#tribute to megan rapinoe | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bountyofbeads · 5 years

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https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/sue-bird-megan-rapinoe-uswnt

"What’s it like to have the literal President of the literal United States (of literal America) go Full Adolescent Boy on your girlfriend? Hmm. Well… it’s WEIRD.”

Sue Bird calls out Trump in hilarious and touching tribute to girlfriend Meghan Rapinoe. 👏👏👏👏

"Hi!! @S10Bird here. This is my WC Semis preview. Title was supposed to be “So the President F*cking Hates My Girlfriend (& 10 Other Things I Want You to Know Before the World Cup Semifinals)” but we ran out of space. My bad. Thanks for reading. GO @USWNT."

Hi!! Sue here. This is my World Cup Semifinals preview. The title was supposed to be “So the President F*cking Hates My Girlfriend (and 10 Other Things I Want You to Know Before the World Cup Semifinals)” but we ran out of space. My bad. Thanks for reading. GO USWNT.

(1) I’m back!! I was done, I swear!! No, really, I SWEAR. Last year I broke my nose, and then I wrote about it, and then I seriously did think that was going to be it for me in the writing game. I remember telling my editor here something like, “It would take the President of the United States going on a hate-filled Twitter spree trolling my girlfriend while she was putting American soccer, women’s sports, equal pay, gay pride and TRUE LOVE on her back, all at once, scoring two majestic goals to lead Team USA to a thrilling victory over France and a place in the World Cup SEMIFINALS, for me to ever even thinkabout writing again.” But I’m a woman of my word. So here I am.

(2) First of all, I’ve gotta get this on the record, if it’s not already clear: I’m SO proud of Megan!!

And the entire damn USWNT. That’s why I’m writing this article, mainly. So if you could do me a favor, let’s just take a second, for real, and appreciate this RUN my girl’s been on?? Like, take away all of the “extra” stuff — and just focus for a second on the soccer alone. Two goals against Spain. Two goals against France, WHILE A GUEST IN THEIR MAISON. I want to hit on a lot of other topics while I’m here, and trust me I will — but I just think it’s also really important not to forget what this is actually, first and foremost, about, you know? It’s about a world-class athlete, operating at the absolute peak of her powers, on the absolute biggest stage that there is. It’s about an athlete f*cking killing it.

It’s about Megan coming through.

(3) O.K. so now that that’s out of the way, I’ll answer The Question.

The one that’s probably most on your mind. And by that I mean: What’s it like to have the literal President of the literal United States (of literal America) go Full Adolescent Boy on your girlfriend? Hmm. Well… it’s WEIRD. And I’d say I actually had a pretty standard reaction to it: which was to freak out a little.

That’s one thing that you kind of have to know about me and Megan: our politics are similar — after we won the WNBA title in Seattle last season, no way were we going to the (f*cking) White House! — but our dispositions are not. And as we’ve been talking through a lot of this “stuff,” as it’s been happening to her, you know, I’ll be honest here….. some of it scares the sh*t out of me!!

I mean, some of it is kind of funny….. but like in a REALLY? REALLY? THIS GUY??? kind of way. Like, dude — there’s nothing better demanding your attention?? It would be ridiculous to the point of laughter, if it wasn’t so gross. (And if his legislations and policies weren’t ruining the lives of so many innocent people.) And then what’s legitimately scary, I guess, is like….. how it’s not just his tweets. Because now suddenly you’ve got all these MAGA peeps getting hostile in your mentions. And you’ve got all these crazy blogs writing terrible things about this person you care so much about. And now they’re doing takedowns of Meganon Fox News, and who knows whatever else. It’s like an out-of-body experience, really — that’s how I’d describe it. That’s how it was for me.

But then Megan, man….. I’ll tell you what. You just cannot shake that girl. She’s going to do her thing, at her own damn speed, to her own damn rhythm, and she’s going to apologize to exactly NO ONE for it. So when all the Trump business started to go down last week, I mean — the fact that Megan just seemed completely unfazed? It’s strange to say, but that was probably the only normal thing about it. It’s not an act with her. It’s not a deflection. To me it’s more just like: Megan is at the boss level in the video game of knowing herself. She’s always been confident….. but that doesn’t mean she’s always been immune. She’s as sensitive as anyone — maybe more!! She’s just figured out how to harness that sensitivity.

And I think Megan’s sensitivity is what drives her to fight for others. I think it’s what drove her to take a knee. The Megan you’re seeing now? It’s the stronger version of the one who knelt in the first place. All the threats, all the criticism, all the fallout — coming out on the other side of that is what makes her seem so unfazed by the assholes of the world now.

I think in trying to help others, Megan has cemented who she is.

(4) A few 100% random and 100% unrelated facts, presented without commentary.

Donald Trump has never invited a WNBA champion to the White House.

In 2017, when South Carolina Women’s Basketball — coached by a black woman (the legend Dawn Staley) — won the national championship, they were not initially invited to the White House.

In 2019, when Baylor Women’s Basketball — coached by a white woman (also a legend, Kim Mulkey) — won the national championship, they were invited to the White House with no issues.

Stumbled across this cool website the other day. Check it out 🙂

(5) Alright….. yeah. It’s time. It’s definitely time.

We Need To Talk About Megan’s Pink Hair.

I’m actually just going to say this out loud, and put it all the way out there, since the Players’ Tribune is a space for honesty (plus there’s this whole Atlantic Ocean between us): The hair?? I was….. AGAINST it. Phew!! That felt really good to say. I was against it. I thought it was too impulsive and I voted no. (LOL not that I actually got a vote — our relationship when it comes to Megan’s fashion is based on what you might call a “modified democracy,” where we both give our opinion and then Megan does what she wants.)

But yeah, my feeling was — you’re going to the World Cup!! To do great things!! And hopefully, if all goes well, you’re going to be memorialized in all of these pictures that will be around for….. EVER! Plus, blonde hair is like — Your Signature Thing!! You look amazing blonde. We know that looks good on you. Pink? Megan, are you sure?Don’t you think you might regret this??

And Megan was just, like, Nope. World Cup. Pink hair. I’m in. Let’s get it. She got it colored the DAY before she left, without a care in the freaking world. I mean….. if you were ever wondering what the Rapinoe Lifestyle was about….. that’s it, truly.

(Also, I love it now? Now that’s it’s settled in and looks a little more purple. Don’t tell Megan.)

(6) Back to the France game for a second. A few thoughts here.

One, I’m not sure if you saw — but, my girlfriend?? She shrugged off the Rude Man on Twitter, and managed to play….. I’d say pretty well 🙂

Two, France!! They were incredible. I really hope some of them are reading this, because I just want them to know that. They stayed so damn tough, I thought, through the whole tournament — and that’s with the pressure of hosting the event, too. The way they persevered to make it a match, late, after getting down two goals early?? I mean, don’t get me wrong — I was 100% on MANIAC mode, cheering for our squad. Obviously. But I still hated that anyone had to lose.

Three, on the advice of counsel I’d like to issue a formal apology to everyone who was on the plane with me last week, and had to watch me fistpump like a bozo after each of Megan’s goals, and smash the REFRESH button on my phone like a….. well, also a bozo, after my bars started cutting out in the second half.

It won’t happen again except let me be clear it might.

(7) YOU GUYS: WHAT ARE PENALTY KICKS.

No, seriously — I could not imagine taking one??????

