1. High school coaches who (must) ride the bus with the team, take kids home, buy them food, handle jersey and shoe sizes for ordering, organize fundraisers, yell and scream, give love, provide band-aids and pre-wrap, and a bunch of other things.
2. Junior college coaches who have to drive the van to tournaments. And a bunch of other things.
3. D I coaches who twitter. It shows they love their team.
4. WNBA owners who throw MVP parties for season ticket holders, who don’t let their general managers make idiot moves, and who don’t close up shop out of the blue.
5. D II and D III coaches. They are underappreciated.
6. The sound of squeaking shoes and referee whistles when you walk into a tournament. Best sound in the world.
7. The fact that female basketball players, for the most part, get along just fine – if they don’t outright love each other – regardless of sexual orientation. You can’t say the same for male basketball players.
8. Title IX.
9. Seeing more women’s college games on TV.
10. The increasing respect for the women’s game. We’ve come a long way since Kim Mulkey, with the braid, was playing with Louisiana Tech in the first NCAA championship game in 1982 (I remember that well).
Happy Thanksgiving!