Growing up in Stanley, Kansas, I realized the importance of having local heroes. Like most children, professional wrestler Hulk Hogan was my first recognizable sports figure, then came NBA forward Michael Jordan and eventually the Kansas City Chiefs running back Christian Okoye, also known as “The Nigerian Nightmare.”
Kids need heroes, real heroes, not just those from cartoons and comic book movies. As I got older, my heroes localized. It wasn’t just players from the Chiefs. It was players for the local high school. Heroes I could reach out and touch like Andy Paster, Andrew Harmon and various other Blue Valley High School athletes in the 1990s.
I remember some gangly kid coming over and playing my brother in Madden, picking his plays from a sequence he kept on notebook paper in an old Trapper-Keeper. That was Brian Schottenheimer, current Dallas Cowboys coach.
One aspect of sports I never understood until covering it was heroes in women’s sports. They have heroes too, but I never heard of them until I was much older.
Most people may struggle with knowing 10 famous female athletes. The biggest travesty in sports is the lack of female athletes in the American zeitgeist.
Politics aside, how does the longest continually operating female professional sports league in America have such a low regard?
It’s widely reported the WNBA operates at around a $50 million deficit with the NBA subsidizing the shortfall. While some question whether the WNBA should continue operating, I question the cost of taking away one more positive role model for American girls.
Recently, the WNBA began murmurs of a lockout demanding the same cut of the media rights as their NBA counterparts, which is around 50%.
While the media rights deal for the NBA is $75 billion, the WNBA rights went for about $1 billion. Asking for a 50% cut is a bit of an overstretch because there is more NBA pie to go around.
The pie should be bigger, and it’s our fault. I don’t have a daughter, but if I do one day I would take her to a WNBA game.
Look at their prices. Tickets are cheap. Look at the court after a WNBA game or the pitch after a KC Current soccer game. The players are talking to the kids before and after the game, signing autographs and palling around.
It is culturally invaluable.
Athletes want to be heroes because they had local heroes to admire and pattern their lives. They want people in their lives who won’t let them down.
Allen Community College and area high schools have many female athletes for area kids to idolize. Despite being in rural Kansas, ACC has athletes who speak multiple languages, including English, and come from around the world.
Going to a WNBA game or driving to a KC Current game is not feasible for many families. However, paying a few bucks to give a little girl someone to look up to and try to be like later in life seems like a pretty good deal.
It’s up to the local moms and dads to take the time and give their kids opportunities to discover local heroes.
