My, how times have changed

Once upon a time, one of my cousins was a gifted athlete who loved doing anything sports-related. She caused a real stir at her small country high school because she wanted to play basketball-- and since there was no girl's basketball team at her school, she had to be allowed (under what were then fairly new Title IX regulations) to try out for the boy's team. She was good enough to make the team (translation: way too good for the coach to have any legitimate reason at all to cut her). As you might imagine, it resulted in a generous share of community commentary and a fair amount of really sappy local press coverage.

I was put in mind of this because of an article in today's paper:

TEN SLEEP - They play sick, they play tired, they play hurt, they play no matter what.

They play because they have to. And they accomplished something the Ten Sleep Lady Pioneers haven't done since 1988.

The "Ten Sleep Five," consisting of Rissa Berger, Shelley Gerstner, Sarah Taylor, Aimee Able and Anja Reinecke, a German exchange student who before this season had never played the game of basketball, have been playing every minute of every game this season, which will culminate at the State 1A girls basketball tournament this weekend in Casper.

This will be the first trip to the state tournament for the Ten Sleep girls in 20 years.

Over and above the incredible grit they demonstrate, one of the remarkable things about this article (at least from my perspective) is the unstated assumption that these young women should be rightly recognized simply and solely as athletes who have gotten where they are by giving it everything they've got. Period.

Congratulations, Pioneers. Keep on keepin' on.