It stung more than I thought it would when the US women lost to Japan at the close of the penalty kicks for the FIFA World Cup. Strangely my sadness over the US women losing didn’t prevent me from feeling very glad for Japan. I guess I can compartmentalize my feelings for both teams. I wanted each to win for different reasons.
I have been very invested in the world cup; it is a game that is meaningful to me in a very personal way. A couple years before the first batch of US women forced the world to recognize their skill and provide an international stage for women’s soccer I was a child at HKIS. I was blissfully unaware of gender bias and had no inkling of the trouble that I would cause when I tried to join my school’s mini rugby team. The after-school activity programme did not explicitly state that it was a boys’ only team.
Decades later I am a coach of a boys’ rugby team. I know what the HKIS coaches didn’t know back then- that girls and boys can play rugby together until puberty happens because there is no difference. If I were a coach of a younger age group I would be coaching girls also but several decades ago no one knew this.
I tried to join. My parents, who would never be confused for jocks, did not see what was so obvious to the other parents. We were informed that this was a boy activity. My parents did not object, probably because neither was especially interested in having to sit at the sidelines for hours each week. I looked at the list of other after-school activities and chose soccer. As it turned out, soccer was not as popular a sport for the children of HKIS as it was for the thousands of kids who play elsewhere. The school did not have a female soccer team.
I guess that they were not eager to keep saying no to me because I was allowed to join the team. I wish I could say that it was fun and we overcame all of our biases but that was not the case. On day one the coach decided for me that I would be the goalie. It was clearly the best position for the smallest person on the team. It was also clearly a great position for someone who was one of the fastest runners in the school. At the age of ten, only one girl and three boys were faster than me in the 400m run. I could hang in the chin up position longer than anyone else in my class and my time was better than the best time for the grade above mine. I think my parents still have my little athletics certificates.
I was left to stand in goal. I was excluded from learning other positions and mostly ignored. After several weeks of being forced to stand between two orange cones while my teammates ran around and practiced drills I went home and told my parents that I didn’t want to play soccer anymore. They never asked why. Sometimes I wish they would have but I doubt it would have changed anything. I suspect that the “training” given to me by the soccer coach was designed for this very outcome.
Ten year olds can be quite resilient. Down but not out I went on to become a terror at the recess bombardment game. I couldn’t throw the ball nearly as hard as some of the other boys but I could catch better than them.
After completing my first season of coaching children I realized something: the kids don’t remember a win or a loss after a couple of days; it is the parents and coaches who keep score. Children simply want to have fun and compete. When I cheer for the US women I am cheering because they were little girls who also wanted to be allowed to play, to have fun, to compete, to experience teamwork, and to play with their friends in a sport that they enjoyed.
I have been very invested in the world cup; it is a game that is meaningful to me in a very personal way. A couple years before the first batch of US women forced the world to recognize their skill and provide an international stage for women’s soccer I was a child at HKIS. I was blissfully unaware of gender bias and had no inkling of the trouble that I would cause when I tried to join my school’s mini rugby team. The after-school activity programme did not explicitly state that it was a boys’ only team.
Decades later I am a coach of a boys’ rugby team. I know what the HKIS coaches didn’t know back then- that girls and boys can play rugby together until puberty happens because there is no difference. If I were a coach of a younger age group I would be coaching girls also but several decades ago no one knew this.
I tried to join. My parents, who would never be confused for jocks, did not see what was so obvious to the other parents. We were informed that this was a boy activity. My parents did not object, probably because neither was especially interested in having to sit at the sidelines for hours each week. I looked at the list of other after-school activities and chose soccer. As it turned out, soccer was not as popular a sport for the children of HKIS as it was for the thousands of kids who play elsewhere. The school did not have a female soccer team.
I guess that they were not eager to keep saying no to me because I was allowed to join the team. I wish I could say that it was fun and we overcame all of our biases but that was not the case. On day one the coach decided for me that I would be the goalie. It was clearly the best position for the smallest person on the team. It was also clearly a great position for someone who was one of the fastest runners in the school. At the age of ten, only one girl and three boys were faster than me in the 400m run. I could hang in the chin up position longer than anyone else in my class and my time was better than the best time for the grade above mine. I think my parents still have my little athletics certificates.
I was left to stand in goal. I was excluded from learning other positions and mostly ignored. After several weeks of being forced to stand between two orange cones while my teammates ran around and practiced drills I went home and told my parents that I didn’t want to play soccer anymore. They never asked why. Sometimes I wish they would have but I doubt it would have changed anything. I suspect that the “training” given to me by the soccer coach was designed for this very outcome.
Ten year olds can be quite resilient. Down but not out I went on to become a terror at the recess bombardment game. I couldn’t throw the ball nearly as hard as some of the other boys but I could catch better than them.
After completing my first season of coaching children I realized something: the kids don’t remember a win or a loss after a couple of days; it is the parents and coaches who keep score. Children simply want to have fun and compete. When I cheer for the US women I am cheering because they were little girls who also wanted to be allowed to play, to have fun, to compete, to experience teamwork, and to play with their friends in a sport that they enjoyed.
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