You want to debate dominance? Fine, let’s do it

Several years ago, my mother proclaimed that she wasn’t going to watch NASCAR anymore because “Jimmie Johnson won all the time.”

This, as I tried to point out to her, from a woman who was a fan of Jeff Gordon.

I’ve never been a big proponent of the belief that dominance is good for a sport because it gives all the other competitors someone to shoot for and fans want to see if they’ll get knocked off. As a fan, I’m fine with the people I root for winning all the time, but otherwise I can’t stand it.

So, on that level, I can understand people having a problem with the UConn women dominating, although I would prefer the UConn takes not make references to “kitchens” and “sandwiches” — they’re both sexist and not creative — and that they not come after a game in which the opposing coach was an instrument in his team’s slaughter. (Run and gun with UConn as a 16 seed? Good luck what that.)

My bet is a lot of people won’t take time to read this because it will interfere with their finite, polarizing views of women’s basketball.

— Jeff Jacobs (@jeffjacobs123) March 18, 2018

It would also be nice if they were something other than perfunctory, especially when the writer must have felt that crapping on UConn was something he was supposed to do. (Really, USA Today, at least put in some effort.)

It’s not on UConn women. They should play as hard as they can and beat their opponents by as much as they can. But there’s no good argument that complete domination like this is good to grow the game.

— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) March 17, 2018

UConn's 88-point win in the NCAA tournament shows how significant the disparity between the best and the rest in women’s basketball is. https://t.co/9KJyTVtza4

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) March 18, 2018

But if people want to debate over whether the UConn women are good for the game, let’s do it.

While we’re at it, we can debate whether the Patriots are good for the NFL.

We can argue whether Michael Jordan’s Bulls were good for the NBA.

Let’s chat over whether the Yankees of the late 1990s were good for baseball.

Takes are welcome on if Tiger Woods was good for golf.

Was it good for tennis when Roger Federer, Roger Nadal and Novak Djokovic won all the majors? (Side discussion, is it good for tennis today that Federal and Nadal, who are both older, basically part-time players, are still the best in the world?)

Are teams like Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich ruining soccer?

Anyone have an issue with the SEC getting a virtually automatic bid (if not two) into the College Football Playoff every year?

In the same way everyone seems to have a thought on the UConn women, everyone is invited to these debates … even people who never have anything to say about these sports otherwise.

But they won’t happen, because by and large, the issue isn’t the domination; it’s the gender of the people doing the dominating.

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