OU Women’s Softball brought home another national championship last night.
This was big news around our house. So far as my granddaughter was concerned, it put Congressional hearings about a coup attempt against American democracy all in the dirt. She whooped, jumped, danced and cheered.
Her grandmother watched with a full heart.
Decades ago, I signed onto a lawsuit opening up funding for women’s sports at Oklahoma Universities. I’m not and never have been an athlete. But it didn’t take a lot of study to understand that women’s sports didn’t even qualify as a stepchild at our universities.
It’s been a long, hard slog, to gain the recognition and funding for women’s sports that they deserve. The simple truth is that no state-funded school should be discriminating against half the population in any way or at all. But misogyny and the second class status of women is so ingrained in human culture that every bit of equality women’s sports has achieved has only happened after a prolonged and rather ugly fight.
I am over the moon to see the new and much-deserved respect that women’s softball is getting. It is earned respect, based on hard work and outstanding athletic performance.
OU’s women’s softball team is officially the best in the nation. This is nothing new for them. They’ve racked up national championships again and again.
I am proud of them.
I am also grateful to them on behalf of the delighted little girl who was hopping around my living room last night, cheering and yelling. They’ve given her wonderful role models of a kind that I never had.
I want to take this opportunity to say that I am going to oppose any efforts to destroy women’s sports. I don’t care if those destructive efforts come from the right of the political spectrum or the left. Either way, they are just more misogynistic attacks on women’s human rights, and I will oppose them.
From OUsports.com:
OKLAHOMA CITY – A ridiculously remarkable, record-setting season ended Thursday night for the Oklahoma softball team with the Sooners clutching the program’s sixth NCAA championship trophy.
Such an achievement came as no surprise given OU spent every week atop the national rankings while leading Division I teams in a gaggle of categories both at the plate and in the pitcher’s circle.
The title clincher came with a 10-5 victory over Red River rival and fellow Big 12 rep Texas before an appreciative crowd of 12,257 at USA Softball Stadium. The Sooners have now won four of the last six championships staged (COVID canceled the 2020 tournament) and their six crowns trail only UCLA (12) and Arizona (8) all-time.
OU finished 59-3 (.952) overall.
As that record suggests, the Sooners disposed of opponents in an authoritative manner that included 41 run-rule victories, 33 shutouts, eight no-hitters, holding opponents to one run or fewer 49 times, hitting home runs in 56 of 62 games, plus numerous other mind-boggling superlatives.
These type things tend to happen when your team has five first-team All-Americans, a group led by super senior Jocelyn Alo, the sport’s new career home run queen (122) who also became the first player in history to hit 30 home runs and bat .500 in the same season, finishing with a .512 average.
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