Hume_Episode3.mp3

In this podcast episode, Jameson Hume discusses women in sport. He focuses on women coaching and playing sports, highlighting that playing a sport is not a prerequisite for being a coach. He mentions Danica Patrick, the first female NASCAR driver to get a pole position, and Janet Guthrie, the first woman to lead a lap in the Cup Series. He also talks about Tatiana Calderon, the first woman Formula 2 driver, and Olivia Picardo, the first woman to play in an NCAA Division I baseball game. Jameson emphasizes the importance of breaking barriers and supporting women in sports. Hi guys, my name is Jameson Hume, and this is podcast episode number three. Today we're going to be focusing on women and sport. So when I think of women and sport, the two things that generally, like, I immediately think of is women, like, coaching versus women playing the sports, because both of which are, like, incredibly difficult to get into. People always use the argument for coaches that, like, if they didn't play football or if they didn't play baseball, then they aren't suited to be a coach or whatever. But if you go back and look at it, some of, like, the greatest coaches, the greatest scouts, the greatest GMs and stuff never played sports either, or the ones that did were, like, some of the best coaches were oftentimes, like, the worst players or whatever. So it really does not matter whether or not you played a sport. You don't have to have that experience. It really doesn't change a lot. Women are completely suited to coach a sport that they never played the same way that a man would be. Anybody. You get what I'm saying. But I thought for this one, I would focus more on women that are in the sport, because I think that's just as difficult, probably more so, to get into. If you're a woman, if you're trying to get into one of these sports, they just make it so difficult for you. So I wanted to talk about some pioneering women, I guess you would say, in sport. So I immediately thought of, when I think of women in sports, for me, the first one that I thought of was Danica Patrick. I just immediately thought, Danica Patrick, that's who I grew up. She was kind of trying to change the sport. NASCAR, as we know, is not the most progressive sport. So I thought it was super impressive that Danica Patrick was doing what she did at that time. She is probably not the greatest of all time, but she is the most accomplished and probably the most popular. She was the first ever female NASCAR driver to get a pole position in the Cup Series. She also has the record for the most starts, the most laps led, and top ten finishes in Cup Series for a woman. She's part of an elite group of drivers that led both the Indy 500 and the Daytona 500. She is an IndyCar legend, and she's the only female driver that ever won a race in an open wheel series. So yeah, that's who I immediately thought of. But then I thought maybe I would see who the best women's driver ever was, because I wasn't really sure. And I found out her name is Janet Guthrie. She was an aerospace engineer first, and then she turned to be a NASCAR racer afterwards. She was the first ever women's competitor in the Indy 500 and the Daytona 500. She was the first woman to lead a lap in the Cup Series. She had 33 different starts in the Cup Series, as well as 12 Xfinity Series starts. She had five top ten finishes in the Cup. I just thought that that was really interesting to learn about her, because, you know, most people, if you said Danica Patrick, they'd know who she was. But I had never heard of Janet Guthrie. I think maybe she's pushed to the back burner a little bit, because this was a long time ago. And, you know, like I said, NASCAR is in the most progressive sport, so maybe they don't want to remember a female driver that was probably just as good, if not better, than their favorite male driver. So next, I wanted to talk about another racer, different sport though entirely. Her name's Tatiana Calderon, and she was the first ever Formula 2 woman driver. That's as high as a woman's ever made it. There's never been a Formula 1 driver who's been a woman, but hopefully that could change. Maybe it'll be Calderon, who knows. She drove for Arden. That was in 2019 and 2020. She's also a test driver for Alfa Romeo, which is the F1 team. So she is the only woman who's ever actually raced an F1 car before, although she was just a test driver. It wasn't an actual race. And she said she's very excited to compete in the F2 championship in technical partnership with HWA Race Lab. It's a new challenge in her career, and it's a step closer to my ultimate goal, Formula 1. So I thought it was just super interesting. Motorsport I touched on in my Hot Topic presentation, and motorsport is just incredibly difficult to break into if you're a woman, whether you want to be a team principal, a driver, an engineer, a strategist, whatever it might be. It's just very difficult to break into the motorsport. So I wanted to talk about those women who probably aren't talked about quite enough. Hopefully, you know, it's a cliche, but the little girls who maybe want to grow up and maybe race car drivers can see them and learn about them, and you know what I'm saying. And then the last thing I want to talk about is not about racing, but it just happened a couple of days ago, and I thought it would be fun to talk about. I'm sure a lot of people mentioned this in their podcast today, but Olivia Picardo, she in about a week ago now, she plays for Brown's D1 baseball team, and she is the first ever woman to play in an NCAA Division I baseball game. She – I think she pinch hit, but yeah, she is the first ever woman to play in an NCAA baseball game, and I thought that was interesting. I've always thought it was pretty stupid that women are like pretty much relegated to softball. There's nothing wrong with softball, but I don't understand why baseball has to be a men's only sport. Women are completely capable of playing it. I had a teammate in high school who was probably one of the better pitchers on our JV team. I was a junior. She was a freshman, so we didn't see too much of each other, but I remember her being a freshman on JV, and she was really solid, so it just goes to show you don't need to be a man to do any of these things. You know, women are capable of doing any of this. It's just a lot harder for them to break into it, so that's why you see it so rarely, so it's important that we do stuff like this and we talk about it so they're motivated and they know that as long as we have everybody thinking about DE&I and everything, women should be able to get into these sports, and hopefully that's coming. All right. Thank you, guys. I will see you in a few weeks.