A couple of years ago, a high-profile women's basketball coach took a risk with an unknown author, and became an important part of that writer's best work to date. Of course, she didn't know it at the time, and neither did he.
When my oldest daughter was in her last year of high school and contemplating her college choices and her college field of study, I thought I would help her out. I went to Borders, because that's my favorite store, and because I was in search of books about successful females and successful female leaders. My thought was that I could pass those along to my daughter, not only for inspiration, but for guidance when I wasn't around to share my worldly wisdom with her (of course, none of the four women under my roof think I'm worldly or wise).
Much to my dismay, the selection of books at Borders was slim and none. So I figured I'd write the book myself. And I did. The hard part was trying to identify enough positive female role models to profile in my book. After banging my head against a wall (both literally and figuratively) I had an inspirational moment. Since I'd been writing a newspaper column about girls and women in sports for seven years, and since I'd written other books about girls' and women's issues, I determined that I'd profile the top women's basketball coaches in the country.
The hard part was narrowing the list down to a manageable number because I wanted to travel to visit these ladies so I could interview them in person. After banging my head against a wall, again (probably why my ladies don't think I'm worldly or wise) I figured out that my criteria for narrowing my list of candidates would be that they had to have led their team to the Final Four - at least once.
That gave me a pretty short list, and eight of the ten coaches I approached agreed to be part of the project. Final Four Leadership (5 Secrets Successful Female Leaders Use and You Should Too) made its debut just before New Year 2010 http://www.davidfsalter.com/
The first coach to commit to my project? University of Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw. So it was with great pride and pleasure that I rooted for the Fighting Irish in the national championship game on Tuesday night. And it also was that night that I decided to embark on a new list.
Over the past several months, you faithful readers have been following my list of "Females We DON'T Want our Daughters to be Like." So far, Snooki, Heidi Montag, Diana Taurasi, Lindsay Lohan, Kim Kardashian, Lady Gag Me and all of the Housewives from the Bravo television series have adorned that list. You can check back in the archives to see why I selected those folks to be on that list of shame.
So I'm putting Muffet McGraw as the first person on the new list - Ladies We'd Like Our Daughters to Emulate. No one is perfect, but I will always try to explain my choices.
Coach McGraw has been at Notre Dame for 24 campaigns and she's compiled 644 career victories. The Fighting Irish won the national championship in 2001, and McGraw has guided them to the Final Four three times. Only seven other coaches have more Final Four appearances than does coach McGraw.
It would be easy to admire McGraw for her professional accomplishments, the most important one to me being that 100% of her student-athletes that have completed their eligibility in South Bend have earned their Bachelor's degree. But I admire her for some other things that I hope our daughters can copy.
McGraw remains married to her husband, Matt, since 1987. That's not easy in her profession, but it shows that women can be successful and stay married. I know it takes two sides to make that happen, and Muffet gives Matt a lot of credit for that. They've raised a son, Murphy, who's a 20-year old student at the University of Indiana.
There are a lot more aspects to coach McGraw that motivated me to start my new list with her, but I've already gone on too long. The fact that Notre Dame beat the Evil Empire led by Geno Auriemma to get to the national championship game doesn't hurt, either.
P.S. Don't forget to tell your daughter that you love her.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
This Can't be True
There are days that I read the news headlines, and I say to myself, 'how can this be?' My daughters would use the expression, 'for real?' If I wanted to be a little less clean, I'd say something else, because that's how I feel about this news item.
I've never read any of Toni Morrison's novels, but I know how talented a writer she is and I know of her accomplishments. She's been lauded with both the Nobel Prize for Literature as well as with the Pulitzer Prize. Lofty heights. Her two most acclaimed novels were Song of Solomon and Beloved. She recently signed a contract to be the commencement speaker at Rutgers University this spring, and the deal is worth $30,000 for Morrison. Nice check for 15-20 minutes, but she's earned that.
