Horny teens and the LSU gymnast

I could tell that they were looking at me because they were squinting.

 

As the father of a freshman who plays volleyball and swims, I welcome any movement to beef up the uniforms. We don't wear volleyball booty shorts under any circumstance, and we put shorts on before we exit the locker room. Between swims, we wear shorts or the team robe.

Major creep factor at swim meets.

 

This makes me wonder if Jimmy Garoppolo should plan a swimsuit calendar to maintain his marketability when he finally gets released.

 

My daughter is a 15-year-old freshman in HS and a competitive gymnast (and a big Livvy fan herself). This doesn't make me any kind of authority on the topic, but I tried to read the Slate article and thought it was unhinged -- especially watching the clips in question. The author was seriously comparing the experience of walking by a bunch of skinny and, yeah, douchey 15-year-old boys grinning and yelling behind a barrier (but not actually yelling anything particularly threatening or offensive) to being sexually assaulted by Brock Turner behind a dumpster or trying to somehow connect it to Brett Kavanaugh? While I have a 17-year-old son and I'd be embarrassed to see him acting that way, I'm sorry but that's nuts. And Livvy herself was taking selfies with them inside the arena (though she's not the one who had the issues with them). If they were actually directly harassing anyone, I retract what I said, but it certainly didn't come across in the videos. Where their behavior WAS objectionable was their decorum inside the arena when other competitors were doing their routines. If an athlete gets suddenly distracted on the beam or on the approach to the vault, the result can be a serious injury (thought they're trained to block out distractions).

As for the uniforms, my daughter's club team and her HS team wear leotards, as does every other gymnastics team I've ever seen. I've never found the leotards particularly revealing or sexualizing, though some teams are now wearing leotards that aren't bikini style but end in spandex shorts. Those are kind of weird looking, to be honest. I imagine, however, that leotards of any style make it a lot easier for judges to see their form (are they keeping their legs perfectly together on certain maneuvers, etc.) than if they were wearing tanks and baggy shorts. But I don't really understand the judging anyway. I do know that my daughter's first HS meet was this week (dadbrag -- she's the only freshman competing on varsity on a defending state championship team and she's competing in 3 of 4 events and she did great.). My wife couldn't go, so it was just me and it felt kind of weird videoing her routines so I could text them to my wife -- wondering if people were looking at me sidelong to make sure I was a parent and not a random creeper off the street. And I was studiously avoiding watching other girls' routines (not too hard to do actually -- nothing is more tedious than a gymnastics meet and I had plenty of reading to do).

Another poster said HS gymnastics is fading. That may be true -- I have no context for how it used to be. But from what I've seen, club competitions are a lot more intense than HS, my daughter spends a lot more time practicing with her club team than her school team and most of the club athletes on the HS team are doing it for the fun and camaraderie (they're a great group of girls and the coaches are more supportive and less critical) and to rep their school. And while they're good by any standards, they're not the ones who will be going D-1.

 

There are probably more than a few socio-economic factors in play for why participation / popularity in high school gymnastics is falling, too. If you want to be good at it, it's not like other sports - You start well, well before high school, which means you usually need parents that can afford the lessons and get you there. And, as school districts cut sports, it's always an easier cut for that, which has robust outside network, vs. something with a larger team and a lower budget.

re: The uniforms and outfits, this is also probably an instance when not having more female posters here probably limits our view and understanding. My wife was a former club gymnast at the college level, and she was one level short of whatever the Olympic trial one is in her teens. She never had a problem with the leotard. She does not understand how I can exercise in basketball shorts. For most sports, there should probably be some different outfit options to account for an individual's comfort level.

 

Were I coaching one of those teams, I would meet such accusations with a shrug and a chuckle.

 

Wait - Pennsylvania doesn't have girls HS wrestling? That's insane.
California has had it for a while. Girls wrestle girls.

2022-2023 Girls State Rankings

 

There's been a groundswell over the past three years. It's coming fast, and should be a PIAA-sanctioned sport next year or 2025.

Dustin Hockensmith of PennLive -- the brother of ESPN's Ryan -- has been a vocal champion of girls' wrestling to the point where I think it has made a difference.

Kind of my take on it too, oop. When the issue first came to a head 5-6 years ago, the wrestling writer penned a column ripping the Diocese. When I posted the page on Facebook, it led to a comment thread of 98 posts, just among my friends.

 

Some of us would lean into it more than others:

 

Where I live, the state is more than willing to sanction girls wrestling, but it needs a certain number of girls/teams to make it worthwhile. And there just isn’t enough interest yet.

I assume most other states are similar.

When I covered preps in PA, almost 25 years ago, they had a separate girls tournament for golf, and it was a joke. There were maybe 20 girls, and the one from my coverage area placed in top 10 even though I think she shot a nine-hole 59.

 

The golf tournament's gotten a lot better, but I remember those days. I've long been told that women's golf is the quickest way to get athletic aid in college. Plenty of money; not a huge number of candidates.

And yes, the PIAA requires X number of programs to sanction a sport. Well-defined bar to clear; I can't fault them for that.