My 11 Favorite Memories in the History of Women's Sports (Part 1)

I love women’s sports. Why? Outside of the fact that I get monies to broadcast them, I do genuinely enjoy the competitiveness that I see on a regular basis when I have the chance to call basketball, soccer, volleyball or whatever. 

Without Title IX, my paychecks would be cut in half, and the involvement I had with the Pac-12 and WCC this past year would have been pretty close to zero. I’m not quick to forget that while Title IX has provided countless females the opportunity to get a higher education and the chance to compete against the best of their peers, it has also afforded people like me the chance to get into the broadcasting world. For that, I am forever thankful.

While watching the Minnesota Lynx-Chicago Sky game this morning, I realized that a) today is the 40^th anniversary of Title IX and b) I should come up with a list of my favorite women’s sports memories. It started out as a top-5 list, then a top-10 before becoming a top-11 because my method of determining order (playing each memory against each other in a round-robin format) yielded a tie for 10^th. I broke the tiebreakers on my own arbitrary math that I won’t get in to right now, but you’ll learn more about it in a later post.

A couple of qualifiers before we get to the list: My top 11 embarrassingly has zero WNBA moments on there. Year after year, I promise myself that I will get more into the WNBA and watch more games; heck, I even get Minnesota Lynx score updates on my ScoreCenter app. Despite this, I rarely watch the WNBA, and I’m ashamed to admit it. But just you watch- this summer, I promise to watch more WNBA.  Secondly, this list also doesn’t accurately reflect my love for volleyball, softball and field hockey. There aren’t too many sports I enjoy to broadcast more than volleyball, and no, it’s not because the athletes wear short shorts, so stop right there. Trust me, I might have a dirty mind (ok, I do have a dirty mind), but it doesn’t translate over to women’s sports one bit. That’s a fact, Jack (or Jill).

Also, remember that these are my personal favorite memories- it has nothing to do with how momentous the occasion was for women’s sports as a whole. It’s solely based on how much I enjoyed each of these events.

One last warning: There is going to be a ton of Stanford events on this list; it’s not hard to figure out why.

Without further ado, here’s the part one of the list in ascending order, because as Daisy Fuentes taught me while hosting the Top-20 countdown every Saturday morning on MTV, you always save the best for last.

11. April 29, 2012: Stanford vs. UCLA, MPSF Women’s Water Polo Championship Game

When I got the word that I was going to be broadcasting the MPSF women’s water polo championships from the semifinals on, I was stoked. I always love doing new sports, and besides doing PA for a couple of fill-in spots at Avery Aquatic Center, I had never really observed a water polo game of any persuasion before. Lemme tell ya though: by the time I finished my first water polo broadcast- Stanford vs. Cal- I was hooked.

When the time came for the MPSF championship bout, I was more than eager to provide the call for No. 1 vs. No. 2: not only in the conference, but in the nation (though let’s be serious, the MPSF practically IS NCAA women’s water polo). Stanford entered the game with a 23-1 record; its only loss of the season coming against the No. 2 Bru Cru, led into the pool by former Team USA goalkeeper Brandon Brooks (really cool dude, by the way).

The game was everything I had hoped for and more. No team led by more than a single goal the whole way through and both goalies- Stanford’s Kate Baldoni and UCLA’s Caitlin Dement- were absolutely SUPERB. Of the grand total of four water polo games I’ve called, I’ve never seen better netminding in the sport. Dement stopped two 5-meter penalty throws, including one from super Frosh Kiley Neushul, who ended her first collegiate season with more than 50 goals.

UCLA ended up winning the game in overtime, but Stanford would go on to win its second consecutive national championship; this time, they did it without two of their best players who were off training for the London Olympics with Adam Krikorian and Co.

10. April 18, 2012: Gonzaga’s Victoria Fallgren wins the 2012 WCC Golf Championship

I had the pleasure of being one of the two wccsports.com reporters (free John Nash for being my partner in crime) for the WCC Golf Championships at San Juan Oaks in Hollister, and I was assigned the women’s tournament. To nobody’s surprise, Laurie Gibbs’ Pepperdine Waves won yet another conference crown. But the individual crown was to be decided by a playoff hole and to my surprise, neither competitor was donning orange and blue. Rather, the 55^th and final hole of the tournament was to be played by Caitlin McCleary of Seattle U (yes, the Redhawks are in the WCC for golf, but not for much longer since they are about to become a member of the WAC, for however long the WAC stays alive. Praise the most high that the Spartans got out of that sinking ship!) and Gonzaga’s Victoria Fallgren. 

Before and after each round of the tournament, I interviewed two golfers, trying to spread the love out as much as possible. So before the final round started, I chose to interview Fallgren because a) I hadn’t talked to a Bulldog since day one of the tournament and b) I figured I wouldn’t be interviewing her after the round. She was close enough to the top to be considered in contention for the title, but I assumed some Wave- either Alina Ching or Somin Lee- would just run away with the damn thing. 

I could tell that Fallgren was very focused on improving upon her tie for 8^th in 2011, so much so that she forgot to take out her earbuds when we started the interview. It paid off: She worked her way into a playoff hole with McLeary, hit a BEAUTIFUL third shot on the par-5 ninth that got her within six feet of the cup and made her birdie to win the WCC individual women’s golf championship.

Afterwards, I butchered her last name in a post-round interview.

9. December 20, 2011: Nneka Ogwumike Goes Greg Jennings on Tennessee in Stanford’s 97-80 win

She put her team on her back, tho. From her freshman year, you could tell that the elder Ogwumike was going to be a very good college player. By the time her sophomore year ended, you knew she was going to be special. Not only was she such a beast on the floor, but she was probably the most mature athlete I’ve spent considerable time covering.

