Savvy Women

While doing research this week for possible topics, I ran across a reference to the Women’s Sports Foundation (WSF), an organization I hadn’t heard of before. I Googled WSF, spent some time looking at its site, discovered that it was founded in 1974 by the great Billie Jean King, and immediately knew that I had my next Savvy blog.

WSF does tons and tons of good work, but I found their GoGirlGo! program to be especially interesting (and relevant, given last week’s post). The foundation calls the program a “primary focus” and writes that it provides youth with fitness activities that are designed to “combat the alarming physical and psychological health hazards affecting America’s young girls.”

Seen in this light, sports programs serve a purpose much larger than merely giving youngsters the opportunity to play games and have fun. Andrea Cherry, one of the GoGirlGo! coaches shown in the video I’ve embedded below, drives this point home when she explains how those she trains are “learning basic life skills.”

For those of you out there who were fortunate enough to have had the chance (as I did) to play organized sports while growing up, you know exactly what Cherry is talking about. Much of what I understand today about teamwork and healthy living (among many other lessons learned about a whole bunch of other things) can be traced back to those days when I played football, swam, and ran track.

The following clip goes into a lot more detail about the foundation, its history and activities, and the girls and women it has helped.

And finally, for those of you interested in physical fitness and its benefits, especially as pertains to enhancing one’s performance in the business world, I’d recommend that you read this article, which can be found on the “I Am a Woman” page of the WSF site.