As a backup who comes off the bench, Sophie Cunningham of the Indiana Fever is not the most talented player in the Women’s National Basketball Association. There is little doubt, however, that she has emerged this season as the most renowned.
And there’s no question that she has played a major role in the league’s soaring attendance figures and television ratings.
At 30, the 6-foot-1 guard/forward is averaging only about eight points a game. Yet, chiefly because of her and teammate Caitlin Clark, the WNBA has ascended into considerable prominence.
Recently, the first-year Toronto Tempo, not a formidable team in the WNBA, drew an atypical decent crowd because the opponent was the Fever. Toronto fans would be hard-pressed to name two players with the Tempo, but identifying Cunningham and Clark of Indiana has turned into a breeze for even the most casual of WNBA followers.
Not that the duo is popular with Toronto fans. No, Clark was booed in Toronto because, well, she’s a truly terrific superstar in the WNBA, and the booing is a sign of respect, much the way Bobby Orr or LeBron James would be booed during their respective games in Toronto, and elsewhere.
But the booing of Cunningham struck me as bizarre, to say the least. She wasn’t being targeted in Toronto because she is Clark’s on-court protector. Nor was she being booed because of her delightful personality, swagger, beauty and marketability.
She was being booed because she had the audacity to tell ESPN in a much-publicized interview that she is opposed to transgender athletes playing in women’s sports. Even women in Toronto booed Cunningham. Weird, eh? Women booing a woman for sticking up for women.
Cunningham said she wasn’t bothered even slightly by the booing in Toronto. “I’m here to extend love,” she told reporters. “But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”
She is bang-on and, after doing some in-depth research on the subject, I wholeheartedly agree with Cunningham.
Allowing biological men, with their undeniable physical advantages in strength, speed and endurance, to compete against biological females undermines the progress being made in women’s sports.
Dr. Gregory Brown, a professor of exercise science at the University of Nebraska, has produced more than 60 peer-reviewed publications for academic journals. He wrote last January that “Female athletes have been injured and deprived of roster spots, starting positions, awards and championships in their own category, all due to the mistaken belief that a transgender identity somehow negates the well-documented performance advantages conferred by male sex.”
At every level, from school sports to the Olympics to the pros, opportunities for success for females have been diminished when transgender individuals are permitted to participate in their competitions.
Dr. Brown noted that female athletes have lost scholarships, medals, playing spots, and even top salaries as pros, when their sports have been co-opted by male trans athletes.
There is a view, held by many who follow the WNBA, that there are male trans athletes recognized as women in the league. Cunningham has mildly suggested the testing of WNBA players to determine their sex at birth.
The league’s administrators are not only balking at the suggestion but reprimanding Cunningham and warning her to be silent on the issue.
Yet Cunningham isn’t simply talking out of her hat. She is honest. She tells it like it is. She is wiser than your average athlete. She is in the process of finishing a book that will sell well, at least with the anti-woke enthusiasts.
She is pleasant, amicable and multi-talented, a bright shining light in the historically underrated and underappreciated world of professional women’s sports. She should be a welcome part of a league trying to grow.
With her ability to utilize social media, her gift of gab and her light-hearted approach to friendly and fun-loving messaging, she is irrefutably a marketing guru.
The folks who run and follow the WNBA should cease and desist from admonishing her and, yes, booing her. Rather, she should be — and I don’t often say this when it comes to athletes — exalted and thanked. She truly is one of a kind.
National Post