I think the more I watch soccer, and the more I find these ways to apply it to what I know about basketball, the better feel I get for the game. Like, for example, as a point guard, I have a pretty strong sense of floor-spacing….. and I think that ends up being extremely relevant for soccer. I’m definitely starting to “see the field,” you know? And I’m noticing the way that plays develop, and stuff. (They just kind of develop.)

O.K. so that’s my plus column.

My minus column? PENALTY KICKS. Like, I guess they’re kind of like free throws? Only if there was someone trying to BLOCK your free throw, and you had to use your foot (??), and oh yeah if you missed it you’d never forgive yourself and have it haunt you for the rest of your LIFE?? So what I’m saying is it’s not like a free throw at all.

I don’t want Megan to turn out to be an alien from another planet, but I’m just going to say the truth of how I feel right now: If you’re good at penalty kicks, you’re a f*cking alien from another planet.

(8) I had a long thing prepared here about the equal pay debate.

I was planning on “making some points” and “going in.”

But then I thought about it some more, and to tell you the truth….. I’m kind of done with that.

If you’re not on the right side of this fight, and advocating fiercely for equal pay — whether it’s in soccer, or basketball, or in any other industry, and across every intersectional boundary — then I just straight-up feel bad for you.

Because you’re sad, and wrong, and going down.

I feel that in my bones, increasingly, over these last several months — having seen my colleagues in the W show we mean business on a new CBA.

I feel that in my bones, increasingly, over these last couple of years — having seen our NBA counterparts start (START!) to stick their necks out for us, more and more, in solidarity and out of respect.

And I feel that in my bones, increasingly, right f*cking now — having seen these indestructible USWNT women stand up for themselves and (this seriously can’t be stressed enough) crack a LAWSUIT over the heads of U.S. Soccer while they go out and grind for a freaking World Cup.

Oh right and they literally are MORE PROFITABLE THAN THE MEN.

COOL!!!!!!!!!

TLDR: Pay us.

(9) They told me I should make some predictions!! LOL.

In the first semi, I’ve got those frisky lil AMERICANS taking down England, by a score of 2-0. I feel like we’re vibing right now, and the offense is really humming, so yeah — this one’s USA all the way. (QUICK NOTE ON METHODOLOGY: I may have just made the prediction that results in me getting a summer trip to Paris.)

In the second semi….. O.K., so, I won’t reveal my sources, but I heard this major scoop that the Netherlands might be a team people are sleeping on?? But then I guess on the other hand, you also have Sweden, who thumped us in the Olympics….. so that’s a “cool final” maybe….. I don’t know, I feel like these teams probably know each other really well. Like a classic neighborhood beef. How am I doing? Should I keep faking it here? Let’s go with the Netherlands, 2-1.

(10) Wait let’s do a story time.

I’ve been lucky enough to hear a few awesome stories about the USWNT in my day, so I feel like — since you’ve put up with my decidedly non-expert World Cup semifinal preview, and been so cool about it — I owe you one of them here.

I’ll actually tell you my favorite.

Alright so it’s halftime of the 2015 World Cup Final….. and of course, if you’re reading this, you know the score: 4-1 U.S. Carli has her hat trick, Lauren has one, and Japan has their one. And I think we’re all among friends at this point, so let’s just be real: It wasn’t even THAT close. It was over, dudes. World Cup? Over. Amazing!! Party!!

Except: these world-class athletes being these world-class athletes….. there is noooooo off switch in SIGHT. These women are in the locker room at half time, and they are taking it as seriously as if they were tied at one. People are talking strategy, going over plays, breaking down miscues — doing the whole bit, straight up, just biz as usual.

And then…..

And then there’s Megan.

She’s sitting there….. and she’s seeing everyone gameplan, and keep their game-faces on, and Do The Normal Halftime Thing..… and she gets it. Of course she gets it. But, like — still, you know?? Still. There is something inside of her that just….. CANNOT deal. Cannot deal with the ceremony of it all. Cannot deal with the bullshit. And she tries hard to fight it, tries not to say anything….. tries to stay somewhat relaxed.

But then at some point the girl just….. I mean….. come on.

She can’t help herself:

“WE’RE GONNA WIN THE WORLD CUP,” she blurted out.

“WE’RE. GONNA. WIN. THE. WORLD CUP!!!

WE’REGONNAWINTHEF*CKINGWORLDCUP!!!”

(11) So there’s this thing that I invented called Megan Goggles.

They’re hard to explain, but I think I’ve almost got it. I think it’s like….. O.K., so: Megan, she just does things sometimes. Do it….. then love it….. then — later, at the very end, if there’s time — worry about it. That’s her M.O. Me, on the other hand….. I’m nothing like that. I’m more of the worry about it first….. and then later, if there’s time, do it type. So the idea of Megan Goggles, I guess, it’s this idea of like — they’re this thing that I put on, and it helps me loosen up a bit?? And just open my eyes, and see the world from Megan’s Extremely Megan perspective.

And anyway, in the beginning of our relationship, I think I would use “Megan Goggles” as a sort of running joke — when we’d be doing that thing couples do where we play these almost cartoon versions of ourselves. In our case: free-spirit Megan and practical Sue.

Except now….. I wouldn’t be so practical!! So it would be like:

[Megan walks into the closet with some scissors, then confidently walks out…..]

[Sue puts on Megan Goggles…..]

Sure, Megan! Absolutely let’s call that t-shirt you just cut a hole in “a look.”

Or:

[Megan suddenly decides that she needs to dye her eyebrows platinum blonde…..]

[Sue puts on Megan Goggles…..]

Wait, Megan, nevermind — I take it back that it’ll look like you have no eyebrows! And I can totally see what you mean when you say, “Trust me, they’ll pop.”

And so on and so on — and it just sort of became this, like, shorthand experience. I’d put on my Goggles, and I’d be on this amazing vacation….. to a place where I was someone a little left of my own center. Where I was someone who thinks like Megan thinks.

And then eventually I came to realize the obvious: that Megan Goggles are a lot more than some cute running joke between us, about fashion choices or whatever — and that they’re actually this kind of skeleton key to Megan herself. Or, put another way: When I put on my Megan Goggles?? What I’m really doing, I think, is learning to understand her better — and, if this even makes any sense: I think at the same time, I’m learning how to understand myselfbetter as well.

But wait I’ll get to my point. I’m bringing all this up, and trying to explain this crazy (or I hope not that crazy!!) concept, because last Friday — in the lead-up to that USWNT game vs. France, and then during the game itself, and then after??

I swear, it was like the most amazing thing happened: It was like the entire country, all at once, for this one fleeting and improbable but also somehow very very very very possible moment….. PUT ON MEGAN GOGGLES.

It was like the entire country, all at once, said — Soccer? YES. Women’s soccer? YES. An openly gay superstar swagging out with two goals and batsh*t celebrations and leading us to a huge-ass win in women’s soccer? YES. That same openly gay superstar not just taking some preapproved, basic level of pride in her sexuality, but actually being the world’s biggest most kissable goofball queen and literally crediting her sexuality for those two goals and her batsh*t celebrations and our huge-ass win in women’s soccer? YES.

This is the American flag now, someone tweeted — and it’s a photo of my girlfriend, BEAMING ear to ear, smiling her BOOBS off on a football field, mugging for the camera, weird-ass dye job and all — just totally and completely over-goddamn-flowing with excellence? YES.

