Squash player Natalie Grainger: First clue this isn't a regular red carpet...


And the second: Softball player Jessica Mendoza!


Most people played it understandably safe: Aimee Mullins was a notable exception!


Can you guess what Wendy Hilliard's sport is? Rhythmic Gymnastics!


Laila Ali sports one of the evening's loveliest.


Ole! Golfer Brittany Lincicome.


Luge athlete Cameron Myler - words I don't get to write enough on this beat - goes for classic elegance.


Olympic runner Jackie Joyner-Kersee is obviously only willing to sacrifice so much comfort for fashion!


Skateboarder Lyn-Z Adams Hawkins: curiouser and curiouser.


Michelle Quan, a consistent class act. This is amazing.


Billie Jean King, possibly in Merrills.

[Images via Getty]

It's believed that Suman suffers from a hormonal imbalance, but her family has been unable to afford to travel to Calcutta for expert medical treatment. WWKAD? What Would Katy Abram Do? • Margaret Bush Wilson, a civil-rights activist and head of the Missouri NAACP, has died in St. Louis at the age of 90. • Jose Garcia-Perlera, who tied up and gagged widows living alone in a series of attacks in 2007 and 2008 in Maryland, was sentenced today to life in prison without the possibility of parole. • The mom in North Dakota who was busted (heh) for breastfeeding while intoxicated can't stay out of trouble: She's been arrested twice since her sentencing. • Poor Tyler Barrick and Spencer Jones. They paid a Utah newspaper to run their wedding announcement, only to have it rejected. The same-sex couple were legally married in California in June and wanted the announcement to run in Jones' hometown before a family get-together next week. "After all, our marriage is just as real and legal and entitled to celebration as any of the others that are announced each week in the pages of The Spectrum," Jones wrote to publisher Donnie Welch. Welch replied: "This simply is not true. While that may be the case in some states it is not the case in the state of Utah. As our policy is to run marriage announcements recognized by Utah law, I have made the decision not to run the announcement." • Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota has asked a judge to prevent the state from suspending its license to perform abortions in Sioux Falls. • A 35-year-old woman known only as Carole — a convert to Islam — was banned from her local pool in Paris for trying to go swimming in a "burquini." She bought the garment because: "it would allow me the pleasure of bathing without showing too much of myself, as Islam recommends." But officials claim the "burquini" is a possible public health risk. Daniel Guillaume, a regional official in charge of swimming pools, says: "These clothes are used in public, so they can contain molecules, viruses, et cetera, which will go in the water and could be transmitted to other bathers." • "Everybody used to say how radical I was. I just thought I was pragmatic." — Billie Jean King, who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Wednesday, the "the highest honor a civilian can receive in the U.S." • Scary, but not surprising: Pregnant women who underwent female genital cutting as girls are at increased risk of needing an emergency Cesarean section or suffering serious tears during childbirth. • Filament, a UK magazine for women featuring semi-naked men, is have problems pleasing its audience, which wants pictures of erect penises; its printers, which refuse and object to working with such content; and distributors which won't handle a women's magazine with a man on the cover. Writes Kristina Lloyd, "When set against the plethora of men's lifestyle and top-shelf magazines featuring scantily clad and open-legged women, the struggles faced by Filament highlight a deeply entrenched sexism: Men can look at women but women cannot look at men… The sexism is in the inequality. • Wow: Women's boxing will be added to the 2012 Olympic Games. Boxing was the last all-male Olympic sport.

[Washington, D.C., June 23. Image via Getty]

WASHINGTON - JUNE 23: Former tennis champion Billie Jean King (R) speaks during an event to mark the 37th anniversary of the enactment of Title IX at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building of the White House June 23, 2009 in Washington, DC. The biggest impact of Title IX was to give females equal access to scholastic athletics. Also attending the event were Education Secretary Arne Duncan (L) and White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett (2nd L). (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

China beat the U.S. in the medal count this year, and according to the Journal, " while Chinese athletes rely on state sports schools," the men's gymnastic team at Arizona State, which has lost school funding, depend on their own fund raising to continue training. Some schools are choosing to implement Title IX, which forces colleges to spend the same amount of money as men's and women's sports, by the gender breakdown of their entire student body. In other words, if a school is 54% female, then 54% of their athletic budget goes to women's sports.

It seems to me that more of the blame should be placed on the football teams that eat the bulk of the men's sports budgets at many large universities. But, as the Journal points out, the Arizona State athletic department chose to cut gymnastics and two other sports that were Olympic feeders "because, unlike the football program, they don't generate much revenue. The department's $41 million budget depends on ticket sales, team souvenirs, event parking and other game-related revenue, about half of which comes from football." And ultimately, shouldn't we be more concerned with the cut backs on the academic side of the fence when there is a finite amount of university money to be shared? When it comes to choosing between a men's gymnastic team or paying a few more writing teachers, it doesn't seem like a tough decision to make.

Cutbacks
In College Sports Risk U.S. Olympic Future [WSJ]
Billie Jean King Remembers 'Battle Of The Sexes' [NPR]