About Us
Words from the Head of School
She Got Game
Dear Brandeis community,
Yesterday the stars aligned just so, the afternoon meetings and activities parting like clouds, and I was able to take both of my daughters to see the 6A girls’ basketball team compete for the BAIAL championship. I won’t bury the lede: the Brandeis girls won handily, by 25 points or so, completing an undefeated season and bringing Brandeis its first girls’ basketball championship. They played inspired defense throughout, and completely took over in the second half of the game, turning what had been a close game into a runaway blowout.
After the trophy presentation, after the photos taken with the mascot sprawled in front of the team and #1 fingers held up high, I drove Sonia and Alma home. In the car we talked about the excitement of winning a championship, and about women’s basketball. My daughters were unaware that the WNBA exists—a sad commentary on my efforts to expose them to the game—and Alma asked if there is a women’s player as good as Steph Curry. Yes, I replied! (Diana Taurasi? Tamika Catchings?) Their dearth of knowledge about the women’s game—in a fairly basketball-literate household—speaks to a broad cultural bias we share, and work that I need to do as a parent. It put me in mind of a remake of Spike Lee’s He Got Game that I heard about on NPR a week or so ago, a short film called She Got Game imagining the hype that surrounded Ray Allen’s Jesus Shuttlesworth character being centered on a high school women’s basketball player. While we should never look to the comments section on any website for inspired cultural commentary, it is telling to me that the comments on that video are filled with sexist suggestions that the character should be in the kitchen rather than on a basketball court. It speaks to the necessity of t-shirts like the one worn by WNBA legend Candace Parker on Kevin Garnett’s excellent Area 21 basketball talk show, which read FEMALE ATHLETE, with the word FEMALE crossed out.
Seeing those young athletes absolutely demolish the competition yesterday and put the Brandeis School of San Francisco’s name on that trophy for the first time, I thought about the notion of an aspirational arc, which I’ve discussed before, present in the camping world. An aspirational arc speaks to the idea that younger participants should have experiences and roles to look forward to, to look up to, to be inspired by. As we drove home and Sonia wondered out loud for the first time if she might enjoy playing on the Brandeis basketball team, to continue a dynasty begun this season, I saw just such an arc playing out before my eyes.
Wishing you all weekends full of inspirations and aspirations, my friends.
Warmly,
Dan
