entering the world of sports and excelling at it, no one really seems interested in watching as they climb.

Well thank you Mr. Deford for helping to shatter the glass grandstand, and bringing this to our attention…