Women Know Their Sports, Too

Guest blogger, Rey Moralde.

Hey. I'm Rey Moralde (most commonly known as Rey-Rey) from the blog, The No-Look Pass. My boys and I have been blogging about the NBA for a little over a year now and we strive to be unique in our content besides bringing you our opinions of what goes on in the league.

I like what the Lady Ballers are doing. They are giving women a voice in this male-dominated genre and it's really a shame that men don't seem to give women a chance when it comes to sports. Some men believe in the stereotype that women don't know anything about sports and, unfortunately, it continues to this day. And when some women show men that they do know something (sometimes, more than the men themselves), the men come up with some excuse like, "Well, she isn't good-looking, anyway," or "She memorized that before she came here so she can impress the men."

Do I find that attribute about women liking sports attractive? Sure. It's only natural. After all, men are attracted to women who share the same hobbies as they do. It continues to baffle me on why men tend to belittle women when it comes to that. Maybe it's their "macho pride". But I don't have any "macho pride" when it comes to that. I learned this very early on.

Sure, I liked a lot of basketball because of the Lakers Vs Celtics era. But guess who encouraged me to play basketball? Not my dad. Not my older brothers. It was my sister.

My sister was a teenager at the time. She was kind of a tomboy from what I remember. What I also remembered is that my dad had set up a basketball rim in our backyard. My sister and my two brothers played everyday. And my sister schooled my brothers. Of course, I was about 6 or 7 so it didn't matter to me that my brothers were only about 13 and 9; my sister was just better at them in basketball. I can remember her having a weird form but she was somehow an excellent shooter.

As a kid, I wanted to be like them and I longed to make my first-ever shot at a 10-foot regulation rim. My sister encouraged me to keep trying as she took her time away from shooting around to get me to make my first shot. I don't know how long it took but I finally made that first basket. I remember that being one of the happiest moments of my life and that shot brought on an addiction to basketball.

Sure, my sister helped me solidify my love of basketball but it was because she played basketball that helped me in my mind that it didn't matter whether a girl or a boy knew or played sports. I've played basketball with or against many women and I don't have any qualms about that. And some of the women that I have played with expressed the fact that they like that I play hard against them. In one game, I blocked a woman's shot attempt hard and she complimented me with the good block. My brother was like, "Dude. She's a girl. That's messed up that you blocked her." And I just said, "She's out playing with us. I don't care if it's a woman. They would've done the same thing to me."

I've talked to many women (like the LadyBallers) who knew their stuff. I even have a feature in my blog called Chicks Who Love Hoops to promote women's voice about how much they love the NBA. I encourage women to get their say out in the sports world because, quite frankly, we need more of it and we need to defeat the stereotype about women not knowing anything about sports.

Once there is less stereotyping of that, the sports world will be a better place. Let's just have fun and talk sports, no matter what the gender is, all right?

*Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the LadyBallers Organization/Social Network.