So anyway, look — I guess here’s my point:

I’m closer to 40 than 30. I’ve only been legally permitted to get married in the last handful of years. I’m a worrier, an overthinker, and — if it’s your type of thing — a 3x WNBA champion.

But on Friday? It was like for this one, perfect, fleeting, uncomplicated day….. I was everyone.

I was happy.

I was crazy.

I was PROUD.

I was pretending to know about soccer.

I was a little overwhelmed.

I was pretty damn American.

And I was in love with Megan Rapinoe.

Sue Bird, Seattle Storm

https://t.co/A2dJrBIzRh

#donald trump #u.s. news #politics #trump administration #president donald trump #international news #white house #us: news #must reads #us news #uswnt #uswntsoccer #sports #u.s. soccer #womens soccer #social news #soccer

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phroyd · 5 years

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LYON, France — The chant was faint at first, bubbling up from the northern stands inside the Stade de Lyon. Gradually it grew louder. Soon it was deafening.

“Equal pay!” it went, over and over, until thousands were joining in, filling the stadium with noise. “Equal pay! Equal pay!”

Few sports teams are asked to carry so much meaning on their shoulders, to represent so many things to so many people, as the United States women’s soccer team. Few athletes are expected to lead on so many fronts at once, to be leaders for equal pay and gay rights and social justice, to serve as the face of both corporations and their customers. Fewer still have ever been so equipped to handle such a burden, so aware of themselves, so comfortable in their own skin, as those American women.

Yes, they had acknowledged as the World Cup got underway last month, anything less than a trophy would be a failure. Yes, they were willing to be made symbols of different fights for equality around the world. Yes, they would be as spectacular on the field as they unabashedly insisted they were.

With the swagger of pop stars and the inevitability of a freight train, the American women completed the sporting part of their journey on Sunday, clinching their second consecutive World Cup trophy by dispatching the Netherlands, 2-0, in the tournament’s final match.

The victory, which gave the United States a record four titles over all, was secured with goals from Rose Lavelle and Megan Rapinoe, the latter of whom was honored as the best player of a tournament in which her opponents, at times, ranged from rival teams to internet scolds.

“Getting to play at the highest level at a World Cup with a team like we have is just ridiculous,” Rapinoe said, “but to be able to couple that with everything off the field, to back up all of those words with performances, and to back up all of those performances with words, it’s just incredible.”

On top of her official honors, which in addition to most valuable player status included the Golden Boot as the tournament’s top scorer, Rapinoe over the course of a month made herself the unofficial face of the World Cup: a soccer star immune to the false modesty that afflicts so many athletes when faced with microphones; a proudly gay athlete eager to use her platform to champion the rights of marginalized communities; the target of the ire of President Trump who, halfway through the tournament, publicly criticized Rapinoe on Twitter for dismissing even the possibility that her team would visit the White House once the competition was over.

After the game, on the podium where she and her team would lift the tournament’s gold trophy, Rapinoe had a long chat with France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, and she accepted an invitation to talk in the future with FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, whose organization she has criticized repeatedly for not caring about women’s soccer and not investing enough money in its growth.

Several hours after the final whistle, even Mr. Trump was tweeting his praise. “Great and exciting play,” he wrote in sending his congratulations. “America is proud of you all.”

The American women won because, in their minds, on an existential level, they had to win. In March, the team’s players filed a lawsuit in federal court in March against the United States Soccer Federation, accusing it of engaging in illegal workplace discrimination — in areas such as pay, medical treatment and workplace conditions — on the basis of their gender. The heart of the argument for better compensation was their stellar performance over the years; winning in France would help them make their case. Losing, they knew, would sting.

In the competitive sense, this was by most accounts the toughest, most competitive women’s World Cup, reflecting all the progress made around the world in the game since the United States won the first edition of the tournament in 1991.

Within this crucible, though, and amid the distractions, the American women hardly missed a beat. They scored 26 goals and allowed only 3. They did not trail for as much as a second, winning seven straight games, including four knockout-stage games in a row against a series of ascendant European rivals.

“In terms of the path and the level, this was pretty challenging,” their coach, Jill Ellis, said.

The United States and the Netherlands played evenly in the first half of Sunday’s final, with the Dutch stanching the vaunted American attack with nerve and physicality for the game’s first hour. In a span of two minutes late in the first half, the Netherlands goalkeeper Sari van Veenendaal used three different parts of her body — her rib cage, the bottom of her foot, and her fists — to stop clear scoring chances from the Americans.

“I said to the players at halftime, ‘At some point it’s going to break, and it’s going to break our way,’” Ellis said.

That happened, finally, with 30 minutes to play, when the Dutch defender Stefanie van der Gragt, trying to clear a ball floating through the penalty area, instead kicked striker Alex Morgan in the shoulder, gifting the Americans a penalty kick.

Rapinoe stepped up and converted the shot — low and to the goalkeeper’s left — to score her sixth goal of the tournament. As the pro-United States crowd filling the stadium erupted in cheers, Rapinoe jogged toward the corner flag, uncurled a slow pirouette and lifted her arms to either side, like a bullfighter awash in adulation.

Lavelle clinched the victory nine minutes later. After receiving the ball at the center circle, an acre of space ahead of her, she dribbled in a straight line toward the goal with a series of delicate, little touches, a magician wiggling her fingers before a trick. Once in range, she shimmied her hips one final time, unsteadying the lone defender in front of her, before cutting the ball to her preferred left foot, which she used to wallop the ball inside the right post.

Almost immediately after the final whistle, Nike, one of the team’s sponsors, released a stirring advertisement portraying the players not merely as soccer champions, but as champions of equal rights, with a narrator envisioning that “a whole generation of girls and boys will go out and play and say things like, ‘I want to be like Megan Rapinoe when I grow up.’ And that they’ll be inspired to talk and win.”

And in a sign of how much the United States team has meant to fans and even players from other countries, the Dutch team before the game posted its own tribute video to the American women, stating, “You showed us where dedication and ambition can bring you.”

“So much of what we have to shoulder all of the time is heavy,” Rapinoe had said before the game. “It’s no secret that we’re sort of the leaders in the women’s game in a lot of different issues — equality, pay quality, gender issues — and at large our team has been very open and willing to sort of get in any kind of equality fight.”

The fight continued, even as the game came to its conclusion.

When the final whistle blared, the Americans rushed onto the field and zigzagged across the grass in celebration. The Netherlands players collapsed to their knees. Players from both teams broke down in tears. Enormous American flags emerged, and the United States players draped them over their shoulders.

Then came the chants for equal pay, and in that moment, the victory, the trophy and the team, became vehicles, once again, for a message.

Phroyd

#us women's team #soccer #world cup

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sportsandideas · 2 years

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Portland Fields Forever: Learning about a place through soccer, and about soccer through a place

When I travel I always look for fields. I find that soccer, and sports more generally, provide rich access points for understanding the cultural geography of a community — enacting a mix of the universal and the particular through the physical spaces and rituals around how people play. Soccer allows a traveler to look through the lenses of social science to learn about local meanings.** **

In past years I’ve used these lenses to learn about some far flung places, posting photo essays on Icelandic Fields Forever and Tanzanian Fields Forever. In 2022, with the start of a Fall academic semester teaching a class at the University of Portland on ‘The World Cup in Mind and Society’ (a cross-listed psychology and sociology class that also counts for the new ‘exploration level’ of our University Core Curriculum - offering students interdisciplinary opportunities to engage timely issues) I decided to turn those lenses on the community I share with my students: Portland, Oregon.

