OPINION: Women Raising The Bar In Sports

Women have waited long enough for their opportunities to break through in male-dominated sports leagues, and some significant strides have been made in recent weeks.

Those following developments across the NFL, MLB and NCAA in over the past month have probably caught wind of the names Kim Ng, Sarah Fuller and Callie Brownson.

On Nov. 13, Ng became the first female general manager of a Major League Baseball club, taking the helm of the Miami Marlins. Her experience more than qualified her for the position, as she has had 30 years in baseball. Ng’s impressive resume includes three World Series titles with the Yankees while rising to the rank of assistant GM at only age 29. She also worked for a number of years with the Los Angeles Dodgers as vice president and assistant GM, and spent the last 10 years as senior vice president of baseball operations for Major League Baseball.

League commissioner Robert Manfred, for all his noted faults previously discussed in this column space, did manage to encompass the gravity of the historic achievement in a statement the day of the hire.

“Kim’s appointment makes history in all of professional sports and sets a significant example for the millions of women and girls who love baseball and softball,” Manfred said in part.

Her achievement would not be the only historic milestone for women in male-dominated sports this past month, as Fuller and Brownson each made an impact at field level as well. Brownson filled in for Cleveland Browns tight ends coach Drew Petzing, whose wife gave birth to the couple’s first child the day prior. Brownson had been a full-time coaching intern with the Buffalo Bills before joining Cleveland prior to this season as chief of head coach Kevin Stefanski’s staff. In an article about the hiring from last January on the Browns’ website, Stefanski said Brownson would be “involved in every aspect” of their football operations through the role.

“Callie is uniquely situated where she can go interact with the football ops or PR or the locker room or the equipment room. She’s really the liaison to the rest of the building for me. I’m going to lean on her heavily and already have,” Stefanski said.

That quote came to pass again on Nov. 29 as the Browns defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars in Brownson’s debut as the first female assistant coach in NFL history. For what it’s worth, Cleveland tight ends combined for four catches, 37 yards and a touchdown in the 27-25 Browns win. Cleveland has also enjoyed one of their more impressive starts in recent memory, going 8-3 over their first 11 games of the season.

The day prior to Brownson taking the NFL stage, Fuller made waves across NCAA football by becoming the first woman to play for a Power Five school in college football history. Suiting up for a Vanderbilt squad out of kickers after several Commodores were ruled out due to COVID-19 protocols, Fuller attempted one squib kickoff in an otherwise uneventful 41-0 loss to Missouri on Nov. 28. The opportunity arose from Fuller being a scholarship athlete in soccer, where she also excelled with three shutouts in nine games. She was also scheduled to kick against Georgia this past Saturday, which is after the writing of this column.

Reflecting on each of these trailblazers, I cannot help but think of the number of times each of these women, and many like them, were told they couldn’t participate in the sport they wanted so passionately to pursue because of their gender. The barrier of entry for women in male-dominated sports is real and significant, as are the discrepancies in opportunities between male and female sports leagues. It extends from the field to the locker room and the press box, where regrettably even in the industry of sports journalism female writers, editors and broadcasters are not represented proportionately to population and viewer interest.

I also think about the young girls who asked their dads or brothers to turn on the Vanderbilt game to see Fuller kick, and how maybe that could prove to be the kindling for a lifelong passion for sports. Representation can matter a great deal to someone who never thought sports, or any interest, industry or hobby was for them. Providing opportunity for that doesn’t have to come at any cost to the high athletic standards that come with professional and collegiate sports either.

Football’s inherent violence isn’t compromised by a female kicker, the tight ends in Cleveland still caught passes and the Miami Marlins can’t get any worse. What is gained however in both market appeal and potential diversity of thought could not only break up the boys’ club, but revolutionize the games we know and love for years to come.