[Los Angeles, October 27. Image via Getty]

[Indianapolis, October 7. Image via Getty]

INDIANAPOLIS - OCTOBER 07: Lin Dunn the Head Coachof the Indiana Fever talks with Briann January #20 during the WNBA Finals game 4 against The Phoenix Mercury at Conseco Fieldhouse on October 7, 2009 in Indianapolis, Indiana. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

[Washington, D.C., July 27. Image via Getty]

US President Barack Obama, holding a commemorative basketball and Obama jersey, stands alongside members of the WNBA championship Detroit Shock basketball team during a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, July 27, 2009. AFP PHOTO / Saul LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

According to the New York Times:

Parker, 23, is determined to buck the conventional wisdom that women can fulfill their potential as professional athletes and as parents as long as they tackle their lives like a to-do list, crossing one item off before starting on the next.

"I'm always the type of person that wants to prove people wrong," she said. "I just want to come back and show that you can be even stronger than before."

Parker's steely resolve and determination are admirable, and she has a husband, a nanny and family members to help her out. Additionally, her coworkers can relate: Five other team members on the Sparks are mothers — including Lisa Leslie — and Carla Christofferson, the Sparks' 41-year-old co-owner, is pregnant.

It's frustrating that Parker has to say she wants to come back "even stronger than before." She's a talented athlete, but clearly feels like she has something to prove. While it's true that Parker hasn't played a competitive game in 10 months, it's not like she suffered a debilitating injury. But her words are an answer to widely-held notions of how motherhood changes a woman — how people expect different, or possibly less of you, especially when it comes to your job. And, even more important: It speaks to the expectations this new mother has placed on herself.

Diapers and Jump Shots: Player Has Her Hands Full [NY Times]

Earlier: Juggling Pregnancy & Career Without Dropping The Ball
Are Women Having Babies Earlier Because They Take Their Careers For Granted?

[Valmiera, Latvia; June 8. Image via Getty]

French team members celebrate their victory after taking over Belarus in their Eurobasket women group D basketball match in Valmiera on June 8, 2009. AFP PHOTO/ILMARS ZNOTINS (Photo credit should read ILMARS ZNOTINS/AFP/Getty Images)

[Los Angeles, June 4. Image via Getty]

Los Angeles Lakers cheerleaders perform during Game 1 of the NBA Finals between Los Angeles Lakers and Orlando Magic at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California, on June 4, 2009. AFP PHOTO / GABRIEL BOUYS (Photo credit should read GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP/Getty Images)

Look, LeBron, I know you're frustrated. But by being a poor sport, you're not only a loser, but a sore loser, and nobody likes a sore loser. Perhaps next time you should follow the example of one Gunnar Stahl, who, in the face of defeat at the hands of the Mighty Ducks, took the high road:

LeBron James Comes Up Small In Blowing Off Media [Newsday]

[Los Angeles, May 19. Image via Getty]

[Los Angeles, May 6. Image via Getty]

[Washington, D.C., April 27. Image via AP]

President Barack Obama poses for photos with the NCAA champion University of Connecticut women's basketball team in front of the South Portico of the White House in Washington, Monday, April 27, 2009. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Related: In These Girls, Hope Is A Muscle [Amazon]

[Los Angeles, April 21. Image via Getty]

[Los Angeles, April 19. Image via Getty]

Earlier this year, Parker was profiled in the New York Times, and her "reproductive life" was part of the discussion. Parker is a favorite on her team, a star in the league and "being counted on to nurture women's basketball." So her pregnancy doesn't only affect her: "W.N.B.A. Commissioner Donna Orender said her initial reaction to Parker's pregnancy was a quiet sigh of resignation," Karen Crouse of the Times wrote. Orender said later: "[The timing of her pregnancy was] a very public discussion that hasn't happened before. I do think that's a good thing for women who go through these issues often in silence or alone. Candace can be a very usable symbol of how you can have a family and a career." But! On message boards, Parker was called "selfish." She disagrees: "My whole career has been trying to please people in basketball. Now it's time to please myself. For me, family has always come first." She did have to give up a $1.5 million deal to play for a Russian club.

According to the Times, there are a dozen moms playing in the league. And then there's Brynn Cameron, who plays for the University of Southern California team — she's a single mom, with a two-year-old son by former Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Matt Leinart. But even more visible is 36-year-old three-time WNBA MVP Lisa Leslie (Parker's teammate), who recently announced that she is retiring to spend more time with her family. Basketball, for her, was tough to balance with family life. "I love being a wife, I enjoy my husband and our time. I love being a mom. I'm really passionate about raising a child and being there for her. For me, I just see it's really hard to give 100 percent to everything." Leslie's daughter is 19 months old, and Leslie missed the 2007 season to give birth.

