Here’s a recap of the weirdest or most overlooked sports stories on the Interweb this week. Plus, as you’ve come to expect, bears are finally past giving condescending warnings about forest fires.

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Monday Interested in seeing a matador get gored in the crotch 4-inches deep? I know, right? Me too! Bull Fighting
Tuesday The WNBA: Where childhood abuse eventually leads to a career. Basketball
Wednesday Indians announcer Bruce Drennan saw last week’s episode of “Treme” and now he’s all about yellin’ into the YouTube. Baseball
Thursday A famous golfer involving himself with a porn star? Interesting. A DVD of that porn star talking about that involvement? Less so. Golf
Friday Deadspin.com’s Give-Tebow-A-Nickname contest is waaaay better than ESPN’s. My vote is for “Fail Mary.” College Football
Saturday Gilbert Arenas was released from his halfway house, but couldn’t remember the combo to his home’s security gate. Basketball
Sunday Funny or Die present: Jim Brockmire: A Legend in the Booth (a little NSFW language). Baseball
Eighth Day Does this mean all those hairy Kardashian sisters are Flyers fans?

With college hoops kicking off this week, I wondered why there wasn’t more fanfare ringing in the new season. Then I wondered why I wondered that.
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Slowly, ever so slowly, the belittling of the WNBA among basketball critics is eroding. Memes are being drawn up, philosophies followed, anti-ladyball sentiments appearing more irrational and the movement toward the WNBA being a respected league has already begun to take root.
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This respect has formed from a) esoteric sports fans ironically liking the WNBA long enough that they just started actually liking it and b) bored NBA fans with nothing better to do over the summer but to fill the void with the WNBA. What both demographics learned is that the girls can play. They can’t jump worth a damn, but they play hard. They hustle and have a steady sense of the game’s fundamentals, spacing, ball movement and play calling … they understand everything casual fans miss.

Weird. That sounds like the reputation college ball has developed among people rationalizing why they don’t like the NBA.  What are they going to say to rationalize the dismissal of the WNBA?

The best part of college hoops. You'll notice there's nary a hoop or ball in the picture.

College hoops is a weeding-out process for the pros. A revenue churning operation for each school’s athletic program and a gathering spot for the student body. It’s also, depending on the month, the matchup or the fullness of the moon, an occasionally exciting couple of hours. What it is not, sadly, is quality basketball.

University basketball, like everything else college kids touch, is sloppy.
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I understand why college ball remains (and will continue to remain) popular and probably more popular than the WNBA. But just because I understand it, doesn’t mean it makes any sense. Does that make sense?
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So much of the average college fan’s reasons for preferring college over the pros sound good as long as you don’t think too hard about it. A consensus among NBA detractors is that the league profits from employing thugs who take five steps on their way to an uncontested dunk. This isn’t true, but let’s say it is. Let’s say sloppy play exhibited by athletes with dollar signs in their eyes is an accurate depiction of the pro game. I dare those naysayers then to explain their support of the college game.
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The college game – from a technical standpoint - is weak. Even when both teams play hard, they play poorly. With the exception of the few dozen college athletes who graduate to the pros each year, it’s like watching a squat version of the Knicks playing the Warriors … only without the massive scoring. Ugh. I just threw up a little in my mouth. I’m regretting that second helping of sausage patties. Why is this the case (the horrible play of college basketball, not the sausage patty part)? Because they’re kids. Most of college hoops’ players are only slightly above-average to begin with. On top of that, depending on the stage, they’re nervous or simply don’t have a natural head for the game. And did I mention that they’re kids?
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It’s perfectly acceptable for a newborn fawn to wobbly struggle with its first steps. Nothing wrong with it. But don’t try to sell me that somehow it’s a purer – and therefore better – form of running than a full-grown deer.
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Shot efficiency, turnover efficiency, shot selection, low-post moves; there’s a reason high draft picks come to the NBA and have to develop these things. There’s a reason only a select few rookies are NBA ready when they arrive in the league. Thousands of students play college basketball each year and fewer than 20 of them will make a significant positive impact on any of the professional teams that draft them.
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If it’s a principles thing with the NBA, a resentment that these athletes can hustle and run plays yet chose not to despite their handsome pay, fair enough. There’s points to be had there. But again, why would the college game be the answer?
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College programs thrive on the level of talent they can bring into the universities year after year. And the best programs – the ones that annually play the “best” brand of basketball, are the ones that field winners. And how many of those winning players on those winning teams do you suppose walk onto the court worried about their chemlab assignment due on Wednesday? In fact, how many of those winners do you suppose even have chemlab? The players that drive excitement, sponsorship, viewership and institutional popularity in the universities are the ones aiming for the NBA. It would be naïve to believe that because college players aren’t making money, that they’re not still playing for it.
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Let’s be honest, it would be naïve to believe some college players aren’t making money.
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The women’s game? Even the all-stars of the league are lucky to clear $60,000 a year and this is as far as a female basketball player can go. They’re not playing for anything else. Hustle, drive, teamwork, skill and this is the end of the line for them. Who’s beating the drum for them?
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In the end, I’m very capable of believing that it all comes down to the viewer’s own ego. You went to Kansas (par exemple), you were a Jayhawk. You were never a Bull or a Laker or a Mystic or a Mercury and you don’t owe them anything. You’ll root for Paul Pierce, Kirk Hinrich or Wilt Chamberlain because they were Jayhawks, but not really their pro teams. College sports, more than any other level of sport, allow us to legitimately feel a part of it all.

