Rambling Lemurian

This past Sunday was the last time I’ll ever attend a Chicago Red Stars match. I’m not giving up my season tickets or anything like that. And I will be attending their matches next season too. But they’ll no longer be the Red Stars. Earlier this month the team announced their rebrand and along with it a name change to Chicago Stars FC. I’ve written about bad sports names before after the launch of BOS Nation FC. And if this rebrand happened prior to that blog I would have included Stars in that list of unnecessarily boring name changes. But maybe due to my own bias as a fan, I don’t HATE the name change. It’s just what it is. A boring with a boring new crest and not worth much discussion to be honest.

I won’t lie, I’m by no means a lifelong Red Stars fan like I am with the men’s Chicago teams. I didn’t grow up going to games or listening to games on the radio while playing XBOX like I did for the Blackhawks. Nor did I cosplay as an official scorer and make my own scorecards at home while watching on TV like I did for the Cubs. I never had a superstition like eating a bowl of Campbell’s Chunky Soup at the start of games like I did for the Bears followed by tuning in to the angry postgame radio guys. I never obsessively tracked individual player stats like when I’d root for triple-doubles for Captain Kirk Hinrich during those mediocrely competitive Bulls seasons of the mid-2000s. I didn’t even know about the Red Stars until a couple years ago. That’s just the reality of women’s sports in the US, I guess. They never got the attention or hot air of local sports pundits, and so I was never really given the opportunity to latch on to them at a younger age.

Maybe I could have if I made an effort to look. If I was smarter back then, or at least more understanding of the inherent inequality and gender bias throughout society, I would have known that I can’t rely on local news, radio, and ESPN to inform me of the existence of women’s sports. I could have looked for it myself. Not just me, but everyone. That’s why it’s so important to have honest education about these issues at a younger age. It’s not “Wokeness” to point out the inherent flaws in our media, and to not totally rely on it. It’s frankly an exercise in critical thinking which is really important in educating young people and preparing them for adulthood. Maybe if I was taught at a younger age to have a broader mindset and look outside the box I was in, then I would have been a better person by now.

I always played sports growing up. Baseball, floor hockey, soccer, basketball, volleyball, and summer sports camps. My sister played sports too, or at least basketball. When I was a kid, my sister had a bit of a tricky relationship with my parents. Nothing too terrible or gossip-worthy. But there were plenty of arguments and shouting. I kept to myself in those situations, as I usually do. When it was the other way, and I was the one in trouble, my sister would usually come to my room to talk to me and try to make me feel better. Just to show that she was on my side. I didn’t do that for her though. And I regret not feeling like I was able or willing to. I didn’t quite understand why my sister would be upset with my parents, particularly with my dad. At times she seemed jealous while teasing me for being the favorite or getting more attention. Something clicked for me eventually though, and I realized how right she was when it came to sports. My dad was always really involved with me when I was in sports. He’d practice hitting and catching baseballs with me, tried in vain to teach me how to take a wrist shot in hockey. Coached my soccer and volleyball teams all through grade school. He’d make special effort to attend almost all my games even if he wasn’t a coach. And he’d take me to professional games too.

But he didn’t really do any of that with my sister. She was older so maybe it was just a timing thing and his work schedule didn’t allow it as much. But he didn’t overtly encourage her to play sports the way he did with me. He didn’t make special time to take her to an empty gym to do basketball drills, or volunteer to coach her teams. He didn’t take her to many sporting events to try to inspire her to train harder or even just to hang out. I don’t think my dad is overtly sexist or thought it was wrong for girls to play sports. But it was clear now that there was some ingrained bias in there, even if it was just subconscious. Boys play sports for life, girls play sports in school but grow out of it. That’s just how it was. That’s even how it seems today too. I signed up my daughter for soccer classes at a very young age, like 2 years old. With her first classes, it was a slight majority of girls in her group. She’s now in a slightly more advanced group at age 4, and out of maybe 15 kids she was the only girl there. Could the bias already be kicking in at such a young age.

This sort of thing is specifically why I sought out the Red Stars. When it was clear I’d be working remotely for a long time, I had to convert a spare room in our house to my office. I wanted to decorate it with sports memorabilia because I barely have a personality outside of sports. And knowing I had a daughter who I’d love to see play sports throughout her life, I wanted specifically to get some women’s sports memorabilia on the wall too. Just to make sure when she’s older there are athletes like her she can look up to and watch, and not just the typical men’s sports. But it wasn’t enough to hang pictures of Casey Krueger and Kelly Coyne-Schofield next to Duncan Keith and Michael Jordan. It’d just be a poser at that point. So I started following the Red Stars and the NWSL as a whole, and went to a game.

I can’t point to any specific thing that happened, but as soon as I went to Seatgeek Stadium to see the Red Stars I was hooked. Somehow it felt more pure. It was a sparsely attended game, as usual, for the Red Stars. It was mid-summer and the sun beating down on us in the stands was immediately unbearable so we moved to the other shaded side. I could barely pay attention to the game since I was watching my two-year old and coordinating with my sister and parents. But I do remember the Red Stars overcame a 2-0 deficit with late goals from Mallory Pugh (this was before she married Dansby Swanson) and Polish-American Chicago legend Amanda Kowalski to secure a tie. My dad made some comments during the game about how easily “these girls” fall down with every collision, but he had a genuine cheerful reaction when the tying goal went in just before the final whistle. Maybe it was just because “the blonde Polish girl” scored, or maybe he was actually caught up in some temporary fandom. Either way, it was a good time, and I bought season tickets for the following year.

Red Stars games have become one of my daughter’s favorite things. Usually I go alone with her, and it’s one of the few places I go with her regularly on my own, outside of the library or parks. She’s four, so she doesn’t pay attention much to the game. She’s more interested in getting a pretzel or popcorn, having the freedom to roam the stands, get her face painted if the line isn’t too long, and getting a high-five from “the blue guy” (the mascot, “Supernova”). I was a proud dad when she spontaneously broke into a “Let’s Go Red Stars” chant, and when this past Sunday as players were lining up in the penalty box in front of us she turned to me and said “they’re doing a corner kick!”. When I told her about the name change, she said “that’s good, sometimes I forget the name so it’s easier now” followed by her normal chanting, “Let’s Go Red Stars….. Let’s Go Sta-ars!”

So yeah, I’ll keep going to games. I’ll still be a fan and get really annoyed when their shoddy defense gives up a couple goals right in front of me, and when they can’t get anything going with their superstar Mallory Swanson. For now, the results don’t matter too much for us. And the name change doesn’t really matter either. Hopefully my daughter keeps playing soccer and other sports for a long time. And hopefully we can go to games for a long time too whether it be for the Stars or some other teams. If she loses interest eventually and isn’t an athlete, then oh well. I can’t force it on her once she is able to make her own decisions. But as long as she sees all the options possible, then I know I’m doing my job.