Woody Cavenaugh

Everyone knows the old saying, "You can have it fast, cheap, or good, but you can only pick two." In the world of project management this isn't just an old saying it is the law. Time, Money, or Resources, and the best you can ever hope to control is two. I contend that the triangle is a true natural law and applies evenly to all things, including women's sports.

The three sides of the triangle in sport are sponsorship, roster, and talent. I have seen teams with large rosters, good sponsorship and only a little talent. I have seen teams with large rosters, little sponsorship, and some talent. I contend the Phoenix is a team with a small roster, plenty of talent, and almost no sponsorship.

Sports has two primary goals, one to be an outlet for the players, and two to be an entertainment for the fans. Without a nice evenly sided triangle these goals can't get met. If you have a team with major backing, and a nice stadium, and they never win, you won't hold your fan base, and your players won't be happy either. If you have a very talented and successful team which no one knows about, the stands of the rented stadium remain empty, and the players have to pay their own way every step of the way to every away game. Thus you have the relationship between talent and sponsorship. Take a talented team with a small roster, and play them hard, and by the fourth quarter you have a tired team making mistakes. If you have a huge roster, but perhaps not strongly talented (that's players and coach by the way), you get creamed unless of course you are playing a small unfunded team of talented players, then you can try to capitalize on their fatigue if you can. In these situations where all things are not equal some games are going to be good and some games are going to be train wrecks. It all depends on who comes closest to the isosceles triangle. Large or small, symmetry has its advantages.

Children's sports takes care of this as best as they can by hopefully balancing the teams evenly at the beginning. High school sports takes care of this as best as they can by breaking up the schools into size groups. Sports wants the perfectly symmetrical triangle facing off against other same sized perfectly symmetrical triangle. NASCAR works hard to make sure that all of the cars are the same, and no team has an unfair advantage. Many larger fencing competitions are split up by gender, age, and rating. The NFL, has the draft, the teams all have similar and fairly proportioned sponsorships, the players are the cream of the crop, the coaches are, the best money can buy with proven records.

Starting next season the IWFL is splitting the teams up into tier one and tier two based on roster size, sponsorship, and performance. When that happens the scores will be closer because the teams will be better matched. The players have more fun, the fans get a better show, and everyone wins.

Meanwhile over on the Greensboro Sports blog, someone speaks a discouraging word about women's football in general:

Women’s Football? That’s all I need. A woman trying to say she’s better than me in Football after all my years of training.

I am issuing a challenge, not an insult. If you're so worried about a woman claiming she is better than you in football, you need to step up and prove your worth. The Phoenix has two very good coaches, and a trainer, but most teams in the IWFL have a whole crew of coaches, trainers, volunteers, fund raisers, publicist, and roles I probably don't even know about. Put up, or shut up.