Indi Cowie — a 16-year-old soccer phenom from North Carolina — can freestyle with the best. “The family garage is her laboratory,” notes the New York Times Magazine. “There are times when there’s an enormous bang and I wake up at 5 in the morning thinking there’s an intruder in the house,” says Indi’s father, Logan Cowie. “Then I realize it’s just Indi practicing her latest trick.” Interestingly, Indi plays with a boys’ club team rather than with her high school’s girls’ team. Would she rather be the best freestyler or the best soccer player in the world, she answers: “You mean I have to pick one? I can’t. Both.” Read the full article here.
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One reply on “Indi’s Freestyle”
I have only one bone to pick with the NYT story: “But this 16-year-old nobody does things that no other girl on the planet can do.”
Fans of freestyle will know that there are two Asian sports in which women compete that involve (and inspire) many of the kinds of moves we associate with freestyle: Chinlone, from Myanmar – which was the subject of a documentary – “Mystical Ball” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWfcATXnBLs&feature=related and then there is Sepak Raga, which has a relationship with Chinlone. Sepak Raga is played all over the world.
Su su Hlaing is a chinlone star – John Turnbull has an article about these two sports on his site:
http://www.theglobalgame.com/blog/2007/01/mind-over-rattan-in-a-meld-of-meditation-and-footvolley-the-burmese-excel/
It is worth noting that in many parts of South East Asia women compete in a wide range of sports, and are encouraged to do so. Half of India’s women’s soccer team comes from Manipur, which borders Myanmar – and the region is also home to some of the world’s top female boxers and martial artists.
It’s the NYT: especially post-paywall one wants even hyperbolic statements to be backed up by something more than what I like to call “sexist surprise.”
Even if pure “features” rhetoric, the assertion that Indi is the only woman who can freestyle like this supports the enduring notion that female athletic virtuosity is freakish – and only worth reporting as such.
Warming up for the women’s football scholars forum session!