The idea was to help students explore the value of social science lenses by taking their own pictures of soccer in our town, and also finding publicly available material on the web that seems to say something about the meanings of soccer in Portland. The students initially did this individually, ideally connecting their findings to the types of psychological and sociological questions social scientists might ask, and then we put them together for a discussion of the patterns and meanings.

I started them off with an old Timbers Army tifo as an example of how much symbolism is embedded in a kind of display rarely seen anywhere except at major sporting events:

(Photo from soccer.nbcsports.com)

Only one of the students in the class is actually from Portland, and none of the students recognized the Portland city flag on the left or the Cascadia flag on the right — with the Portland flag representing the green forests and intersecting rivers of the Willamette and Columbia, while the Cascadia flag (aka, “the Doug”) was designed to symbolize the bioregion of the western Cascades that runs from western Oregon through western Washington and up to Vancouver, British Columbia.(and adopted by the region’s soccer fans as a cultural identity - and even sometimes as a claim to nation-like status) The students also didn’t recognize the face of Clive Charles in the middle — but they do know his name quite well, since it adorns our campus stadium. The broader point: soccer offers a rare space to display local pride, tribute historical icons, and identify with a region (the presence of the Cascadia flag contrasted with the absence of a US flag is meaningful here!).

The professional game and its accompanying fan base then became one of four entry points we identified for the cultural geography of soccer in Portland, accompanied by school soccer, club soccer, and recreational soccer. Each involves multiple levels of meaning — some that would be similar anywhere in the world, some that are more characteristic of American soccer writ large, and some that might be particular to Portland.

On the fandom side of things, for example, we agreed that Portland’s support for the Portland Thorns in the NWSL has elements of the universal — in the tendency of fans to don colors, scarves, and team merch that creates a feeling of shared identity — and the particular — in the implicit emphasis on gender empowerment embodied by Portland’s particularly vociferous support for the women’s game.

(Photo from Oregonlive.com)

And, speaking of scarves, one student contributed a shot of a campus dorm room decorated with scarves that situate Portland fandom amidst a melange of global soccer — tributing the Thorns and UP icon Megan Rapinoe alongside the USA, Chelsea, and the Tiburones (maybe referring to a small Mexican club?).

(Photo by student Kimberly Cortez)

The “Rapinoe” scarf here, even if not tied explicitly to her UP alumni status, also connects to the curious phenomenon of college soccer in the US — and the fact that schools such as the University of Portland rely heavily on sports to try to build community and communal identification. Take, for example, the Villa Drum Squad — a residence hall based tradition at UP that has long created a supporters' culture around both the men’s and women’s soccer teams at UP, while also creating their own ‘annual soccer derby’ to establish bragging rights (and reinforce communal identities?) between residence halls.

(Photo by Jeffrey Braccia from The Beacon, identified by student Declan McGinnis)

We also talked about college soccer at a place such as UP as an interesting space for bringing international students to diversify our community, and as a place where gender inequities still seem to loom - despite the historic success of the UP women’s team. Yet the men’s and women’s players themselves support each other and build their own community at the games - as per the creative photo taken by a student superimposing a polaroid of some of the women’s players watching the a men’s game.

(Photo by a student with a preference for no attribution)

The general idea of playing at a place such as UP as a potential end goal for young players is another distinctive feature of American soccer culture, and one that is changing over time as club soccer has professionalized. As a scholar of youth development, I have some concerns about the trend to send 12 or 14 year olds to mythical ‘national championship’ tournaments and about the broader disconnection of American soccer from an educational mission. But the students are less concerned than I — finding pictures that mostly celebrate the joy young Portlanders get from the game.

(Photo from Timbers.com, identified by student Justin Tucker)

(Photo identified by student Charlie Ma)

Which then brings us to recreational soccer — an all-ages category that takes place all over town in lots of forms, usually with a distinctively American touch of commerce and structure. Several students, for example, have worked with the ‘Soccer Shots’ program that introduces very young kids to the game through a fun (but also structured and programmed) version of street soccer.

(Soccer Shots at the playground; Photo by student Henry Ryde)

Others work with local recreational soccer programs that sometimes serve as feeders for higher level clubs, and sometimes function just as an end point for the less talented or less serious players. One was involved with a season-opening Fall jamboree, and snapped a picture that seems vividly symbolic of youth soccer American style — where even the ‘pick-up’ games are programmed with signage, bags of balls, pre-set cones, and more equipment than players (though I was assured the players did come later!).

(Photo by student Kelli Coughlin)

The structure and programming also hints at another particular characteristic of American soccer — the pay-to-play model that commercializes what might otherwise be a public good. One student saw this in a photo of the empty turf field available for rent at a local business park:

(Photo by student Braden Williamson)

Fortunately, Portland does also share with the rest of the world a few places where a player can just drop in to a game for whatever reason moves them on the day: exercise, community, mental health, the thrill of competition, or any of the many possibilities embedded in my favorite universal symbol — a ball and a field…

(Photo by student Cole Saldana)

#socialscience; teaching; portland

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leveloneandup · 1 year

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The US women’s national soccer team will defend its title as world champions this summer at the FIFA Women‘s World Cup 2023 in Australia and New Zealand. The tournament will also mark the first time the US Women’s National Team will play with equal pay to the US Men’s National Team. This watershed moment was a goal of rɘ―inc, the lifestyle brand co-founded by USWNT members Tobin Heath, Christen Press and Megan Rapinoe and former member Meghan Klingenberg.

Pentagram has continued its ongoing collaboration with rɘ―inc with its latest collection, Written in the Stars, inspired by the World Cup and the trailblazing members of the USWNT. The campaign celebrates athletes, artists and activists who are making a constellation of change, illuminating the path forward, and finding their destiny. (And when teams win the World Cup, they receive a badge with stars—can the two-time US champions get their third star?)

The branding reimagines the rɘ―inc logo as a constellation, playing off the hyphen in the mark with a network of lines that are used to build different graphics. These include a “2023” that links the brand’s guiding principles—activism, reinvention, defying expectations, and more—in an interconnected system that visualizes equity and unity, and a group of great players globally coming together as one.

A new insignia mirrors the logo with the games’ location flipped upside down, a play on Down Under. The collection also features a variety of interpretations on the starry theme in collabs with independent designers and makers like Ryoko Rain, UN/DN, USSF, Bkr and Storied Hats.

The Pentagram team curated a special color palette for the line, giving each color a playful name that ties into women’s soccer, like “Mrs. Graham’s Green,” a tribute to Helen Graham Matthews, who founded one of the first female soccer teams in 1881; “Ranger Rose,” after Beverly Ranger, the Jamaican former footballer who helped grow the game in Germany; and “Allez Gold,” a play on the French yell for “go,” and the USWNT win at the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France, where the crowds also chanted “equal pay!”

#re inc #pentagram #written in the stars collection

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graphijane · 5 years

Video

youtube

\\\*****Je te suggère de regarder la vidéo avant de lire ces mots si tu ne veux pas être spoiléE***** Tu peux booster la définition de la vidéo en HD*****///

Yo badass sisters ! Yo badass women !

Bien le bonjour les dures à cuire et nos alliéEs !