What has my head upside down is news that Rutgers just paid Snooki $32,000 to offer to the student body her wisdom on fake tanning, fist pumping, drinking, and having casual sex with strangers. How do you pay a moron like Snooki $2K more than Toni Morrison? How do you justify that?
Whoops, I'm sorry, I said in my first post that I wouldn't call people names. It's just so hard when Snooki acts like a human pinata, just asking to be whacked with a broomstick, baseball bat, or whatever you might use to take a swing at such a hittable object. It's like the pitcher telling the cleanup hitter that he's going to throw a medium speed fastball over the heart of the plate. How can you decline to take advantage of the circumstances?
I know you could also accuse me of 'picking' on Snooki because I've taken her to task a couple of times previously http://fathersagainstdaughtersdating.blogspot.com/2011/01/snookis-first-on-list.html
How can you pick on an individual who left the Rutgers University students with these well-thought insights, "Study hard, but party harder," or "When you're tan, you feel better." With those pearls of wisdom, it's no wonder parents of Rutgers students are flooding administrative offices with complaints that the Jersey Shore starlet was paid nearly $10K more than the parents pay in tuition, fees and room and board for a year.
A second news item is a little more encouraging. According to a recent study (I know, the skeptical research thing again) young adults might be less likely to have alcohol-related problems and to display impulsive behavior when the FATHER monitors their social interactions.
Apparently, most studies of parenting and its impact on children is primarily focused on mothers, and fathers are typically ignored. This study paid particular attention to Dads, and it found that when Dad pays more attention to what's going on - who are his kid's friends, their whereabouts and their social lives, there is a reduced chance of risky behaviors.
Furthermore, daughters who think their Dad is permissive and less aware of their social lives are more likely to be involved with alcohol-related problems.
P.S. Don't forget to tell your daughter that you love her.
I've never read any of Toni Morrison's novels, but I know how talented a writer she is and I know of her accomplishments. She's been lauded with both the Nobel Prize for Literature as well as with the Pulitzer Prize. Lofty heights. Her two most acclaimed novels were Song of Solomon and Beloved. She recently signed a contract to be the commencement speaker at Rutgers University this spring, and the deal is worth $30,000 for Morrison. Nice check for 15-20 minutes, but she's earned that.
What has my head upside down is news that Rutgers just paid Snooki $32,000 to offer to the student body her wisdom on fake tanning, fist pumping, drinking, and having casual sex with strangers. How do you pay a moron like Snooki $2K more than Toni Morrison? How do you justify that?
Whoops, I'm sorry, I said in my first post that I wouldn't call people names. It's just so hard when Snooki acts like a human pinata, just asking to be whacked with a broomstick, baseball bat, or whatever you might use to take a swing at such a hittable object. It's like the pitcher telling the cleanup hitter that he's going to throw a medium speed fastball over the heart of the plate. How can you decline to take advantage of the circumstances?
I know you could also accuse me of 'picking' on Snooki because I've taken her to task a couple of times previously http://fathersagainstdaughtersdating.blogspot.com/2011/01/snookis-first-on-list.html
How can you pick on an individual who left the Rutgers University students with these well-thought insights, "Study hard, but party harder," or "When you're tan, you feel better." With those pearls of wisdom, it's no wonder parents of Rutgers students are flooding administrative offices with complaints that the Jersey Shore starlet was paid nearly $10K more than the parents pay in tuition, fees and room and board for a year.
A second news item is a little more encouraging. According to a recent study (I know, the skeptical research thing again) young adults might be less likely to have alcohol-related problems and to display impulsive behavior when the FATHER monitors their social interactions.
Apparently, most studies of parenting and its impact on children is primarily focused on mothers, and fathers are typically ignored. This study paid particular attention to Dads, and it found that when Dad pays more attention to what's going on - who are his kid's friends, their whereabouts and their social lives, there is a reduced chance of risky behaviors.
Furthermore, daughters who think their Dad is permissive and less aware of their social lives are more likely to be involved with alcohol-related problems.
P.S. Don't forget to tell your daughter that you love her.
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