I write this column as a prelude to The Maroon’s spring semester sports section. Women have taken over the sports staff, and I hope this brings Loyola a different perspective of the sports world: a wider world of sports.

Women are taking over professional sports as well, both on the field and in the media. These women deserve a “hats off” and the support of their sisters. Don’t worry guys, I didn’t forget about you, but I feel like I owe it to the ladies to put them in the spotlight. They have faced so much discrimination to get where they are today.

I saw this discrimination when I worked at the sports desks of two television stations in high school. I’ll never forget when the top male anchor was doing a story on the WNBA championship game one year. In the middle of writing it, he asked me, “What’s the New York WNBA team called?”

The New York LIBERTY, you idiot. He didn’t just forget, he never knew. I just wanted to yell, “You’re a sportscaster. It’s your job to know the names of sports teams.”

So is this what men really think about women in sports? I mean, I know the WNBA is not on the insane level that the NBA is on, but does that mean it deserves to be mocked whenever possible? The league is 8 years sold, and the top players only make a sliver of the salary NBA players are making.

These women are talented and graduated from the top basketball programs in the country … UCONN, Tennessee, Texas … but do you think Diana Taurasi next to LeBron James are on a level playing field?

The start of the WNBA was a great opportunity for aspiring female sportscasters of America and opened up career opportunities for many of them.

But it’s ridiculous that just because a female sports league had been established automatically female reporters had to be the ones to cover the games. Is it just too “degrading” for men to report on women’s sports?

I’d like to thank the “Best Damn Sports Show Period” and Lisa Guerrero for their part in turning female sports reporters into beauty queens. Guerrero was a soap opera star turned token female on the Fox sports show. She would wear her hair, make-up and clothes just like her old character, Francesca Varga, the voluptuous jewel thief and seductress.

Come on, Lisa!

You aren’t helping our cause. Especially when she recently posed for MAXIM and FHM magazines.

Now she is a correspondent for Monday Night Football on ABC and “covers it up a bit more.” She took over for Melissa Stark who has spent most of her career as a successful NFL sideline correspondent wearing nothing but turtlenecks and cable-knit sweaters.

Don’t get me wrong, the female sportscasters are knowledgeable on the most part, although sometimes I suspect that sports networks hire their women based on looks instead of talent. But ladies, don’t you think it’s unfair that the same can’t be said about the male sportscasters?