Whoa. College hoops fans actually gawking at Erin Andrews. I did not expect that.

And I’m not knocking that experience. Let ‘em paint their face, gawk at Erin Andrews, memorize lewd chants, co-opt their team’s glory as their own. That’s what college is there for. Live it up. This isn’t a brushback pitch against any of that. But this is a clarification that none of that is basketball. There are the naysayers who berate the pro game, ignore the women’s game and deign to call the college game the best basketball has to offer.

But those people are confused. They must be, because it’s not even close.
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Photos courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via Getty Images

Here at Sidelines we like to keep your minds sharp and your wealth of irrelevant knowledge sharper. And what’s more irrelevant than WNBA teams? If you said Arena Football, you are correct (though partial credit is given for the answer “Nothing.”) So if you’ve gathered your answer sheet, a No. 2 pencil, and put on your thinking caps then it’s time to test your knowledge. No cheating!*

(*yes, we realize one of the main purposes for the Internet is cheating, whether it be on tests, term papers or your spouse. So take that warning how you like. We’re not actually that concerned about your writing implement either.)

WNBA or AFL team?

We’ve included WNBA teams that have folded since (if it’s possible) the WNBA might be getting too popular and too many of the teams are getting to the point of being recognizable. The whole league started in 1997 so it’s not like any of them are that obscure and to be fair, the entire AFL folded so it seems like even playing field. Try to really impress us by giving the full team name (city or state) as well as the league:

1. Rush

2. Soul

3. Fire

4. Sun

5. Sting

6. Lynx

7. Blaze

8. Crush

9. Starzz

10. Force

Extra Credit: 11. Storm

Answers:

1. Chicago Rush – AFL, That seemed almost too easy didn’t it? Moving on.

2. Philadelphia Soul – AFL, Your confusion is justified. The Miami Sol was a WNBA team. And are a bunch of football players really dorky enough to allow themselves to be called ‘The Soul?’ Yes. Yes they are.

3. Portland Fire – WNBA, Here’s a little clue to help you along your way of WNBA/AFL identification. Those chicks love their heat and fire-related names. The Sol was just mentioned above and just in case you can’t communicate en espanol, there’s also the Sun. Not to mention the Mercury (high temperatures), the Comets (burning fire balls), yeah … you see where this is going.

4. Connecticut Sun – WNBA, See? What did we tell you? The ladies love their heat.

5. Charlotte Sting – WNBA, This one was almost a good name, at least by WNBA standards. It coordinated with the Charlotte Hornets nicely when the two teams existed and it’s a little ambiguous and silly like most of the league’s team names, but still the first thing I think of it this which is probably better than these girls deserved. No wonder they came to an early end. Though if they want to reform as the Charlotte Voracious Maulers to go with the Bobcats, we’ll take it.

6. Minnesota Lynx – WNBA, Tricky right? I mean it’s actually a potentially dangerous animal. Doesn’t fit in so well with Connecticut Sun and Atlanta Dream and San Francisco Prima Ballerinas and other WNBA names that inspire nice, happy and light feelings.