Le moment est venu de te présenter le fruit de semaines de travail version grrl pwr à fond.

Pourquoi 'grrrl pwr à fond' ?

- Megan Rapinoe - visuel 100 % meufs - j’ai entièrement composé la musique et le clip - j'ai intégralement géré ce projet - la seule personne a avoir vu le clip avant publication pour en assurer la relecture est ma grande sœur J’ai commencé à composer cette musique pour me faire la main sur un logiciel de MAO et pour renouer avec la création malgré des pépins de santé. Je trifouille la prod dans mon coin et en parallèle je m'imprègne des discours et autres interviews de Megan Rapinoe. Depuis gamine j’essaie de greffer des discours d’empowerment à de la musique. La première fois que je tente, j’ai une quinzaine d’années. Je n’ai pas de connaissances particulières en MAO, mais je bidouille. Quand fin 2019 je bénéficie de cours de MAO à la médiathèque de ma ville, les possibles deviennent accessibles. Réalisables. Lors d’un processus créatif évident, j’en viens à piocher des extraits de discours de Megan Rapinoe, pour les inclure sur ma prod, puisque les deux co-existent déjà dans mon quotidien.

J'essaie d'être la plus loyale et fidèle que possible aux propos de MR, sans pour autant les transcrire à l’identique. Il faut dire qu’à la base j’ai composé ce morceau à titre personnel et que ce n’est qu’après des heures et des jours de réflexion, qu’il a pris une dimension plus sérieuse et collective avec les vingt-cinq femmes présentes dans le clip.

Cette musique ne prétend pas se substituer aux discours originaux et puissants, prononcés lors de la parade de l'équipe des Etats-Unis à New York pour célébrer leur victoire lors de la Coupe du Monde de Football 2019 et à l'occasion de "Glamour's 2019 Women of the Year 2019". Je ne sais que vous inciter à les écouter et vous en approprier des valeurs.

Au fur et à mesure du processus créatif musical, des images se sont greffées dans ma tête. Jour après jour de manière de plus en plus évidente. Mentalement, j’ai développé l’idée en imaginant des copines, des attitudes, des façons de filmer, d’occuper l’espace public, de véhiculer des messages… Je propose alors à des potes si ça les branche de se filmer et de m'envoyer des plans, ou d'être filmées par mes soins.

Avant de s’engager, elles savent qu’elles découvriront la musique et le clip à l’occasion de cette publication. Elles savent qu’il s’agit d’un morceau engagé et qu’il y a des extraits de discours prononcés par « des femmes ». Oui, j’ai un peu noyé les pistes car mes proches savent combien j’apprécie les discours, l’engagement politique et l’attitude de Megan Rapinoe.

Toujours est-il que vingt-cinq femmes nourrissent ce projet qui a l’humble ambition de rendre accessible des discours qui ne le sont peut-être pas pour touTEs dans leur contexte original, en proposant un format plus ludique. S’il offre un humble hymne d’empowerment à des filles et des femmes du monde en priorité, j’en suis heureuse. Plus simplement, si ce morceau qui ressemble davantage à une histoire racontée en musique, permet de gigoter les épaules, la tête et plus si affinités : ça me va !

Pour terminer : “Caring is cool. Lending your platform to others is cool."

So ... Please, "shoutout for my teammates" qui m'ont offert de leur temps, confié leur image et leur force pour donner une toute autre saveur à ce projet. Merci à chacune, A K A : Alice, Arielle, Aurore, Caro, Charlotte, Co, Frederique Chaton, Jo Güstin, Lise, Laure, Li One, Mad Kate, Mag, Marjolaine, Myr, Pascale, Pat, Rapha, Raphaëlle, Sara, Soraya, Sydney, Tez, Wisi, Yuri & Gomar.

--------------------------------

Megan Rapinoe official page : https://www.facebook.com/mPinoe Music : Graphijane. Video : Graphijane. https://graphijane.tumblr.com

------------- ENGLISH INTRO BELOW ------------ I produced this music/video clip after two speeches of Megan Rapinoe that I cut and mixed. My goal being to offer another access to people who are not comfortable with listening speeches. Though I tried my best to be loyal to what she said, this clip cannot substitute itself from the original, powerful speeches. * talk in New York City parade after the US team won the 2019 Fifa World Cup * talk at 'Glamour’s 2019 Women of the Year' 2019 Now allow me to proudly introduce my humble tribute to Megan Rapinoe and all my sisters over the world & watch the video !

#megan rapinoe #megan rapinoe speech #badass woman #badass woman megan rapinoe #tribute to megan rapinoe #empowerment music #discours de megan rapinoe

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blogrizwan10 · 4 years

Link

The Coronavirus pandemic brought out the worst in the world with massive layoffs and a landslide of a recession. However it did evoke a sense of unity in adversity globally among the human race. And this was also true about some of the major brands.

Coca-Cola, KFC, McDonald’s, Audi, Volkswagen and several other brands created visibility and awareness about the pandemic by tweaking their logos and/or taglines to spread the message of the necessity of social distancing. The leading FMCG companies Unilever and P&G pledged their support during the pandemic by facilitating the production and movement of essential hygiene goods across different markets globally. Even Google and Facebook jumped to the goodwill bandwagon and rendered their support to small businesses by providing free ad slots.

And during these dark times, some of the best marketing campaigns emerged that left a lasting impact on not just on our minds, but also our hearts. Here are some of the best digital marketing campaigns that sparks light during this dark pandemic:

You can’t stop us by Nike

Standing strong for sports community, Nike developed a mesmerising video from over 4,000 pieces of footage from across sports. The ad is narrated in the voice of American soccer player, Megan Rapinoe and produced by Wieden & Kennedy Portland. The campaign celebrates the sports community and inspires a spirit of hope and unity. Besides, it also acknowledges the ‘black lives matter’ movement and supports gender inclusivity and diversity.

To the human race by Coca Cola

Coca Cola highlighted and paid tribute to the local heroes and healthcare workers while spreading the message of kindness and optimism in its global campaign, ‘To the human race’. This digital campaign was conceptualised by Dentsu Group, Malaysia. In its India leg of the campaign, Coca Cola India rekindled their iconic song ‘Umeedon waali dhoop’ sung by children to re-iterate hope and positivity.

Stay Home of the Whopper by Burger King

Burger King came up with this campaign, ‘Staying Home of the Whopper’ to encourage everyone to stay home to curb the spread of the virus. Inspiring a sense of American patriotism, Burger King offered free home delivery for all orders above $10 made through the mobile app. Besides, Burger King joined with The American Nurses Foundation as part of this campaign, and pledged to give away 2,50,000 Whopper sandwiches to nurses for free.

The ad alludes to wartime clarion call and evokes the idea of saving lives by staying home. The campaign equates the pride of staying home with the honour and privilege of saving the country.

Courage is beautiful by Dove

Developed by Ogilvy’s team from London & Toronto, Dove in its powerful ad paid tribute to the heroic acts of healthcare workers who are fighting the pandemic from the front-lines. The ad showcases the faces of real doctors, which the agency from Instagram and others digital sources after seeking necessary permissions from the individual doctors. The ad was rolled out globally and was quick to capture the love and affection of billions around the world.

