One Tough Lady Vol

The news is filled with stories about the life (and basketball victories) of Coach Pat Summitt, who died this morning.  I’ve been a fan of Tennessee basketball since I moved to the state in 1989.  Pat Summitt could do that.  For me, the reason was quite simple: she demanded that women and their athletic prowess be recognized and respected.

The second year that I lived in Nashville, some friends and I went to a high school girl’s basketball game in Sparta, Tennessee.  The trip to Sparta was driven by the desire to eat at a renowned meat and three restaurant on the town square.  We needed something else to do on that Friday night, so we went to see the local high school girl’s basketball team.

In those days in California, girl’s high school sports happened at times convenient for the boys.  But not in Tennessee, where the Lady Spartans of White County High School played in a sold-out gym at 7 pm on cold Friday night.  I had never before paid to attend a girl’s high school sporting event.  But in Tennessee in 1992, girls’s basketball was something to behold and fans paid for the privilege.

That achievement was the result of Coach Pat Summitt, then running the show at the state’s flagship university, the University of Tennessee of Knoxville, and showing off some impressively skilled basketball teams.  Her teams earned the respect of the state and the result built a girls basketball empire in Tennessee.  Her contributions to women’s sports are legendary and will remain so.  As for me, I’ll remember a rocking gym on a Friday night in rural Tennessee where the girls knew for sure that they were something else.

Real Life Conversations at School: Girl Power edition

The backstory:  My 7th graders are working with historical documents from the Louisiana Purchase era, including a series of letters President Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Senate about the purchase.  They are reading and analyzing the documents and trying to understand both how the documents  help us to understand the time period we’re studying and its differences with our own time period.  The letters are addressed to “Gentlemen of the Senate,” and one of the groups (3 boys and 1 girl, student M) were perplexed…..were there not “Ladies of the Senate” in 1803?

Me:  No.  Remember, women were not permitted to vote and they would not have been allowed to serve in the Senate had they sought to do so.  Women got the right to vote in 1920 (I opted not to explain Jeanette Rankin…..this group was already rather stunned).

M:  How many women are in the Senate now?

Me:  Well, how about you take a guess?  How many Senators are there?

Quick math revealed that there are 100 senators.

M:  50.  I think there are 50 women in the Senate.

Me (gently now, because this bright girl has no earthly notion of sexism or discrimination against women because of their gender):  There are 20 women in the Senate.

At this point, all the air left the room, as M looked at me and considered what she had just been told.

Me (still gentle but feeling like this reality must be understood):  That’s the most women who have ever served in the Senate.

M (looks at me intently):  Well, that’s a reason to support Hillary Clinton for president, isn’t it?

Me:  Yes, M, it is indeed.  It is indeed.