1. Girls just wanna... have equal coverage

I was about five years old when I first fell in love. My dad was the head coach for the girl's varsity basketball team at Manual Arts High School and I was at every game, a wide-eyed child soaking in every moment.

His season didn't end once the school year was out, he coached teams in various summer leagues for girls, one of which included a teenage Lisa Leslie who used to carry me around and play with me so I'm told.

Women's basketball was my first introduction to sports. The girls on my dad's teams were my heroes, the people I looked up to and wanted to emulate.

That's why it pains me to see the depressing current state of affairs regarding women's basketball, and women's sports in general.

Sports has long been synonymous with masculinity and machismo, which I suspect has roots in our country's long history of treating women as second class citizens.

Many of the girls whom my dad coached weren't given the same resources that their male counterparts were given after graduation. If they wanted to play basketball professionally, they had to make the long trek across the Atlantic Ocean to a foreign country they didn't feel so comfortable in.

The Women's National Basketball Association wasn't founded until 1996, a full 50 years after the National Basketball Association's inaugural season.

Even now, many WNBA players go overseas once their season is over because their income pales in comparison to their NBA counterparts.

It's a travesty that the Los Angeles Sparks were in danger of possibly relocating and even folding this past Fall, despite their 24-10 second place finish in the Western Conference. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Lakers, who share the same arena, and are among the worst teams in the NBA this year, have no concern for money.

It's not just on a national scale that these indifferent attitudes towards women's sports are visible.

Look no further than right here in our own backyard at Santa Monica College.

Our football team is given tons of publicity from the college, students, and local media, and rightfully so. They're a perennial powerhouse and the three time defending conference champions.

However, our women's tennis team has also been a juggernaut these past few years, including winning the state championship in 2011. However, you wouldn't know that from walking around campus.

Or take a look at our basketball teams. I've been to quite a few over the past couple of seasons. Usually it's a double-header with the women playing before the men. Attendance is pitiful during the women's games, and predictably, the gym starts filling up as the men's game approaches.

As the former sports editor for The Corsair the past three semesters, it was always a challenge to get writers excited about women's tennis or women's softball or even women's basketball. But pitch a men's basketball story or a football story and there would be no shortage of volunteers.

Now I can't speak much for other sports, I'm not as familiar with them, but when it comes to basketball, women have a much better product that is much more entertaining than men.

When I watch women's basketball, I feel like I'm watching real basketball the way it was meant to be played. Tough, physical, fundamental basketball.

Sometimes when watching men, I'm not sure if I'm watching basketball or an acting audition.

When women get knocked down or hit, they just get right back up and keep playing. When men get slightly touched, they throw a fit for several minutes, whining and crying.

Women's basketball embodies the way I was taught growing up, "no blood no foul." If you're not bleeding, shut your mouth, get up, and keep playing. Basketball is a contact sport and sometimes I think men forget that.

One of the biggest ways we can change this apathy towards women's sports is by giving them more coverage, both nationally and on a local level. At least that's what we're striving to do here at The Corsair.

If the media coverage increases, then perhaps viewership and fan following might do the same. Who knows, like with basketball, you just might be surprised how much better the product can be.