The pandemic led to numerous creative marketing and advertising ideas and campaigns. Among other notable campaigns is YouTube’s #StayHome #WithMe movement which included celebrities and popular YouTubers to encourage staying and learning new things at home. On a similar note is Apple’s Creativity goes on campaign which expresses how creative people can use this time for producing art using iPads and MacBooks.

#digitalmarketingblogs

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maxwellyjordan · 4 years

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“Like playing with Michael Jordan”: Three former Ginsburg clerks talk about what it was like working for the justice

SCOTUStalk Host Amy Howe spoke this week with two groups of former law clerks for the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In the first of these interviews, Kelsi Brown Corkran, Lori Alvino McGill, and Amanda Tyler share their memories of meeting Ginsburg for the time and working for a boss who herself was such a hard worker.

Listen on Acast | Spotify

Full transcript below the jump: [00:00:00] Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!

Amy Howe: [00:00:03] This is SCOTUStalk, a nonpartisan podcast about the Supreme Court for lawyers and non-lawyers alike, brought to you by SCOTUSblog.

AH: [00:00:13] Welcome to SCOTUStalk. I’m Amy Howe. Thanks for joining us. Members of the public generally knew her as the Notorious RBG or as a tiny but mighty figure in the courtroom. For her law clerks, though, Ginsburg was a warm and thoughtful role model and mentor. We’re so lucky to have three of her law clerks with us to talk about the time they spent working with Ginsburg as well as their relationships with her after they finished their clerkships. Kelsi Brown Corkran is the head of the Supreme Court practice at Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe. Lori Alvino McGill is an appellate lawyer who clerked for Justice Ginsburg during the October Term 2005. And Amanda Tyler is the Shannon Cecil Turner Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

Let’s start at the beginning. Talk about how you came to be a clerk for Justice Ginsburg. What was the interview process like? You’re all relatively young lawyers going to talk to Justice Ginsburg, who was not much of a small talker. What was the interview like?

Kelsi Brown Corkran: Yeah, so I was actually a little bit older. I was pregnant with my son when I clerked for Judge Tatel on the D.C. Circuit.

So I waited until after my kids were born before I applied to clerk on the court. It’s pretty well documented that when Justice Ginsburg was recommended to clerk for Justice Frankfurter by the dean of Harvard Law School, that he was initially willing to consider a female clerk, but when he found out that she was a mother, that was just too much. He could not have a mother in chambers. And so she missed out on the opportunity to do a clerkship on the Supreme Court. And so that interview was just incredible in so many ways. I mean, to see her in person, I still am not over that. And it was almost a decade ago, and I ended up working with her for a year. But I can still remember walking into chambers and seeing her there in real life. But we ended up talking about my kids. I brought them up at some point and she smiled and asked how old they were. And then a few minutes later offered me the clerkship. And it was it was very special to me. I think it was a joy to her to be able to give that opportunity to so many of the clerks that she lost out on. And I was just one of many clerks who came to chambers, both male and female, who already had kids. So, it was a particular piece of it that was special to me.

Lori Alvino McGill: Well it’s hard to follow that story. But I have a couple of sharp memories from my interview process. The first was when I was extended the interview. I was working on the D.C. Circuit for Douglas Ginsburg. No relation, but they were friends.

[00:03:12] But they come from a very different ideological background, I would say.

[00:03:17] So the first thing I remember is DHC coming into my little part of chambers and letting me know that Justice Ginsburg had called him about me, and I was elated. Of course, I was really excited. And he said, but so here’s the thing. I think she’s going to call you and extend an interview. And I think if she interviews you, she’s going to hire you. And he looks very serious. And I’m like, well, that sounds great. And he said, well, you understand, if she extends an offer to you, you have to accept that.

[00:03:50] Yeah.

[00:03:53] And then he looks at me like, what, Lori? I just want to make sure that there’s not some other justice who would prefer to clerk for me. I looked at him like, wow, you had no idea there was one of us here in chambers. And so I was a sleeper liberal with nothing to indicate as such on my resume. But so he was surprised, as surprised that I was excited as I was surprised that she was interested in the interview. The process was stressful, as you’d imagine. I was busy on the D.C. Circuit. I was also studying for the bar exam, and I remember studying a lot for the interview. And I got there and I could not have been prepared for the first question that she asked me, which was, Lori, we’ve had a lot of trouble with our piano. And I have to tell you, I just secured a beautiful new grand piano for the West Conference Room. The reason we have a new piano is the old piano would not stay in tune. Would you mind going downstairs and playing the piano after we’re done here and letting me know if it sounds OK? So, you know, on my resumé, I had indicated I was a pianist, but I was not prepared to play the piano for a justice of the Supreme Court.

[00:05:09] And I spent the entire forty five minute period with her not appreciating the experience. Or like really present in our conversation, but instead I was thinking, but my nails aren’t trimmed and I haven’t touched the piano in 12 months, and what could I possibly play for the justice that would be impressive. It turned out, mercifully, that after our conversation, she just sent me downstairs with one of her current clerk, Ginger Anders, who I knew from law school, and I was able to, in relative privacy, test out the grand piano and report back to her when she called to extend the offer that the piano was in tune and sounded great.

AH: What did you play?

LAM: I actually I played a pop song. I played Possession by Sarah McLaughlin because I hadn’t played anything classical in a long time. But I had a keyboard in my apartment, and that was the kind of thing I was playing in those days. But I did.

AH: Amanda. How was your interview?

Professor Amanda Tyler and Justice Ginsburg together at George Washington Law School in 2005 for a tribute lecture to the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

Amanda Tyler: [00:06:03] I was more nervous for that job interview than any job interview I’ve ever had in my life. And yet what was really nice, and I’ve heard the others say this as well, she put me at ease right away, and it really took it took a lot of the nerves out of the situation.

[00:06:19] My interview story is actually less about the interview and more about what happened immediately after. So very fortunately, she offered me the job at the end of the interview and I, of course, accepted on the spot. And I went back to the airport to fly back to Boston.

[00:06:34] I was in school still, and I called my grandparents from the airport to tell them. I was very close with my grandparents and neither of them had gone to college.

[00:06:42] It became immediately apparent in the conversation they had no idea who Ruth Bader Ginsburg was, and they didn’t understand the enormity of this incredible opportunity.

[00:06:54] And so I then had to explain to them who Ruth Bader Ginsburg was. And I remember I said something to the effect of grandma, you don’t understand. I was only able to go to law school because she changed everything in this country for women and for both genders. Really. Excuse me. And I remember my grandmother saying, my God, she sounds amazing. Amanda, I’m so, so proud that you will go and clerk for her. So this whole story connects back. It’s not a story about me. I wrote the justice, a letter the next day saying how excited I was and how honored I was to be able to go and work for her. And I decided to tell her, write up a story about my grandparents and the conversation and specifically what my grandmother had said. The justice wrote me back and sent a card for my grandmother with a letter to my grandmother, which my grandmother then framed and hung in her living room. So that was pretty special.

AH: [00:07:51] That’s a great story. What was it like working with her sort of on a day to day basis? I feel like, you know, the stories you hear from clerks about life at the Supreme Court, that different chambers have sort of different personalities, depending on the justice. What was it like working with her?

AT: It was great, but she didn’t let anything slide. She had the most exacting standards and she herself had an incredible work ethic. And she was a workhorse and she never wasted a minute. She used every minute for constructive purposes. And so you had you had to measure up. You had to do your best. I wrote something up recently where I said working for her was like playing with Michael Jordan. She pulled you up and made you perform at your best level.

