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A week of optimism shrouded in sadness

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When I was 8 years old, I told two male classmates I was going to be a professional team sports athlete. They laughed in my face.

“Girls can’t do that,” they told me, as I insisted I would do it. “It’s not possible, only boys can do it.”

In the end, they were half right: I was nowhere near good enough as an athlete in any sport to turn pro, but there were in fact pro women’s leagues popping up just as I was coming of age. I was 14 when the WNBA’s first game was played, and 18 when the first women’s pro soccer league, WUSA, played its first game.