7. Utah Blaze – AFL, OK, sometimes the men love their fire-names as well.

8. Colorado Crush – AFL, Again, a tricky one. We already gave you Chicago Rush and would they really resort to such a girly name and with the rhyming scheme to boot? If you don’t think so, we have one thing to say about AFL names: You have severely misunderestimated them.

9. Utah Starzz – WNBA, In the WNBA board room:

“So what are we going to name this team in Utah?”

“The Stars”

“What do stars have to do with Utah?”

“We can spell it with a ‘z’ instead.”

“Aren’t there already Dallas Stars … ?”

“Fine, we’ll give ‘em two ‘z’s’”

And the team was born, until they were forced to fold and be reborn in San Antonio under the guise of proper spelling as the ‘Silver Stars.’

10. Georgia Force – AFL, I have to commend anyone who got this one. If someone had asked me what the ‘Georgia Force’ was, my initial instinct would have been to respond, “Some crappy movie Lindsay Lohan was in?” Anyone who said Georgia Force and knew it was the AFL gets a cookie.

EC: 11. The answer is BOTH. Tampa Bay Storm – AFL and Seattle Storm – WNBA, Because some names are just so ridiculous and conceptual that you can’t leave their fate to just one rarely-recognized league. Some even make it all the way to the big leagues. (Hello, OKC Thunder!)

Well … how’dja do?

You’ve no doubt heard of

It would have taken a lot of preparation to fool people up to this point. Noticing that a female has underarm hair, extra fuzz on her lip or a muscular body is more likely to develop into unneccessary cruelty toward a teenage girl than it will solid detective work.

The truth is, our ultra-sexist society often supports women’s sports as long as they don’t encroach upon a man’s ideal of how the athletes within those sports should appear. It’s cool if Gina Carano is the Women’s MMA champ, but if “Cyborg” Santos is it then I’m going to start blaming it on her hidden stock of man-parts. There can be no other explanation.

If Maria Sharapova wants to grunt her skinny blonde skirt into another Grand Slam championship – so be it. But if it’s Serena Williams rifling serve after serve past opponents, clearly we have a tranny on our hands.

Why are we only discussing the potential of men posing as women? Male athletes, on average, make more money than women, get more coverage than women, have more fans, more opportunities, more leagues … Stephon Marbury made twice as much last year as the entire WNBA’s player roster last season. How do we know more skilled female athletes aren’t trying to upgrade into these situations? How do we know there aren’t women posing as men? We don’t. But that shouldn’t stop us from having a good old fashioned witch hunt, now should it?

Grab your pitchforks and torches and follow me after the jump to gander at the most likely candidates of female athletes posing as males.

David Eckstein
Look at this picture. Eck is, like, a foot shorter than 6’3″ Albert Pujols. Also, he sounds like one of the members of the Lollipop Guild.

Shaun White
No one with hair that luxurious and a butt that narrow could possibly by a man. He posed without a shirt on the cover of Rolling Stone several years ago, but no one actually saw details of his torso because his pale skin blinded everyone. Artists had to go in and Photoshop a little boy’s chest into the blinding light left in the photo. Not a bad ruse, Ms. White. Not bad at all.

Patrick Kane
Okay look, Kane is either a 12-year-old boy or a woman, either way he’d be perfect to play the lead in “Peter Pan.” No man is so fiscally controlling that they’d be compelled to punch out a cabbie for $1.20. Someone’s got to keep track of the checkbook and it certainly wasn’t going to be Kane’s cousin James.

Baron Davis
Big doe eyes, short stature, no rational fear of the damage his driving could cause to people nearby … Yup. Sounds like a woman to me. Also, look at that beard. No one with that much facial growth is without secrets. He’s covering up something with that beard and my guess is that it’s a vagina.

Lance Berkman
Until about 2006, I thought Sonny and Cher’s lesbian daughter played first base for the Houston Astros. Berkman perpetually looks as if he’s wearing eye shadow.

Eli Manning
Archie wouldn’t settle for 2-of-3 boys, so he taught Ellie to keep her mouth shut and her head down. Ellie’s gotten pretty good too. The only times he betrays his gender is when he lets out those girlish yelps as he’s getting sacked (New Yorkers pretend they haven’t heard it, but they have). Oh, and that perpetually dumbfounded look on his face … that’s the look every woman has had after seeing Jeff Feagles exit the shower.

