In her essay, “Sisterhood of the traveling aunts,” novelist Jessica Treadway explores how she and her sisters derive strength from one another, and that theme animates our annual Women’s Health issue.
Tribune sports writer Melissa Isaacson, as the youngest of four children, grasps the intensity and complexity of the familial bond but also sees firsthand the vitality and urgency of relationships between women. Last year, she covered the Chicago Sky for 12 months and wrote a five-part series on the making of the city’s first women’s basketball franchise. In this issue, she caught up with several of the players and explored how they worked–and played–together.
As she considered the development of the Sky, Missy drew upon her own, what she calls “humble,” experience as part of her state championship high school basketball team from Niles West in Skokie. (That’s 1979, for high school sports fanatics.) She also reflected on the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, who played worse against one another than they did against other opponents. Missy asked herself whether women athletes were prone to letting personal feelings intrude upon competition, and whether this made them weaker players than men.
“I ultimately realized,” she explained, “that this only made them–us–different. No better, no worse. Just wired in a way that makes women who we are–empathetic friends, loving sisters–and yes, great athletes, too.”
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etaylor@tribune.com
Home on the Range will be back on the range soon.
