Women's Sports Week Encore: WNBA Draft Pick Pictures Part 2

Part 2 of my WNBA Draft Picture post. As for the human details:
Shay Doron's family is apparently adorable; lots of Jewish babble and calls to Israel to tell family there where she was drafted. They are going to love her in NYC.
Meg Bulger, sister of Marc Bulger, was drafted. No sign of either on site, though.
Rebecca Lobo is apparently very underrated in person. She was talking about her husband for a moment too, but sadly my embedded reporter had no details. (Ok, like I'd tell you anyways. Eavesdropping is a bit much.)
Brooke Smith was eating a huge white-chocolate chip cookie, but my embedded reporter was the softie type and warned her of the lurking camera before he took a picture. Too bad, that would have been fun.
A lot of the ladies were really sweet. I'm not surprised at this. The Draft is a seminal event for an athlete's life; it doesn't get much better than knowing you'll actually make some real money now. It's like graduation...only if you got money at the graduation ceremony. :-) Cool.
Katie Gearlds still seemed to be disappointed at not being able to move further in the tournament than the Elite Eight. It must be really odd to go from trying to beat North Carolina a week ago to being drafted.
No security whatsoever. My reporter should have gotten someone else to go with them so they could have taken pictures at the podium, ha.

Players here include Brooke Smith, Shay Doron, and a player I can't identify. Click for a larger view of any picture.

Women's Sports Week Encore: WNBA Draft Pick Pictures Part 1

One thing that drives me crazy as a blogger is how hard it is to get original content. I mean, 85% of blogging seems to be some couch potato typing "I can't believe so-and-so said that in that one interview" or "Didn't Erin Andrews look good the other day on ESPN?" It's ALL secondhand. And frankly, it holds blogging back from a larger audience. But it's nearly impossible to get contact with famous pro athletes, so what can one do?



Well, why not pick a less popular sport, where you can actually get closer to the athletes? Here you go: pictures from the WNBA Draft, not as good as the official WNBA gallery of course. To be honest with you, it's a lot like the NBA draft, with happy families and poorly fitting suits, only with women. These players pictured below appear to be Jessica Davenport, Katie Gearlds, Ivory Latta, Gillian Goren, and Carla Thomas. Thanks for cooperating, ladies, with my photographer.

Women's Sports Week: Tall Girls Tall Girls Whatcha Gonna Do?

Apologies to http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Inner-Circle/Bad-Boys-Theme-From-COPS.html, of course.

LZ Granderson had an article titled "Big Girls Need Love Too" (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=granderson/070323&sportCat=ncw) He said the following and got similar quotes from his interviewees: "A life handcuffed by low self-esteem because she's taller than everyone else in class. A life so desperate to be liked that she'd rather be promiscuous than continue being alone...Basketball gives larger women a place to belong and often starts the healing process from years of psychological abuse."

Aside: Is it me, or has Page 2 suddenly improved? Frankly, since Whitlock left, they haven't had a good football writer. So October-February, I spent a lot of time clicking on the site, muttering about my wasted time under my breath, and departing. Much better now, though.

So what do you think? Is it really that bad, tall(er) females of the world? Do short girls have all the fun? My impression was that for females, tall is ok, fat is not in American culture. (Not saying it's right, by any means; I'm just saying that seems to be the cultural norm.) Personally, height is good: I like it when I can see eye-to-eye with a woman, literally. But maybe it is tough for tall females (and short males, which is an ENTIRELY different can of worms) out there. Look at this poor girl: I found this video linked to from CSTV.com.



Now some people are arguing as to whether the rim is really 10' or not; she makes it look so easy! But I'm more concerned about her as a human being. She just doesn't look that happy. Almost as if she's being exploited as some sort of freak show. At the end, I think she smiles. But it is worrisome.

Others, however, seem to be quite pleased with their height. This woman refused to have her growth stunted and is now a star volleyball player:


So anyway, blog readers, give me some feedback on this one, I want to know. In our American culture, do taller females have a harder time than shorter females when it comes to being appreciated and respected? And I mean, in general, not just sports. When it comes to sports, do you really think that sports will help taller females with self-esteem? Or that the athletic options just make things worse, and make the females feel exploited for their height?