When the Lady Vols came to town her senior year, she put on a virtuoso performance. Her jump shot, which had been solid her last couple of years, went to a new level in this game. She was hitting turnaround jumpers with hands her face and uncontested 18-footers as if the degree of difficulty between the two was equal. She also got the rack whenever she so pleased- it’s not often you see a post player of any size in women’s college basketball that can straight up beat you off the dribble from the perimeter. Trying to be as unbiased as possible, Nneka Ogwumike was the best player in women’s college basketball last year. In this game against Tennessee, she scored 42 points on 19-27 shooting from the floor after missing a breakaway uncontested layup with the game well in hand on her last possession of the game. And oh yeah, she also grabbed 17 rebounds.

Not too shabby.

8. December 6, 2009: Christen Press, Stanford women’s soccer get jobbed out of a perfect season

I know the Cardinal won the NCAA title this past year in Kennesaw, and that this year’s Cardinal team was probably the best overall team Paul Ratcliffe has fielded, but the 2009 version of this squad had by far the most firepower. They ran through teams like the bald dude on Human Giant ran through corn chowder. They finished the regular season undefeated and drawless, scoring 71 goals in their 20 games before the NCAA tournament while allowing just 12 (and only seven in the last 17 games). They were SO. FREAKING. GOOD.

The NCAA Tournament came around and the scores were closer, but the end result was all the same for Stanford: win, win, win, win, win leading up to the NCAA Championship game against the vaunted North Carolina Tar Heels. The title bout wouldn’t go the way of the Cardinal, but not before the school’s all-time leading scorer Kelly O’Hara got red-carded (deserved) and the team’s second-leading scorer Christen Press had two goals called back for offsides. The first one was probably offsides, the second one definitely wasn’t, and if I remember correctly, that second one came in the final minutes of the game with Stanford playing a woman down.

I hate it when people blame results on officials- seriously, nothing was more annoying than hearing every Heat hater say the refs gift-wrapped Miami the NBA Finals despite the fact that LeBron James tortured the Oklahoma City Thunder on both ends of the court, Erik Spoelstra out coached Scotty Brooks (not that I would actually know) and the Heat straight up outplayed OKC in the fourth quarter down the stretch to close out games 2-4- but for real, this was pretty bad. The offsides call has to be one of the hardest to make, and I certainly don’t want to be a soccer official because I would blow at it, but that was pretty poor.

I have tried to figure out how Stanford didn’t win the title that year because they were so dominant up until that final game; 25-0-0 going into the North Carolina contest. Through yesterday, I couldn’t understand why…

And then I went through their results from that season earlier today and found out that they scored six goals in a game three different times. It’s not the last time we’ve seen this play out either- the week before losing to Iowa State in overtime and costing them a spot in the BCS National Championship Game, the Oklahoma State Cowboys beat Texas Tech 66-6. Moral of the story? Don’t worship Satan.

7. April 3, 2011: Kevin Danna, meet Skylar Diggins

Truth be told, I haven’t ever met Skylar Diggins (though I do follow her on twitter!). This was the first time I watched Skylar play- the 2011 NCAA Women’s Final Four in Indianapolis, and I was sitting courtside after having been the on-site engineer/stats guy for the KZSU broadcast of Stanford-Texas A&M (another fantastic game).

We knew UCONN wasn’t quite as good as they were in 2009 and 2010 when the team won back-to-back championships, but with Stanford (the only team they lost to in the last 100-something games) now out of the picture, I figured Maya Moore was about to end her collegiate career on a three-peat.

But Skylar Diggins and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish had other plans. Playing in as close to your backyard as you can get for a women’s basketball championship site when your school is located in a college town, Diggins unleashed her wrath on the Huskies in a way I hadn’t seen done before. She didn’t put up 40 points (28, six assists and four rebounds and two steals to be exact), but she was absolutely spectacular in getting to the rack, finishing through contact, and swagging out on the court unlike anyone else in the women’s game.

She was truly in the building and feelin’ herself, leading the Irish to a 72-63 victory over the Fighting Genos and landing a spot in the national championship game against the Blitzkrieging Gary Blairs (Texas A&M won).

6. November 13, 2010: Ramblin’ Women say goodbye to Alumni Gym with an upset Dub-Sack

The only women’s volleyball game on my countdown, I had the opportunity to broadcast the final women’s volleyball game in historic Alumni Gym on the campus of Loyola University Chicago for the Horizon League Network. The Ramblers weren’t having a good season from a wins and losses standpoint (they missed out on the Horizon League Tournament that year), but they had one last chance to end their season on a positive note. However, it would have to come against one of the top teams in the conference in the Valparaiso Crusaders.

The Ramblers were undeterred, staving off a 2-1 set deficit by taking the fourth 25-23 and fifth 16-14. Senior Mallory Curran recorded her 1,000^th kill in her final collegiate match, and the Ramblers closed the curtains on Alumni Gym (until the men’s season started two months later) with a W while finishing the season on a two-game winning streak (they also beat those pesky Penguins in five sets).

The one thing that sticks out to me the most about this match was that I got into a really bad habit of pronouncing Valpo player Katie Britton’s last name like I was Ken Harrelson calling a Carlos Quentin home run. So every time Britton went up for a kill, I would say “Briht-in!” (barely pronouncing the “t”). I had recently become a Hawk disciple, but I never really wanted to call games like him. Though it was the first time I had ever seen the Ramblers play, I hammed that broadcast up as if I were a Loyola University employee.

Enough reading for one day. Part 2 in the morrow.