The Utility Belt #3

“It matters more what's in a woman's face than what's on it.”
-Claudette Colbert

I was listening to sports radio at home this past week (I like wallowing in my own filth from time to time), when the hosts of the program to which I was listening began discussing the NCAA Women’s Tournament. Mind you, they weren’t discussing the athletic merits of the tourney, or even those of the individual players (the least they could do is use the standard condescending “sound fundamentals” line). Instead, they were ranting about how pissed ESPN anchor Trey Wingo must have been to be covering such a “weak ass” event. Along the way, they made the requisite jock radio comments about the ugliness of most of the players and the stupidity of women’s athletics (on a side note, it’s a little ironic that, considering the most exercise a lot of these guys get is from vomiting and crying in strip club restrooms, they spend so much time making fun of women for wanting to do something that requires physical fitness).

Anyway, toward the end of their speech, something out of the ordinary happened: They brought up Candace Parker. For those of you who haven’t seen Candace Parker play, she’s probably going to spark record interest in the WNBA next year (granted, she could do that by bringing her family to her games). She can shoot the J, drive to the basket, dunk on a pretty consistent basis, dominate on defense, and as an added bonus, she’s absolutely beautiful. Put simply, she’s a stud; that’s the only word for her. At least, that’s what I thought, but neither that word, nor any of the others I’ve used here, were ones that the hosts brought up. Instead, when describing Ms. Parker, they simply listed her physical attributes part by part, and the only phrase used to describe her at all was “she could get it.” First of all, I’m not sure what “it” is to these guys, but judging from the appearance of most sports journalists, it probably smells like a mix of cheese, bad cigars, and despair. Secondly, here’s a girl that’s really talented, even fun to watch, oftentimes a rarity for individual players in women’s basketball. She has the potential to lift a whole sport out of obscurity (to further my point, I’ll list the WNBA teams I know: The Sparks, the Liberty…um, the Lohans?). But instead of talking about any of that, these “sports journalists” were content to break her down to the sum of her body parts to let America know that “she could get it.”

Why is it that every man in America only feels comfortable with athletic girls when we’re breaking them down in terms of physical appearance and nothing else? Are we that scared of a woman who can dunk on us? It can’t be that an athletic woman isn’t sexy. I just saw a clip of Candace Parker swatting a Mississippi player’s shot into the stands, and it was one of the sexiest things I’ve seen in the past year (competing with the Discovery Channel and a mannequin I saw in a mall…the “I run a website” line isn’t as effective as you’d think). There is no reason that a girl can’t be absolutely stunning and made more attractive by the fact that she could own most guys on a court, field, or wherever. The point is, when we break down what makes Candace Parker sexy, her looks are just a small part of whether or not she “could get it." For anyone who really appreciates the attraction of Candace Parker, the real appeal has just as much to do with how pretty her eyes are as it does with how they look when she stares down that girl after putting her shot in the cheap seats.


Word,

The Utility Man