Rod's Take N Things for Wednesday

I have found out in over 35 years in the business I am in one thing. People in general can do my job better than I can. All you have to do is ask many of them. I am one of those people. I can make better decisions about running the country than our current leaders. Just ask me. Do I want to do that? No! I do what I choose to do! And today, I choose to tell you that today has become an important day in the sports landscape of not just our area, but around the country. Today is National Girls and Women in Sports Day. It is a day that has been around since 1987. It is a day that every young female athlete should take make it a point to have a history lesson and see where women, and women in sports have come. Do sports that the guys play take center stage. Not always, but probably. Especially when it comes to the big money sports. NFL, Major League Baseball, NBA, etc. But it should not diminish what female athletes have done, can do and can accomplish. I have always been around high school girls sports since I started in this business back in 1975. The very first game I announced in my very first job was a girls basketball game. It went triple overtime. My wife was a girls basketball coach here in Pierre when we met. She also was a very good fast pitch softball player. I wasn't around when her fast pitch "traveling" team was in it's hay day but I have learned that alot of people would come in the summer and watch their games when they played the Huron's and Sioux Falls Locke Electric's and the likes. One thing that I have learned is that high school girls athletics are just as important in communities as boys athletics. Especially in small towns. Be it girls or boys, they bring people together and give people a common point. Cheer for their team. More and more schools are making it a point to recognize their girl athletes and Kudo's to the South Dakota High School Activities Association for their involvement in urging their member schools to do just that. Now, in my opinion, schools can do more. Hiring of female head coaches to coach girls teams still seems to lag behind. ESD basketball for instance. There are only two female head basketball coaches. Lisa Kannegeiter here in Pierre and Dawn Seiler in Aberdeen. The other head coaches are men. And at the smaller school level you will find that the number of female head coaches is far below the number of male's coaching girls teams. Progress can be slow but as long as it is steady. And I only selected girls basketball as an example. Like I said earlier, girls should do their homework when it comes to athletics, and find out where they have been, where they are, and where they can go. National Girls and Women in Sports Day today. It's truly a good day.