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Movie poster and Berkman photos courtesy of Flickr
All other photos courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via AP

I’ve held my tongue on this issue long enough, players in the WNBA have strange names. Call me old school if you must, but whatever happened to “regular” basketball names like Anfernee, Shaquille and Dikembe. I won’t apologize for being traditional, but I will try to embrace the goofy names flecked among WNBA rosters by presenting the 2009 All-WNBA Goofy Name Team.

PG    DeWanna Bonner, PHX      
DeWanna Bonner? Maybe after I get to know her better. [Rimshot].

SG    Cappie Pondexter, PHX     
All season, I’ve been under the impression that the Mercury’s highest scorer was an old bi-focaled Jewish man from Brooklyn. No one tells me anything.

SF    Anna Montanana, MIN     
Oddly, Billy Ray Cyrus pretends to be Anna Montanana’s TV father as well. Couldn’t ma and pa Montanana just name her Annanna?

PF    Chamique Holdsclaw, ATL
She hasn’t been the same since the Sorting Hat removed her from her beloved Hufflepuff House and put her in with Slitheryn.

C      Cheryl Ford, DET                
Truly one of America’s more forgotten presidents.

RES   Alexis Hornbuckle, DET       
Would you believe Hornbuckle is her stage name? Alexis Sledgehammer is her real name.

RES   Tan White, Kiesha Brown & Chante Black, CON
At some point in this season Tan Ecru Eggshell Opal White is going to pass to her teammate Chante Black, who will alley-oop to Kiesha Brown (or whatever the layup version of the alley-oop is), thus completing the first excess color wheel transition basket in WNBA history.

RES   Ashley Battle, N.Y.
Her first name says, “Be my guest, drive the lane. It’s okay.” He last name says, “…Because I LOVE clotheslining suckers.”

RES   DeLisha Milton-Jones, L.A. 
Little known fact: DeLisha’s sister, Scrumptia and Yummya, were also good at basketball, but both had bad knees.

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Photos courtesy of Yahoo! via AP

Photo courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via AP

That weary, displaced emotion is what I’ve been feeling about our president ever since the baseball All-Star Game. Something ain’t quite right. It’s unsettling. And it’s only getting worse.

I’m beginning to think that he isn’t really all that into sports.

On Monday, the WNBA champion Detroit Shock were the most recent in a long line of teams and athletes to visit the president’s house. During his speech to the team, Obama retold the story of his daughters watching him watching female basketball players on ESPN’s SportsCenter and how it taught his daughters that girls can be champions too.

There are three things wrong with this tale: 1) If Sasha and Malia were watching their father watching television, how can he be sure they weren’t learning a different lesson? Like “presidents can lazily watch sports highlight shows too.” 2) SportsCenter doesn’t cover anything but the Yankees and preseason football. They damn sure aren’t doing 45-second recaps of Shock games. 3) This weak recollection isn’t even new. It’s the same thing he told to the WNCAA Champion Connecticut Huskies.

If you’re going to regurgitate stories (something that almost everyone does), shouldn’t he come up with a better story to regurgitate?

But wait, it gets worse.

The NBA’s Shaquille O’Neal, in town to do some wrasslin‘, figured he was bigger than the Detroit Shock (Physically? Check. Egotistically? Check. Pop Culturally? Check.) so he tried to do a pop-in on the White House a few hours after the Shock left. It didn’t work and he was turned away by security, a site I would sell your first born to have seen. Alas, we can only assume that Obama, not unlike Jerry Seinfeld, like the pop-in.

NINA: (rolling eyes) This person does not believe in telephones, does she?
JERRY: She likes the pop-in. I’ve told her how I hate the pop-in.
(pointing to George) He likes the pop-in, too.
GEORGE: I just popped in now. I’m a big pop-in guy.
JERRY: Yeah.
GEORGE: How ’bout Kramer.
JERRY: HUGE pop-in guy!

- from “Seinfeld” Season 3, episode 21: The Letter

If Obama’s our first “basketball president,” why not let the Diesel in to take a look around the Roosevelt Room or something?

Perhaps I’m being unfair. The guy is busy … the guy is our PRESIDENT, for cryin’ out loud. He can’t love everything and lord knows women’s basketball can be unlovable. So is O’Neal come to think of it. So maybe Monday’s actions were all just a fluke. I mean, he wouldn’t seem so half-hearted when it comes to his teams, the White Sox and Bulls, right?