[00:08:43] I was not a pianist. I was an athlete. So I use sports analogies on my glory. She was she was a Michael Jordan, the Leo Messi, Megan Rapinoe of athletes in the sense that she she really made you rise to the occasion and meet her standards or certainly die trying, which I certainly did. The other thing, though was that just the meticulous care with which she took that she took with her opinions.

[00:09:12] So you would give her a draft and she would give it back, really marked up, but then walk through why she thought you should change this. And I’m sure Lauren and Kelsi, you’re going to say this, I was such a better writer at the end of it, although I’m still trying to measure up.

AH: Lori?

LAM: [00:09:28] I would agree with all of that. I mean, I guess I would add, at least when I was clerking, she ran her chambers in quite a formal manner. I remember exchanging handwritten notes and typewritten notes, sort of regular thing, instead of knocking on her door because we were all so respectful of her process. And if she had her door closed and she was working on something, you wouldn’t want to interrupt. And she was sort of old fashioned in that way. And we all sort of abided by that, as you would expect. I think her working process sort of in her manner and being sort of earned her a reputation for being cold. I think some people who didn’t work with her directly may have had the impression that she was being standoffish or too formal or not. Not a warm person, and I can’t emphasize enough how different that is from the person who I got to know. I think she was a deeply shy person, which is somewhat surprising given her chosen profession and her being drawn to being the trailblazer, an absolute iconic heroine for justice. She was a very shy person, but when you got to know her, she was also fiercely loyal. And we saw that sort of in the day to day workings of chambers. And then after the clerkship in the way that she really took care to continue the relationships that she formed during that year with the clerk.

AH: Kelsi, do you have anything to add?

KBC: [00:11:03] So I think appearing together, what Lori and Amanda said, Lori described, is exactly my memory of the pool memo process or bench memos.

[00:11:16] There is lots of handwritten notes back and forth, and we each had our own little kind of folder area where she would put her comments and then we’d bring them back to her. It was the one job I’ve had in my adult life where my good penmanship actually was an attribute. But then, as Amanda was saying, when you got to the opinion writing process, it was much more intimate. You would sit in her office. She would outline what she had in mind for the opinion, you would draft it, and then you would give it to her in a printed copy that was triple spaced. So there’s plenty of room for her to kind of do her her edits by hand. And then when she was done, as Amanda said, you would be called into chambers and you would sit at her table with her and she would go over every single edit and explain why she had done it. And it wasn’t for her benefit. It was four ours to kind of teach us how to become better writers. And so I will always be grateful for that.

[00:12:09] I think we all left the clerkship with this just master class on persuasion and writing and so grateful that she took the time to do that.

AH: [00:12:21] You’ve already talked about some really special stories, but you haven’t. What is your fondest memory, perhaps of Justice Ginsburg as a mentor or a friend? Lori?

LAM: [00:12:33] Is it ok if I have two?

[00:12:39] I’ll start with the one that’s later in time. So the thing that sort of sticks with me and is the perfect illustration of how much she cared for her law clerks as people happened about a year after my clerkship, a little bit more than a year, I gave birth to my first child. And one of the only things I remember about that experience, because it was a long, drawn out kind of marathon that I got a phone call from the justice who was, I believe, in Italy at the time. She called my hospital room to make sure that she told me that she knew I had had a caesarian section after a long labor and that it was really important that I surrounded myself with people who knew how much help I needed and that it was a major surgery and I needed to take care of myself like nothing to do with them. And are you planning to go back to work? And what does the law firm think of this? Because it was completely about the care and feeding of a person that she cared about. And it was incredibly meaningful to me. And I think it sort of illustrates the person she was. The other memory I will share, I shared recently on Facebook with our friends, Sasha Volokh, who some of you know, I remember her saying to me at the end of the term, right after our law clerk musical parody, which I think is still a tradition of the court. I had the role of an advocate who was delivering her first argument before the court and the first argument before the brand new Justice Alito and Sasha had written up an adaptation of Frank Sinatra’s Mona Lisa and the new lyric for Sam Alito, Sam Alito, You’re my fifth vote. And so it was my job to serenade him in this little parody show.

[00:14:47] And at the end, she came up to me and she grabbed my hand and to look right at me and said, Lori, with a voice like that, how did you ever become a lawyer?

[00:14:59] And at that moment, knowing what an opera aficionado she is and how much musical opinion, I couldn’t decide if it was a huge compliment or if she was telling me that I should have kept my night job.

[00:15:14] I still I tell that story with great fondness, and every time I see Justice Alito, we talk about it. It was a moment that was unforgettable.

AH: Kelsi?

KBC: [00:15:27] So this is not poignant, but it still makes me laugh.

[00:15:32] So in chambers, there’s that we had our land line telephones. And if calls came from other parts of the court, there was a kind of a regular sounding ring.

[00:15:43] But if the justice called you, it was like a different I don’t know how to describe it. It was like it was just a different tone. It was the justice calling. And we all would have this kind of Pavlovian response to that ring because it was why why is she calling? What’s happening? What do they do? And not because of anything she did. She was always she was not a scary boss, but with someone that impressive, you just you wanted to do your best all the time.

[00:16:08] So this was when we were working with her to help her come up with questions for the Shakespeare kind of mock trial that is done every year. And you’re supposed to come up with kind of funny things for her to ask about. And so I had put together some questions and I wish I could remember exactly what it was, but it was some sort of joke about George Clooney in his unrequited love. So I think this is right around when he had gotten married. And so the phone rang. That kind of jarring ring and I picked it up and she said, can you explain this part about George Clooney to me? And I was like, oh, well, Justice, he’s an actor, he’s been in a lot of movies. And I kind of go on for a couple sentences. And she stops me because I know who George Clooney is. Just why is this funny? And I don’t know that I had a good response. But, you know, with her, you just kind of never knew where she was at in terms of cultural awareness. And apparently I misjudged that one.

AH: [00:17:08] That’s great, Amanda?

AT: [00:17:13] Oh, my gosh, so many memories. And one of the really fun things is getting together right now with other clerks and hearing their great stories. Share these. When I was clerking for her, as Kelsi’s story mentioned, you would sometimes help her prepare for the many, many speeches she was invited to give.

[00:17:32] And I clerked for her before she was the notorious RBG and she was in huge demand then. I can’t imagine after being a clerk, but she was giving one speech excuse me about the progress women had made in the workforce.

[00:17:48] And she called me and she wanted me to work with her on it. And she said, you know, this is really incredible that she said this, said, you know, I’m much older than your generation and I don’t really have a handle on what the current issues are.

[00:18:03] So will you go around and get together with all the women law clerks and talk to them and come back and give me a real sense of what the biggest issues are that you and your peers in your age cohort, in your career cohort facing and thinking about and worried about. And I thought that was pretty amazing because she kind of wrote the book on how to figure out how women, you know, can succeed and overcome barriers. And she built so many roads of equality. But she was one constantly still trying to to open up those opportunities and break down barriers. And too she was and this is this comes out in her jurisprudence. She was trying to understand the experience of people who weren’t in the exact same position as her to other stories. I mean, I could tell certainly more, but to others that immediately come to mind. She cited me once in an opinion, some of my scholarship. I was very, very excited. It was the first time I was cited by the court. I remember I’m laughing because I told my spouse and he said it doesn’t count if it’s Justice Ginsburg. She was just being nice. That’s kind of our marriage. But she autographed the opinion with a really sweet inscription, one of the slip opinions, and sent it to me because I think she knew about was the first time I’ve been cited so that I have it framed in my office.

