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I have been
thinking about a topic for awhile, and a few events that happened over the past
two weekends have supported my belief on this topic. The topic I speak of is women in professional
sports, and to be more exact, whether or not they should be able to compete
against the men. Most people think that
they shouldn’t, simply because they are female and they don’t stand a chance
competing against men. Well after the
past two weekends I beg to differ.
A week and a half ago in Motegi,
Japan, Danica Patrick became the first female to win an auto race in any major
series in the world. People have doubted
her since her rookie season in 2005, but after a 2nd place finish
and a few 3rd place finishes last year, she was finally able to
break through for her first victory in her 50th career race in the
Indycar series. Many uninformed
individuals assumed Danica was given a pass into the big leagues of auto racing
based solely on her looks and not by her on track performance. These people are again wrong. Danica started as a young child racing
go-karts. Having raced these myself, I can
tell you that it is not easy to be successful in karting at even the lowest
level. But forget the lowest levels,
Danica went on to win numerous national championships in karting. Then, instead of staying in the US, she moved
to Europe at only 16 to race in developmental series’ over their. This was a big move for her, as Europe is
much better known for breeding top notch race drivers compared to the US. She returned to the US in 2002 to drive in
the lower leagues of Indycar racing to prepare herself for her rookie season in
2005. So as far as credentials go, I
believe she has earned her race seat, and has proven time and again that she
can compete with some of the best drivers in the world.
This past weekend saw another first
for women in the racing world. Ashley
Force won her first ever event in the NHRA funny car series. I don’t think many men would trust her
driving an 8,000 horsepower drag racing car, but she has also proven that she
is worthy in only her second season. And
the competition that she is facing isn’t easy either. In the final round of the event, she had to
face her dad, John Force, who is a 14-time NHRA funny car champion and was
going for his 1,000th career round win. She has also held the points lead in the
funny car division for the last couple of weeks, becoming the first ever woman
to do that. If she continues this
success, she may someday be on Danica’s level.
How about we get away from the
racetrack for a little while though. The
other main sport I would like to talk about is golf, and maybe even a little
tennis. When it comes down to individual
sports of skill, such as the three I have mentioned, I really believe that
women can compete with men. When it
comes to team sports I am not so sure about it though. It is fact that men are usually built bigger
and stronger than women, so I don’t know if women could compete in physical
sports such as football, basketball, or even hockey. Without trying to sound sexist, even if you
have a girl that’s tougher than most guys and wants to play football, I think
you could always find a guy that would be tougher than her and would be better
for the team, but only for the reason that I listed.
But back to golf. The two most recent women to try and play
against the men were Michelle Wie and Annika Sorenstam. Sorenstam is a more decorated golfer with 89
professional wins to her name. In the
one PGA tour event she competed in she struggled in the second round and ended
up missing the cut, but still beat 15 out of the 110 golfers that she competed
against. With the ease with which she
was winning in the LPGA, you cant blame her for wanting some competition from
the men. The other female golfer to
compete in a PGA event was Michelle Wie.
In 2006, at the age of 16, she only missed the cut by 1 stroke in her
first ever PGA event. In her next two
PGA events she
