WIAA sends wrong message to female athletes
VOLLEYBALL INVITATIONAL PUTS FOOTBALL RANKINGS FIRST; FAILS TO FIND AN ATTRACTIVE VENUE
May 1, 2008
For the third year in a row, the organization responsible for high school athletics in Washington state has sent a clear message to female athletes: boys matter more.
On April 29, 2008, the WIAA released the names of the schools selected to participate in its annual preseason football and volleyball classics. Once again, the girls’ sport (volleyball) was an afterthought.
The boys’ football gala dates to 2004, when Bellevue snapped the 151-game win streak of previously-powerful De La Salle. The 5-game football festival drew 25,000 fans to Qwest Field, and brought national recognition—and badly-needed income—to both WIAA and boys’ football.
Eager to build on that success, the WIAA decided to make the preseason football classic an annual event. Most years, invitations went to one out-of-state power, plus seven Washington teams. Staged at the home of the NFL Seahawks, the classic featured high-profile prep football teams, a prerequisite to ensure big crowds, corporate sponsors, and plenty of media attention.
In 2006, the WIAA took a step which—at first—seemed like good news for female athletes: it created the Emerald City Volleyball Invitational, a companion preseason competition for volleyball. Four of the eight teams—including host Eastlake—were from schools which had also been selected to send a boys’ team to the football classic. The remaining four included one sure-fire volleyball power (Blanchet), plus three other teams with respectable volleyball traditions. The 2006 football classic drew just 8,200 fans to cavernous Qwest Field; the inaugural volleyball classic attracted only 550 to Eastlake’s modest gym.
In 2007, five of the eight volleyball teams were from schools whose boys’ teams were selected for the football classic. Once again, the volleyball event was hosted by Eastlake; this time only two of the volleyball teams could fairly be considered among the state’s best (Eisenhower and Newport). Attendance for the football event dropped once again, to 7,900; volleyball drew only 350.
Now, for 2008, the WIAA has drastically cut back the volleyball classic, inviting just four teams—three of which have boys’ teams in the football classic. The fourth, yet again, is host Eastlake.
Eastlake is a respected member of the KingCo4A conference, but it has a relatively modest volleyball tradition. Many schools in the Seattle area have much larger volleyball fan bases and several are far more accomplished at marketing the sport. Not inconsequentially, Eastlake’s location on the Sammamish Plateau makes it among the more inconvenient venues to reach.
During its three-year history, an astonishing 70% of the volleyball classic’s schools have either had a boys’ team selected for the football classic, or been the host school (always Eastlake.) Frankly, this is an insult to girls’ volleyball. A review of the WIAA’s Football Classic press releases finds a drumbeat of references to the fact that the selected teams are among the state’s football elite. Simply attaching the girls’ volleyball team—with little apparent regard to the same elite criteria—smacks of the days when women’s activities were a mere “auxiliary” to men’s.
The volleyball participants should be selected on the same merits used for football. And it’s past time to move the event to a more central location, sponsored by a school with a proven commitment to volleyball. Anything less perpetuates a blatant inequity.
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One more important note: Each and every athlete who participates in the 2008 Volleyball Classic must have completed ten full preseason practices to be eligible. Because the first legal day of practice this season is August 25, and because it is against the rules to practice on a Sunday, that means that every participant will need to have practiced on all ten of the previous allowable eleven days, including Saturday and Labor Day. From past experience, that likely means that many athletes will not be eligible for the classic, due to injuries, schedule conflicts or (as often happens) a lack of gym space to practice on Labor Day.
