"March Madness" banners at NCAA women's tournament are a welcome sign of change
CBSN
For the basketball world, March is the month of upsets, buzzer beaters and underdogs getting a one-time chance to take down a seemingly invincible powerhouse. Last year, the madness bounced off the court and into headlines after pictures went viral showing the women's post-season tournament vastly underfunded compared to its male counterpart.
The female athletes' training facilities lacked basic equipment, game floors had underwhelming team signage, team meals were lackluster and even the quality of COVID-19 tests provided to players and coaching staff was unequal. The women received daily antigen tests, while the men were provided daily PCR tests, a more reliable detector of the virus.
"The big question sometimes is like what do the men get that we don't get, but we don't know that answer because we aren't at the men's tournament," Longwood assistant coach and former Duke WBB player Ka'lia Johnson told CBS News.
Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.