Going Rogue: An American Life Read Online Free PDF Page B

media credentials: NO WOMEN OR
    CHILDREN ALLOWED.
    I set out to follow that path, even memorializing in my high school yearbook my goal of someday working in the broadcast booth with Howard Cosell. Granted, conventional wisdom at the time was that sports reporting was a man’s world, but in my family, gender was never allowed ro be an issue. My parents gave us equal opportuniry and expectations. We were all expected to work, build, chop, hunt, fish, and fight equally. I’m a product of Title IX and am proud that it Was Alaska’s own Senator Ted Stevens who helped usher through the federal legislation in 1972 to ensure girls would have the right to the same education and athletic opportunities as boys. I was a direct beneficiary of the equal rights efforts that had begun gaining traction only the decade before. Later, my own daughters would benefit, participating in sports like hockey, wrestling, and football, which had been closed to girls for decades.
    I didn’t subscribe to all tbe radical mantras of that early feminist era, bur reasoned arguments for equal opportunity definitely resonated with me. It was a matter not of ideology but of simple Standing on the shoulders of women who had won hardfought battles for things like equal pay and equal access, I grew up knowing I could be anything I wanted to be. Years later I came across a book by fellow Alaskan (and former basketball rival from Fairbanks) Jessica Gavora called Tilting the Playing Field, about the liberating effect of Title IX on women’s sports, and I agreed with a lot of what she wrote: “Instead of refleccing and, indeed, reveling in our expanded horizons, the feminism of the National Organization for Women and other so-called ‘women’s groups’ …
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    depicts women as passive victims rather rhan the makers of rheir own destinies, and overlooks our individuality in favor of a collective political identity that many of us lind restrictive.” Sports empowered me to plow through some Neanderthal thinking that still permeates corners of our culture, including some parts of that thing we call American politics. Jessica and I are from the same era and have the same Alaska spirit, so it’s no surprise that we consider ourselves more liberated rhan some women’s rights groups would have us believe we are. Dad coached many of our teams, Mom was an assistant running coach, and they expected us all to participate and work hard, no matter what our talent. We lived by the creed thar passion is ‘what counts. Our parents were as proud of us when we won litrle awards, like the Presidential Physical Fitness patch, as when we won bigger ones, like the time I was named MVP of our high school cross-country team.
    My siblings all won many more sports awards than I, as I wasn’t equipped with anything close to their natural talent. But I once overheard Dad say to another coach that he’d never had an athlete work harder, Overhearing those words was one of the most powerful experiences of my life. Maybe God didn’t give me natural athleticism-other athleres could run faster, jump higher, and hit the basket more often-but I loved competition. I loved pushing myself and even relished pushing through pain to reach a goal. I realized rhat my gift was determination and resolve, and I have relied on it ever since.
    Because Dad was our coach, thete was extra scrutiny and pressure. It seemed to me that he went out of his way to dispel any perceived nepotism. I felt a jealous twinge, and even hurt sometimes, when he’d give other athletes an inspiring word or com • 3°
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    Going Rogue
    forting arm around the shoulder but would give me the proverbial slug in the arm and rell me to “work harder.” I know now why he did that, and what seemed a double standard at the time did make me work harder and become srronger.
    There were practical benefits of having Dad coach, though. He knew how much I disliked playing in the pep band after a rough basketball