[00:19:23] It was really, really sweet. A final story is just there was a period I’m so moved by Lori’s story and there was a period in my life where I had I was going through something that was very, very difficult. And it was parallel to something that she had been through in her life around the same time. And there were some difficult months. And in the middle of that, she reached out. She she knew and she reached out. She wrote me a really beautiful letter about how I couldn’t see it now, but that decades later I would look back and actually find much to appreciate from the experience once I got to the other side. And one she was right, of course, because she was profoundly wise and two that was incredibly kind and generous because of the parallels. I knew there was wisdom in those words, and it really carried me through some very difficult period.

AH: That actually sort of touches on my next question.

[00:20:22] So I guess I’ll start with Kelsi. Lori and Amanda have both talked a little bit about sort of their relationship with the justice after they left the clerkship. And you all can, of course, talk about more.

[00:20:36] But so what was it like? Does it change once you leave the court and you’re no longer the clerk? You’re a former clerk?

KBC: [00:20:43] Yeah. You know, she was very accessible. So you could always any time you wanted to email her secretary and asked to come visit her.

[00:20:54] And as Lori and Amanda point out, she would reach out to us when she knew things, significant things were going on in our lives. So after I had my first Supreme Court argument, it wasn’t long before I got it. I got a note from her about what a great job I had done. And when I came into chambers later, she kind of grabbed my hands and she said, oh, you were super, she loved the word super.

[00:21:18] But what really changed for me was my ability to be present in the moment with her during the clerkship.

[00:21:24] I just felt like I always wanted to to do a job and to impress her and to live up to her standards. And I remember being in chambers one time and just sitting with her maybe a couple of years ago. And we were talking about travel and the kids and what she was up to. And I said, I just remember thinking in my head, this is extraordinary what I’m getting to do right now to just sit with her and talk for 30 minutes. And so I think that was the real difference, know, thinking, gosh, we don’t cry when I say this, but I think the last time I saw her was in the winter before the pandemic started. And I had moved for someone’s admission that day. If you go to the court a lot, this is something where you stand up and you just you get a script that tells you what to say. And there’s not a lot that goes on. It’s always granted by the chief justice. But I went to visit her afterwards and she said completely deadpan to me, you did a super job moving for admission. And I laughed. I said, thanks, justice.

[00:22:32] But she was clearly being sarcastic because there’s not any way to mess up looking for someone’s admission.

[00:22:38] So I will always remember that fondly.

AH: She always paid attention to those in a way that most of the other justices didn’t show respect…

KBC: For any of us who appeared before her, whether it was moving for admission or arguing, you would always get a little smile for her, just a little recognition to kind of build you up on your standing at the podium, which is special.

AH: [00:22:59] Lori and Amanda, do you have anything you want to add?

LAM: [00:23:02] I will. I’ll just add a quick one to what Kelsi just said, which is every time I had a reserved seat, she made a point to make eye contact with me when she entered the courtroom and gave me that same supportive little smile, which, you know, of course, delighted me every single time. I guess the other thing that I will say that that kind of changed about my relationship with RBG after I left chambers like Kelsi, I became less focused on am I doing a really good job right now in my interactions with her?

[00:23:38] And I think it was long after the clerkship that I learned, you know, one of the most valuable lessons that she taught me and and stays with me to this day was that even Justice Ginsburg knew, and knew well, that we cannot do all things well at the same time.

[00:24:00] And it was from that teaching that I had the strength to step away from my long term career and spend more time with my children. This is what I’m doing now. And it is also from that teaching that I know that when I choose to step back into the ring as a practicing lawyer or something else, that I will be fully capable of doing that very well again, but that there is a time for all things and we can’t be everything all at the same time. And I think she would be the first to admit that she leaned on Marty when she needed to be the primary parent at times in her career.

[00:24:42] And I think that that is probably one of the most underrated but important parts of her legacy for her women who are trying to be parents at the same time as having fulfilling careers.

AH: [00:24:56] Amanda?

AT: Yeah, I’ll pick up on what Lori was just saying. I had the great good fortune to host her several times at various law schools where I’ve taught. And I remember I asked her, my students, they’re always coming in and asking for advice. How do you find the work life balance? I have students that ask me what should I look for in a partner? So when I was interviewing her in front of the whole UC Berkeley law school community last last fall, I asked her what her advice was and she said, and this is exactly, of course, the story of her marriage with Marty.

[00:25:30] She said choose someone choose a partner who thinks your work is as important as theirs. And it was really sweet because I was able to draw her out and have her connect directly with my students, which was a really special moment. So many of them told me afterwards they so appreciated that. But I also want to say a word about that visit. She was originally supposed to come to Berkeley the prior winter when she broke her ribs and they discovered the lung cancer event was to honor one of her best friends, Herma Hill Kay, who’d been faculty member, the second woman faculty member, and the first woman Dean at Berkeley Law. They wrote a first case book on sex based discrimination, had a wonderful friendship, and Herma had just died. So we had launched a new memorial lecture in Herma’s honor. And the justice was so devoted to giving, to appearing for the event that even in the original schedule she would not cancel. I kept calling her saying, you cannot come. You need to focus on your health. You cannot. She said, I have to honor Herma, I must do it. And it was only when I think the family and the doctor said, no, you need to cancel all your events for a while, that she finally relented. And then immediately, once she got to the other side of that difficult period, she said, All right, Amanda, when are we doing this? We have to honor Herma. And she did come out and I’m very grateful. But she was you know, it was a struggle. She wasn’t at full steam. And I was just in awe of her every moment of that visit, because the the will that drove her to want to honor this friendship and the and the special person in her life was truly was truly inspiring.

KBC: [00:27:] Picking up on the last thing Amanda just said about her fierce desire to honor her friend.

[00:27:21] I think what I carry with me is just the inspiration of the justice’s work ethic. And I don’t she was not a workaholic. She was a life aholic. Everything.

[00:27:35] There was no moment wasted from the moment she got out of bed until the end of the day. She was intentional in every way.

[00:27:41] And the reason she was able to be so extraordinary in her work, but also so committed on a personal level to her clerks, to her friends, she made time for her workouts. You can’t do all of that if you are unintentional about your time, if you’re kind of just dawdling or and so I having seen her go full steam for eighty seven years, not a moment was wasted.

[00:28:09] And I take that with me. When I get up in the morning, I try to live my life the same way so that I can be the parent and mother I want to be and also fully committed to my job and try to get that workout in and try to make the phone call to the friend. You can live a whole life that way and get a lot done. It’s tiring, but it’s so rewarding. And so when I when I’m sorry, I start to feel tired, I think of the justice and I don’t want to waste any time either.

AH: [00:28:36] That is a wonderful way to finish. Thank you, Kelsi Corkran, Lori Alvino McGill and Amanda Tyler for joining me to talk about the personal side of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

[00:28:50] That’s another episode of SCOTUStalk. Thanks for joining us. Thanks to Casetext, our sponsor and to our production team, Katie Barlow, Katie Bart, Kal Golde and James Romoser.

The post “Like playing with Michael Jordan”: Three former Ginsburg clerks talk about what it was like working for the justice appeared first on SCOTUSblog.

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