Ugh. Listen to the end of that link. Sox outfielder DeWaye Wise makes the biggest catch of his career, the biggest catch of the season and one of the biggest catches of all-time and the No. 1 White Sox fan in the country calls him DeWayne Weiss. This is almost as tragic as the Bob Costas interview from two weeks ago in which Obama calls Comiskey Park, the stadium in which his favorite team played for over a century – Cominsky Park.

Cominsky Park? You can’t say that. That’s like David Ortiz wearing a Yankee cap or a Bulls fan acting graciously toward the worst basketball player in the history of the NBA …

Photo courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via AP

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Is that Bill Laimbeer! Is Barack Obama shaking hands with the guy who spent five years elbowing Michael Jordan in the ribcage anytime he went near the basket?! You see? This is what I’m talking about. If Obama was truly a sports fan, more specifically a Chicago sports fan and most specifically a Chicago basketball sports fan, there’s just no way he wouldn’t have punched Bill Laimbeer in the face here. No way. Leader of the free world or not, a die-hard woulda given him five across the eyes. Look at his left hand in this picture. It’s slightly tense, ready to make a fist, like he knows what he should do with it.

Weak sauce, Barry.

Truth is, it’s unimportant to me (and many Americans) if Obama is uninterested in athletics. I need him to care about sports about as much as I need a new hole in the head. It’s the idea that he has (or we have) projected this basketball-playing, Southside-rooting, ESPY White House guest list listing character onto him and he’s played the part instead of being it.

Be the part, Prez or quit playin’.

This post does not suggest that women don’t have a place in professional sports. It does ask what exactly that place is, especially given sports’ current climate.

What is this climate I speak of? Well, the six women pictured above are considered among the best in their particular sports and most people can’t name half of them. Can you? I bet you can’t. And that’s the climate of women’s sport; a climate in which fans may have accepted female athletes, but haven’t come close to accepting the leagues and organizations in which they play.

Let’s see if we can’t figure out some of the reasons.

We’ll spend little time discussing those female athletes that have proven marketable. We all know players Gabrielle Reece, Mia Hamm and the highest earning female athlete, Serena Williams have been able to mix elements of skill, personality and physical beauty into a packaged persona that more defies each of their sports rather than defines it. It’s important to note that most of these athletes are marketed as individuals. Few female athletes on team sports have endorsement deals.

Recently NBA commissioner David Stern announced that his league failed to turn an overall profit in 2009 and that the WNBA was far more profitable. But considering Stern’s funhouse definition of “profitable” is breaking even, his claim lacks accuracy. The WNBA, in its 13 years, has gone down in yearly attendance five more times than it has gone up. Since 1997, the average attendance of a game has fallen 19.6 percent and teams like the Phoenix LifeLock Mercury and Indiana Fever are selling off pounds of their corporate flesh in order to gain sponsorship and stay afloat. The league isn’t growing. And in sports terms, if you’re standing still, you’re going backwards.

The leading mixed martial arts promotion, UFC, started as a messy $2 million business in 2001, five years after the WNBA. Doggedly fighting for recognition by the same mainstream media who also ignored the WNBA, UFC has become a $1 billion force, despite hustling in the same economic environment as lady hoops. How? Because the UFC marketed their legitimate fighting organization the only way they could: bu spotlighting the fact that they have he entertainment value of fake wrestling like WWE … except that it’s real. So when sponsors and fans alike asked, “why should I watch you when I already watch boxing and pro wrestling?” UFC was able to illustrate the niche they had carved out.

Women’s sports, including the WNBA, haven’t come close to articulating (or even identifying) their niche.

When an individual player gets singled out in ads, it’s because that athlete is special. Women’s athletic promotions have followed this same logic, but it’s backfired in many ways.  At some point, marketing whiz-bangs owe it to their clients to admit that some marketable female athletes are not as athletically talented as their male counterparts.