While many female athletes have children, pregnancy in basketball seems more high profile and more dramatic than say, tennis or golf (Annika Sorenstam retired from the L.P.G.A. Tour in December because, at 38, she wants to have kids.) Is it because of the idea that a knocked-up woman has somehow "let down" her team? Is it because of the chance of injury or sheer jostling a pregnant player endures? Candace Parker doesn't seem to let any of this faze her, telling the LA Times: "I'm proud of my child, excited about my child and I'm excited about the opportunity to have a child and be an athlete."

Candace Parker Could Be The Next Big Thing [LA Times]
Candace Parker Is Balancing Career And Family [NY Times]
U.S.C.'s Cameron Balances Basketball And Motherhood [NY Times]
Lisa Leslie To Retire From Sparks At Season's End [AP]

The profile, by Selena Roberts, touches on Abdul-Qaadir's achievements — she's the first high school player in Massachusetts history, male or female, to score 3,000 points — and on her experiences as a Muslim — she's discovered that Under Armour is best for staying covered and staying cool. Roberts writes:

Some nights on the floor in visiting gyms, she would hear the catcalls derived from the fear of the unknown, shouted in stupidity: "Terrorist!" But slowly, the more heads she turned with her step-back threes and her sleights of hand, the more minds Bilqis opened. This wasn't grudging tolerance but joyous acceptance of an exceptional player and student. Not only does she possess a cashmere-soft touch and flinty defensive skills, but she's also on the honor roll, with an interest in premed and the stomach for the Discovery Health Channel.

Rachael Larimore of Slate's XX Factor praises the profile, calling it "uplifting" and praising how "grounded" Abdul-Qaadir is. She also notes that Abdul-Qaadir's Muslim dress is "what warrants this player primo real estate in SI."

Faith at Muslimah Media Watch takes issue with this. She writes,

Bilquis' [sic] hijab was the focus for a recent Sports Illustrated profile. [...] The whole piece serves to "otherize" Bilqis and hijabis in general, rather than simply being a general sports article covering a high school basketball star.

She also writes that the details about Abdul-Qaadir's dress "could've been covered in a paragraph at the most, but Roberts drags them out for the entire article."

It is unfortunate that the only way a girl can get "primo real estate in SI" is by being perceived as unusual — and that coverage of Abdul-Qaadir must focus on how she's different rather than how she's impressive. On the other hand, Abdul-Qaadir will be the first player to wear Muslim dress in Division I basketball games, and as such she's not just a curiosity, she's also a boundary-breaker. In what is still a difficult political climate, Abdul-Qaadir's story can educate non-Muslims, showing them that wearing the hijab doesn't mean giving up sports. And a story about someone who looks different being accepted and celebrated, especially in the cutthroat world of high school, teaches us all how we should behave. But Faith's point might be that Abdul-Qaadir isn't that different, and that by focusing on her differences we just perpetuate the kind of thinking that led the kids in the gym to yell, "Terrorist." Maybe the question is best framed by Abdul-Qaadir herself. She says,

When some people come at me with, 'Oh, is that a tablecloth on your head?' — it's like, really, don't. If you're going to have that kind of question, don't ask me. But some people are truly honest in asking a question, like, 'Oh, I don't want to be rude, but why do you wear that?' That's the kind of question I'd rather answer.

Is Selena Roberts the tablecloth kid, trying to make Abdul-Qaadir look different and weird? Or is she the more thoughtful person asking for information about Abdul-Qaadir's religion? And does either question have a place in Sports Illustrated?

Enlightening The Clothes-Minded [SI]
Feel-Good Story For A Monday [XX Factor]
Putting All Their Eggs in One Basket: Sports Illustrated Profiles Star Basketballer's Headscarf [Muslimah Media Watch]

Last Thursday, Summitt reached another career milestone, as the Lady Vols handed her her 1,000th victory, a milestone which, as The New York Times points out, "many feel is a milestone that will not be reached by another college basketball coach." Summitt, who has been coaching for 34 years, began at the age of 22, and said on Thursday night: "Never ever did I think I would coach this long, never did I envision this program winning 1,000 games. The fact this program was the first to do it is a great source of pride."

Full disclosure: I grew up in Connecticut, where, during women's basketball season, Pat Summitt was Public Enemy No. 1. She was our Darth Vader, our Joker, our Lord Voldemort, set to steal victory away from the hands of the Huskies. But like those legendary villains, I could not help but be fascinated by her. She was so badass. She was tough and ruthless and whenever the Vols beat the Huskies, you couldn't deny that they'd earned it— that she'd earned it.

