Yep. It’s true, I went to Costa Rica last week and came back with a notch in my bookmark. My bookmark which doesn’t get much action. If you know me, you know I get bored reading books. I like blogs, magazines, books with pop-ups and pictures and, at times, books on tape. Perhaps it’s because I am a slow reader, or that my attention span is hard to please, or that Oprah won’t tell me what to like, or that books ruin movies. Whatever the reason, there are only a few things will trick me into reading and the stars need to align. Usually it happens when I am on vacation with other people who enjoy reading and ignore me while doing so. Books that have the honor of having me read them:
– Some industry books (although to be fair, many have pictures)
– Dan Brown tricked me with his short chapters and multiple story lines
– P.S. I love you crept up on me, and made me cry (i’m still pissed)
– Chelsea Handler, three times.
– and the latest book, the one this post is about: The Girls of Summer (fair warning, don’t google it, just follow this link). Before I get into what makes this a great book, I will tell you who should read this book: If you are a woman athlete, the father of a daughter, a soccer fan, and/or watched in awe in 1999 when Brandi Chastain ripped off her shirt and made the black sports bra infamous, you should read this book. Yes, it is old, but the contents are still relevant today.
The book is 1 part reliving the day in 1999 that 90,000+ filled the rose bowl to watch the women’s national team defeat china in a shootout after 120 minutes of soccer played in 100+ degree weather, 1 part history of women in sports, 1 part human stories of those involved and 1 part a look behind the political nonsense of near-sighted decision makers.
It is amazing how far women’s involvement in sports has come in such a short period of time (read: the last 30 years). Global involvement in the olympics, the fact that in some countries fathers can’t watch their daughters play sports that must be played indoors, women’s soccer games were almost 80 minutes long because 90 minutes would be too much, or that before the 1980s there were no women’s distance races in the Olympics because organizers considered the races too strenuous for women (until 1960, no race over 200 meters existed for women).
I’m a feminist, and even I was surprised that I unknowingly took for granted that I was able to play competitive sports growing up, that were funded in high school and got me a scholarship for college. This book weaves the stories of players with history brilliantly. In the same chapter you relive the game while learning about when and where women got involved in sports.
The full title of the book is: The Girls of Summer: The U.S. Women’s Soccer Team and How It Changed the World. If you read this book, you will agree with Jere Longman’s bold assertion. Now it’s back to reruns of How I Met Your Mother and Angry Birds.
the world according to schmogel. 