I know, I know. Boo on me. There’s a neon pink elephant in the room that no one was gonna mention, but I went and ruined it. Well tough, I’m tired of the room smelling like the zoo, okay? Campaigns like “They’re Better Than You Think” or Nike’s “It’s a Skills Thing” campaign are certainly pro-female athletes, but don’t address what about female athletics are failing to draw audiences and therefore serve the same ends as an anti-female athletics ad. Again, there is a differene between marketing women and marketing women’s sports. Nike is right, it is a skills thing. But that works against most female sports, because if a women’s skills allowed her to play with the men, she would. They know that. We know that. Nike knows that. Even your grandma knows that and she’s half senile. So when sports fans think about any specific women’s league, most think that it is of lesser quality than the male version of that sport. And if enough people think that for long enough, your league is doomed to go the way of Olympic softball, or the WUSA.

This isn’t like baseball’s Negro Leagues in the early 20th Century, where great players were not allowed to play against the established best. When athletes like Michelle Wie or Danica Patrick compete with the top male athletes in their profession, the media gives them an (over)abundance of positive attention. It’s unfair to say they aren’t given a chance.

In 1995, Nike launched the “Let Me Play” campaign in which pre-teen girls in non-athletic surroundings look into the camera and say things like, “If you let me play, I’ll be 60 percent less likely to get breast cancer” or “if you let me play I’ll have more self-confidence.” And this is where mixed marketing messages are ruining women’s sports. Does anyone cheer for Tom Brady so that his confidence is raised? Ben Roethlisberger maybe, but not Brady. Sports fans don’t want to be doing athletes a favor. Who’s entertaining who here? Sports are about competition; who’s better, faster, stronger. Ask yourself, why would you spend your time focusing on a collection of pretty good athletes when the best ones are elsewhere?

If the answers are out there, no advertising corporation has found them yet.

And because most of the largest female sports organizations have settled on positioning themselves as me-too sideshows, advertisers have answered the me-too, with a “no thanks.” Just last week, the president of the LPGA resigned following the association’s top players petitioning for her removal after having done such a horrendous job.

Since 2007, seven events have disappeared from the tour’s schedule, and only 10 title contracts are signed for the 2010 tour. The tour has also lost the backing of major sponsors, and the status of at least three other events for next year remains unclear.

[Carolyn] Bivens, 56, drew criticism from the players because she was unwilling to negotiate with sponsors to lower their costs of putting on tournaments. As a result, many sponsors dropped out of the tour, and players thought the economy was not solely to blame.

And the poor marketing doesn’t end with individuals or sponsors. Even penny-wise decisions are slowly revealing themselves to be pound-foolish over time. Last week, WTA’s former chairman and CEO Larry Scott, stepped down in order to become the commissioner of the NCAA’s Pac-10 conference. In his place is former WTA president, Stacey Allaster. Allaster is generally considered a strong choice based on her past accomplishments. She got the WTA a 40 percent increase in prize money since 2006 partly by expanding the group’s global television imprint. Without downplaying those achievements, or her successful quest to grant equal prize money for men and women in Wimbledon and Roland Garros, these facts don’t paint the whole picture. How did she make these things happen? She increased the amount of events that the top players would have to participate in each year, an effective change that some of those top players have complained about on more than one occasion. I’ll leave it to you to judge whether it’s positive or negative to earn more sponsorship dollars by riding your stars into the ground.

What about all the other female sports? Women’s MMA has two superstars who will fight next month. And who will the winner of that fight face next? No clue, because there are no other strong contenders with much experience. What about the newly formed Women’s Professional Soccer league? Well, hopefully attaching themselves to the MLS (similar to how the WNBA hitches its wagon to the NBA), will stave off the same fate as the $100 million now-defunct WUSA. Or not. And heck, if cheerleading isn’t the most popular high school and college activity for women, it sure is killing the highest percentage of ‘em. But if it’s not considered a sport, what are all those young ladies dying for for?

If women can compete with the best, wonderful. A lot of people will root just as hard (or harder) for those women. But where are they? The Williams sisters? Sure. Who else? Danica Patrick? Maybe eventually. Annika Sorenstam? She’s retired. Rachel Alexandra? She’s a horse, doesn’t count. In the end, every popular sport showcases what fans perceive to be “the best.” And with the exception of sex appeal, none of the major female sports has offered the average fan any reason to tune in. And none of the female leagues need to be told what happens when your fan-driven livelihood ceases to have fans.

If someone spending six hours a day being tossed in the air and flip-twirling (or perhaps twirl-flipping) called themselves a gymnast-athlete, you’d not likely bat an eyelash (or perhaps flip-twirl an eyelash?) at this label. But what if someone who did these same activities called themselves a cheerleader-athlete? Would that change anything? Would you accept the “athlete” portion of the cheerleader’s claim?

More now than ever, universities are considering cheerleading a competitive sport, if for no other reason than to appease the Title IX federal law insistent upon schools having an equal number of sports for men and woman.

Before we continue, let’s get a few things straight. Indians are called Native Americans American Indians, midgets are called dwarves lilliputians wee folk little people and cheerleaders are called the easiest girls in school synchronized rooting enthusiasts.

“We don’t even use that word (cheerleader) anymore,” said Tori Maynard, a senior on the University of Oregon’s competitive cheer team. “It’s a stereotype. People don’t understand what competitive cheerleading is.”

Got it? Ready? Okay.

Under the outlined criteria of Title XI, activities only become sport as long as coaches are involved, the season is defined and there is a governing organization. Additionally, competition must be the sport’s main objective. This is where the argument over cheerleading gets interesting. Is the main objective of a cheer squad to win its yearly competitions or to distract the athletes playing in other sports by gyrating suggestively while clapping and rhyming?

It really depends on how individual schools phrase the cheer squad’s team guidelines. No one at the collegiate level has petitioned for the NCAA to consider cheerleading a sport.

“Most of the participants are sideline cheerleaders,” said Bill Boggs, who runs the NCAA collegiate national championships. “The thing about cheerleading at the collegiate level is that it is so random as far as what they are considered, who they report to. Some of them are under athletics, some are under activities, some are under club sports, some of them even report to the band.”

And some others just work around the definition of sports instead of aligning themselves to be a part of it. Not us. In addition to the above listed Title XI criteria, the Sidelines Blog has compiled a list of Five Definitive Rules That Define Sports (Or Really Ought To). We’ve submitted these items to the NCAA and expect a response shortly… right after they take care of the BCS system. Commence holding breath…now.

1. People must cheer for or against your performance Although the idea of people cheering for people who are cheering seems decidedly dumb.
2. Winning and losing must be possible The word “possible” only comes into play because of soccer, which can end in a tie. As much as I’d like to discount soccer as a sport, the other six continents (and Mexico) would throw a hissyfit.
3. Athletes or teams must be able to gain and lose their positions Fighters win belts, golfers miss cuts, NASCAR drivers shift points and no matter how sassy the East Compton’s Clovers are, eventually someone’s gonna bring it to them too! (You couldn’t possibly have thought we were getting through this blog without a “Bring It On” reference. Frankly, I’m shocked it took this long).
4. The sport must not serve any purpose other than to entertain Cooking contests, mass skinny dipping for a Guinness record or building houses for charity are examples of contests that offer something to society besides the activity itself. I know, I know: Soccer isn’t entertaining. I agree. But there isn’t any tangible good or service that soccer produces either.
5. The sport reasonably forces its players to risk possible physical injury This is otherwise known as the “Hell No, Chess Ain’t A Sport” rule. Contestants play games without injury. Athletes play sports and get hurt. Check out the figures. Then check out this cheerleader. Now tell me they ain’t athletes.

Now I ask you, are there any of these categories that cheer squads in competitions fail to meet?

The only thing stopping cheerleading from being a sport are the tournament opportunities, not the activity itself. If we can get the WNBA a summer schedule filled with games, surely something can be done about cheering.

More on the collegiate Title XI issue from the AP via Yahoo!.

By now it’s no longer big news that LifeLock will be sponsoring the Phoenix Mercury, placing their na

But rather than allow the remaining Western Conference to feel like the little Cambodian child Angelina Jolie didn’t adopt, I figured they might need some suggestions as well.

L.A. Sparks
Well among the biggest corporations over in la-la land is the incredibly obvious 20th Century Fox. Large enough to sponsor a team? Certainly. Look good on the jerseys? Umm… If they REALLY want to be noticed, there’s always the controversial and ever so slightly risqué route of Suicide Girls, also L.A. born and raised. Their jerseys might require a bit more modification than a simple name change. On the plus side, male interest in the WNBA just increased 1,250 percent.

Minnesota Lynx
So many choices in Minnesota, who knew this was where large corporation headquarters thrive? It must be a more comfortable climate for their icy hearts. Target, General Mills, Pepsi, 3M, Land O’ Lakes. Much like the team’s auspicious start, Minnesota sponsors have it made. Is this coming off rather anti-climactic after L.A? A little. Is ‘Land O’ Lakes Lynx’ still fun to say? Definitely.

