I have been a sports fan all my life. I was like a mini-ESPN in high school, always watching the shows—SportsCenter, Pardon the Interruption and Around the Horn—and developing aspirations to become a sports writer. When I was way younger, at age five, I remember watching the World Series for the first time, and then, later on, the Super Bowl. It all started with men’s sports.
But now I am more of a women’s sports fan than a men’s sports fan, specifically when it comes to women’s basketball. As I mentioned, I was constantly watching ESPN in high school, so right around the start of my sophomore year, I came across the 2006 WNBA Finals between the Detroit Shock and Sacramento Monarchs. The interesting part of this story is that I was born in Sacramento, so I felt a connection to the Monarchs. I began to root for them and became a fan of their players, particularly Kara Lawson and Ticha Penicheiro.
Ultimately Cheryl Ford, Katie Smith, Swin Cash and Finals MVP Deanna Nolan were too good and overpowered the Monarchs for the second of three Detroit Shock championships in the span of six years. My introduction to women’s sports would continue in April of 2007 when I watched the NCAA championship game between Tennessee and Rutgers. Again, I had a rooting interest,…
