CHANGE is good. Kids can learn a lot
in the workplaceThe "Take Your Daughters to Work" Day is a good thing. But a good thing could be made better with a minor change.
Make it "Take Your Child to Work" Day.
A child's vision of adulthood should know no boundaries, gender or race. Childhood should be a time of equal opportunity employment, the job being to learn all one can without society-imposed blinders.
Children need to see their parents interacting with other adults outside the home. There is a need for them to see their parents' classrooms, classrooms we adults call the workplace.
If the idea behind taking daughters to work was to show them opportunities for women in the business world, then even more important is the need to show boys the same thing -- that women are capable of holding the same jobs as men.
Our children need to be shown that when opportunity knocks, every possible door should be opened. And maybe they need to know a little about why some doors used to be locked.
It was nice to see the UCLA Daily Bruin send a student reporter to cover the men's volleyball championship this week. I'm sure Grace Wen doesn't know that, until 1976, there were no female sportswriters on the campus paper.
Trust me on this one. It wasn't until the summer before my senior year at UCLA that the editors were "open-minded" enough to allow women's bylines to grace the sports pages, even if it was for manini events such as intramurals and women's basketball.
Today, we can tell our children that anything is possible if they put their minds to it. And we don't have to lie.
It is gratifying that the Grace Wens of the world don't know about the barriers that existed in this profession, barriers that began to disappear about the time she was born.
Change is good.
The qualifying format for men's college volleyball needs to be changed.
For the first four years, the NCAA championship was a round-robin tournament, much like the women had in the old AIAW and what the NAIA still uses.
In 1974, a move was made to ensure that all regions of the country would be represented, with an automatic berth for the East and Midwest champions.
It only took until 1977 for the first non-West team to make the finals. But it wasn't until 1994 that a non-California team would win. UCLA was the only West team in the field that year.
It is imminent that a second West Coast conference will be formed within the next five years. That in itself will force a format change. But why wait?
There is sufficient interest in the men's game to again have a true national tournament. One suggestion: To have a Sweet Sixteen decided by the conference finish, with four teams each from the Midwest and East, and eight from the West.
It could be done without changing the current schedule. Seed four teams at four sites during the week the MPSF currently holds its tournament. The winners advance to the final four.
If the sport is to grow at the college level, as it did with the women's game, the best teams need the opportunity to get to the championship. The at-large berth has became a political volleyball, harder to handle than a Brandon Taliaferro serve, and the selection by a three-person committee should be eliminated.
One more change request: If ESPN2 is supposed to televise the match live, don't allow the people there to change their minds the day before and go with tape delay.
All that did Saturday night was let the network know exactly how long the match would last and allow them to cut out parts of Game 2 so it would fit into their time slot. Heaven forbid that we miss a single play of the repeat of a hockey game.
Cindy Luis is a Star-Bulletin sportswriter.
Her column appears weekly.
