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Message: [QUOTE="emjay, post: 2698168, member: 7587"] This has been a fascinating thread to read. I belong to that demographic mentioned above - women in their 30s with no prior exposure to basketball. I’m not an athlete and did not grow up watching sports much (apart from the Blue Jays World Series wins and the Leafs during the Doug Gilmour years. Winning is always interesting, as residents of Connecticut know). This is what got me interested in women’s basketball: Brittney Griner. I read some mainstream media coverage of her coming out and her entry into the WNBA, and was intrigued. She seemed like an awesome queer role model. An artist I like, Julie Mehretu, posted about her. She’s since had some public personal meltdowns, and “role model” isn’t necessarily how I think of her now, but I still appreciate her desire to be out and encouraging of queer youth. I had no knowledge of the sport before I started watching (on WNBA League Pass). I couldn’t see those fundamental skills people have been mentioning as an attraction. This is what kept me hooked: - Strong personalities like Griner, Seimone Augustus, Diana Taurasi. - The easily accessible narratives of the sport - the team and player rivalries, etc. - The hair, the tattoos - they’re awesome, I have them, most people I know around my age have them; anything hip and expressive of personality like this is intriguing. - The out queer players; my sense that the league was a comfortable, cool space for queer athletes. - The social justice work of several of the teams and players. - The strength and athleticism and physical swagger of the players. It still blows my mind to look at their bodies and see how strong they are. I’ve always been a femme arty bookworm type, and didn’t care much for physical activity beyond keeping myself in shape. It was a revelation to discover that a woman’s body could be like Maya Moore’s or Tamika Catchings’. This is long, sorry, but the takeaway is that representation matters. If the media makes the effort to cover the sport more meaningfully, to make it seem as cool and awesome as I think it is, more people will pay attention. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach