Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

I’m not a sporto girl. I have watched scant few sports movies, probably because they don’t really have any female characters who aren’t love interests. In fact, in this list of Top 10 Sports Movie Speeches, I have only seen ONE of the movies, and it was only an honorable mention.

It was League of Their Own, and honestly, the “There’s no crying in baseball,” is one of the most inspiring speeches I’ve ever seen on film. When I fell on my bike, ripped my hands open and bleeding, I thought, “There’s no crying in baseball.” When I’ve been so tired at the end of the 5K Halloween race at Gardner Village and I could barely climb that tiny hill right before the finish, I thought, “There’s no crying in baseball.” If you haven’t seen the whole thing, it’s here”:

After rewatching that speech, however, the BEST part comes when the umpire tells him that he should talk to each of his players like they’re his mother and he calls the umpire a penis with a hat on. I wanted to call the umpire worse. No, Mr. Umpire. We don’t need someone to talk to us like we’re their mother. We need to hear that there’s no crying in baseball!

I think the reason that list of Top 10 Sports Movie Speeches fell so completely flat for me is because I was never the target audience. Sports movies aren’t written for me. They’re written for over-the-hill jock boys who want to relive their past glory days. It’s an entire GENRE of movies that really just doesn’t care about HALF the population.

If find that incredibly sad. Where is the collection of motivational speeches made by women? They are RARE. Hayley in Stick It comes to mind, but her speech isn’t on YouTube. You can see part of it in the movie trailer:

“If you’re gonna eat mat, eat mat hard.” Yeah, don’t hold back. Don’t keep your best for later. Really give it all you’ve got and if you fail, fail hard. Why isn’t her speech on YouTube? Why was it so hard to find even a portion of that speech there?

The only other one I could think of was Bring It On with Gabrielle Union. Her Bring It speech is perfect. After Kirsten Dunst’s team has stolen her routine, her advice to them is spot on:

“You wanna make it right? Then when you go to nationals, bring it. Don’t slack off because you feel sorry for us. That way, when we beat you, we’ll know it’s because we’re better.”

We need more movies like this for our girls, except with ALL sports, not just gymnastics and cheering. Title Nine is not just about providing equal opportunity for girls, we need movies and inspiration for them as well. Until they do, women who could be great athletes will be lost.