The Carleton Ravens women’s basketball team won their first national title on March 11, but wasn’t on the cover of the Charlatan the following week. When I first heard about it, I was surprised, disappointed, and a bit angry.
It was terrible timing to say the least. The men’s basketball team has gotten the cover for each of their 13 previous national title wins. When the women’s team finally breaks out of the shadow of the men’s team (which finished third in nationals this year), they still didn’t get the cover recognition designated for the men’s side previously.
However, I don’t believe this is down to sexism or simply overlooking the women’s team in favour of the men’s, although that does exist. The Charlatan’s editorial staff pitches cover ideas each Sunday prior to the issue being released. Whichever pitch gets the most votes from the paper’s 11 section editors is chosen as the cover. While the Indigenous rights protest cover story was well-done and important, so is the women’s basketball team’s championship victory—but not simply because they won.
Their victory is the perfect example of how a championship victory transcends sports, which is something people fail to appreciate at times. On the surface, it can be seen as just a team winning a championship but, having covered the team for the season, I know it goes far beyond that.
It is a human victory for the players and coaches involved. It is about the long journey taken to get to this point, the sacrifices and hardships faced along the way—in basketball and in life. For the six graduating players, it’s also a sense of closure on the end of their university career and, for some, their basketball careers. They called it “a fairytale ending.”
The main reason why the Carleton women’s team should have been on the cover is because of their incredible journey to reach this point. It is about resilience, belief, perseverance and unity. It is about the human aspect of sports that often gets ignored. Sports are played by people, who’ve endured struggles and often have great life stories. Student-athletes don’t just play sports.
Athletes aren’t these invincible superheroes as they are packaged and sold to the public. They are humans just like everyone: individuals who struggle with things, who have lives outside the playing field as well, who are nuanced. The public may not see that, but they should still appreciate it. For instance, basketball stars DeMar DeRozan and Kevin Love have recently opened up about their struggles with depression and mental health, a reminder that they are people at the core.
A lot of the coverage around the women’s team’s victory was centered on what this means for Carleton’s women’s basketball program, which is valid. Aside from a Tim Baines article in the Ottawa Citizen on the team’s family aspect, it rarely focused on the human element of the achievement.
That’s disappointing, but also expected, as it does take work to uncover the deeper narrative. So, much of sports media these days is focused on hot takes, stats and analysis, especially in the age of Twitter and Facebook. The human stories have more character than a 280-character tweet. It’s more profound as well. People should strive to find, or at least keep in mind, the human element. They should demand that of their sports coverage and discourse.
The women’s team has been dwarfed in coverage by the men’s dynasty for over a decade. For these players, especially the departing ones, it’s arguably their ultimate moment of happiness, given how far they’ve come. It’s a life achievement. These players deserve all the attention they can get.
Photo by Michael Sun