Her impact on women's basketball is legendary: the UConn/Tennessee rivalry alone boosted the sport into the public eye, and 45 of Summitt's former players have gone on to become coaches in their own right, taking her intense coaching style with them. "The ones that choose to go into coaching," Summitt says, "people usually say, ‘Well, there's a little Pat.'" Nikki Caldwell, a former Vol who now coaches at U.C.L.A., claims that Summitt's style has been an inspiration: ""Pat just has a balance," Caldwell says. "She makes time for people. She treats her players like family. It's really admirable."

Summitt's latest accomplishment only ensures her legendary status. As Joan Cronin, Lady Vols' athletic director tells the Times: "She was hired at 22, she's coached 35 years. I can't imagine anyone doing what she has done ever again."

Summitt's 1000th victory can be seen here:



Pat Summitt Makes Tennessee A Cradle Of Coaches
In Her 35th Season At Tennessee, Summitt Reaches 1,000 Victories

Grimes disagreed with the headmaster's dismissal of the game as "shameful" and "embarrassing." Grimes, who was criticized for letting the game get "so far out of hand," responded to the headmaster's statements by emailing USA TODAY. Grimes said: "I do not agree with the apology or the notion that the Covenant School girls basketball team should feel embarrassed or ashamed. We played the game as it was meant to be played. My values and my beliefs would not allow me to run up the score on any opponent, and it would not allow me to apologize for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity." Although there is no "mercy" rule in girls basketball, some argue that a "golden rule" should have applied in this case. [USA TODAY]

Said the principal of the private Covenant School, "It is shameful and an embarrassment that this happened...a victory without honor is a great loss." The issue, as he and the school see it, is poor sportsmanship: in a fever of bloodlust, the team, spectators and coaches forgot one of the tacit rules of school athletics, which is, don't humiliate an opponent. Says a mother from the opposing school, "I think the bad judgment was in the full-court press and the 3-point shots... At some point, they should have backed off."

In the case of Covenant, it's hard to say whether the issue has anything to do with sex: it's a Christian academy in a part of the country where sports, and sportsmanship, are no joke. It seems unlikely that boys would have escaped the same penalty. Yet clearly, something about the story has struck a nerve: several tipsters brought it to our attention and seemed troubled by what feels like a larger culture that discourages female competition.

Interestingly, Shakesville happens to touch on a somewhat similar issue today: the age-old practice of feminine self-sabotage. It's one of the oldest tricks in a coquette's book to play dumb and helpless and stroke a guy's ego. The blog contrasts an open instance of this — a thrown archery tourney in a Lousia May Alcott novel — with the ad campaign for the dating site Chemistry.com, specifically a woman's "vow": "I promise to take out the recycling, even though I think you’re way better at it." The double whammy of servitude and old-school feminine self-deprecation is, at best, a pretty lame marketing ploy. But none of this is, in itself, much to get one's knickers in a twist about. The issue is a deeper one, and has to do with all these things in combination: clearly those who found the Covenant forfeit troubling see a link between this sort of "graciousness" and a culture that rewards throwing games. On the other hand, surely there is something between the two — keeping the win, perhaps, while extending an apology (which, in any event, isn't going to make their humiliated rivals feel any better!) — which would serve as a better example in every respect?

School Seeks To Forfeit 100-0 Win [High School Rivals]
I Promise to Pretend That You Are More Competent Than I Am, While Still Doing The Work Myself [Shakesville]

Like any prodigy, Jaime is in some ways isolated from her peers, as a story in the NY Times' "Play" magazine outlined this past weekend. She's taller than all the boys at school, for one — she says the tallest comes up to her chest. (Her classmates sometimes call her names like Godzilla.) And her skills on the court can inspire sexism. When Jaime fouled a boy, her mother remembers a parent yelling, "Get that girl away from him!" But playing with girls her age isn't an option, says her dad: “To be quite honest with you, it just wouldn’t be fair.” Her mom concurs, asking, "Particularly before puberty, why do we separate boys only, girls only? We say boys are stronger, faster, but that’s a generalization." Jaime's skills — she may turn out to be the next Candace Parker, the first woman to dunk in a NCAA tournament — certainly show this to be true. So should all kids' sports be co-ed? Or is there value in separating the boys from the girls?

Scary, Isn’t She? [NY Times]
Girl To Rejoin Boy's Basketball Team [UPI]

Earlier: Awesome Oregon Girl Barred From B-Ball With The Boys