Sacramento Monarchs
Sacramento…really. Well there’s Tower Records. Or there was. I’m not really sure that place still exists. Truth be told, I don’t think they even outlasted Media Play. Maybe Detroit has something to spare for them.

San Antonio Silver Stars
Speaking of auto-makers, San Antonio’s best bet would likely be with Advantage Rent-a-Car, as it’s basically the only auto-type business that could probably sponsor a team without having to ask them for a loan first. Plus it just SOUNDS like a company that should be sponsoring a rather under-the-radar pro sports team.

And finally, let’s wrap this all up with:

Seattle Storm
Only one thing to say about this crew and that’s that if they don’t become the Starbucks Storm then they are an embarrassment to Seattle and deserve to have their team relocated to some crazy place like Oklahoma City.

The WNBA Phoenix Mercury, have announced a deal with LifeLock, the identity theft protection company, that will involve LifeLock essentially buying out the rights to the name plastered across their jerseys. No more “Phoenix Mercury,” say hello to the “LifeLock

At first this comes off sounding like a terrible idea. Did I miss something or did we just make a pro sports league one step closer to becoming NASCAR? But the fact is, the WNBA needs help. I’m sure Lisa Leslie doesn’t live in a shack, but the “Air Leslies” never quite took off, did they? Half the women’s basketball players have to bolt overseas the second their season is over just so they can continue in the career they chose. When you look at it that way, selling out jersey space to a large company willing to sponsor your team isn’t such a bad idea. Don’t roll your eyes at that, it’s not like we’re in any danger of that trend leaking into the NBA.

Now LifeLock is primarily an online company, but it is still a nearby Arizona-based company. So as a service to other WNBA teams, I figured I would research some prominent locally-headquartered businesses and corporations and provide suggestions on which ones should sponsor their teams. LifeLock has already invaded the Western Conference, so I’ll start by attacking the East:

Atlanta Dream
Coca-Cola. The bonus here is that the Dream’s colors are already blue, red and white and Coca-Cola is well-known for two of the three. Turn those red and white “Atlanta” letters into “Coca-Cola” and you’ll hardly notice the difference.

Chicago Sky
The Second-turned-third City had some good choices, as to be expected. They’re home to Bally Total Fitness which could be a good link for an athletic team sponsor. There’s Blue Cross Blue Shield (Blue…Sky?) But above all else, these Sky-walkers have to know they’re living in the Land of Oprah. If they don’t agree to put Harpo Productions on their fronts, she might just buy out the entire WNBA. In fact, Oprah can’t be bothered with trivial things like that! She’ll get an assistant to do it.

Connecticut Sun
Connecticut? You have nothing. Let’s just face it, if the WNBA is hoping to survive on sponsorship alone, you’re probably going to be bought out by someone in Canada or something. I don’t know who’s going to sponsor you, but be prepared to be renamed the Maple Leafs or something (that one’s not taken, right?)

Detroit Shock
Well this should be an easy one too. How about Chrysler! Oh…um…hang on… I mean General Mo…DAMN IT! OK, forget all that and just go with Little Caesars. At least you’ll have the Ilitch family on your side.

Indiana Fever
There is only one choice here. Steak & Shake. Why? Steak & Shake Fever!!! You’ve just appealed to college kids nationwide and admit it, that’s a greater impact than the WNBA could ever dream of achieving.

New York Liberty
New York has their choice of well-known high-grossing companies of course. Calvin Klein to appeal to fashion-mongers, Dow Jones for the business-minded, MTV to hit up the younger trend-puppy crowd…but you know what? Screw it, you’re New York! The city’s name alone is better advertising than any New York-based business. You should be able to come up with enough fans to support a team even if it’s the senior female underwater badminton squad.

And finally …

Washington Mystics
It was kind of surprising I couldn’t find a good recognizable corporation based in D.C. that should still have enough money to throw around on things like using women’s basketball as their own personal billboards. There’s probably some out there, but … given the recent history of D.C. sports maybe the Mystics should just disappear anyway. Either that, or talk to this guy.

So now that the East has been wrapped up like a World Soccer team, stay tuned for Part 2 where the only thing left is to finish what the good people in Phoenix have started.