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2001-08-31 | 9:55 a.m.

I am in tears right now over a kicker. Some Dixie chick named Ashley Martin became the first woman to score in an NCAA football game on Thursday night. She got a standing ovation after the game, in which she kicked three for three. The waterworks didn't start until I read this part:

She also kicked in high school, making 2-of-4 field goals and 79-of-92 extra points. She was selected homecoming queen at East Coweta High School, located southwest of Atlanta, and accepted the crown in her uniform.

My response is an emotional one. I'm not sure I can put it all down in words, because it's all mixed up with my own youth, my understanding of history, my sense of humor, and my own competitive nature and sense of fair play.

To judge by Martin's comments, she doesn't think it's such a big deal. She gives credit to her teammates and says she still thinks football is a man's game. Fair enough. She is a gracious athlete and a Southern belle.

It's unlikely that she knows or cares how many people fought for her right to play football, even before she was born. Hell, she didn't even want to play football. She was recruited from the soccer squad by canny coaches who could only fathom such a choice because they themselves came of age in a post-feminist era. In her 20-year-old splendor, does she think of the girls who came before, who were just as talented, sometimes more talented, who tried out for teams they knew they weren't allowed to play for, who asserted their existence anyway, who sued and lost and won? Whose coaches lamented that they weren't born male and then forgot about them? Probably not. Why would she? She doesn't want to be anybody's standard-bearer.

But there would be exceptions. Here and there, little triumphs that stoked hopes everywhere. One tiny triumph built upon the next. I kept track. Did you?

I played Little League the first year they let girls on the teams. I think it was 1976. And yes, even at 11 years old I understood that my being able to play was a feminist victory. It was wondrous to me. Unfortunately, I sucked at baseball. I didn't try out, but I would accompany my babysitter's son to practices and eventually batted a few times for fun. My hits were strong and the coach added me to the team. But I could only hit in practice, never in the games. I think my coach came to hate me. It's possible I'm imagining it. I wanted to succeed very much but I couldn't. Maybe if I had started playing at 5 or 6, I would have had more skill. Maybe not. I can tell you that I never forgot that I was there by special dispensation. I never forgot that I was a girl and that not everybody approved of my being there at all. So I did what lots of bad players do: I tried to make myself invisible.

When I watch my daughter dominate the field in her soccer practices, I feel so proud I don't know what to do with it all. I want to scream her name, even before I become aware of the other parents screaming their kids' names, but I don't. Not only because everyone can see how well she plays, but because she doesn't need me to. I try to contain my feelings because I don't want to engender anybody's animosity. She doesn't deserve it. She plays for herself, like a supernatural force, with no comprehension of what came before or what will come after. That's fine. I'll teach her the salient points of feminism as we go along; but let me be the archivist of tears and failed dreams. I'm good at that. Let her be golden. She is pure gold.

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