One Small Kick for Womankind

Asterisked congratulations to Katie Hnida, who became the first woman to play in a Division I-A college football game, attempting an extra point for University of New Mexico in yesterday's Las Vegas Bowl loss to UCLA. Hnida seems pretty depressed about having her kick blocked. "I can replay in my mind seeing that hand block the kick, and that's going to be what I think about before I go to bed tonight," she tells AP. Her achievement in the ten-year-old LV Bowl illustrates not so much the rapid progress of women in sports (Duke's Heather Sue Mercer briefly became the first woman to play on a college team in 1995, Liz Heaston of Willamette became the first woman to score in a college game in 1997, and Jacksonville State's Ashley Martin kicked four extra points in a Division I-AA game last year) as it does the opportunities created by bowl game proliferation all over the country. I know I'm looking forward to seeing Air Force crush Virginia Tech in the first Diamond Walnut San Francisco Bowl.