One of WOZQ’s newest radio shows, “The W in Win,” covers global women’s sports news as well as prominent Smith Athletics performances and events. The show airs every Thursday from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. and is hosted by Syd Levine ’27, Sarah Formica ’27 and Kylie Cave ’28. There is also an archive of past episodes available on Mixlr.
Levine recruited Formika and Cave as co-hosts this fall to meet the rise in interest in women’s sports on campus and to fill gaps in their coverage at Smith. Levine commented, “Everyone is always talking about athletics here, basketball games are packed […] People at Smith particularly are really into women’s sports. Why don’t they get to listen to people talk about women’s sports the way they get to listen to people talk about men’s sports?”
Formika added that Smith’s demographics create an increased demand for this platform. “I think this being a historically women’s college, it’s important to focus on women’s spaces and I think that sports is a good outlet for that,” she said. “We do a Smith sports segment every week, and I think that it’s really great to uplift the student-athletes here, because, again, this being a historically women’s college, women’s sports, especially at the college level and especially at the Division III (DIII) level, aren’t always necessarily talked about.”
Levine stated that prior to starting the show, they felt online coverage was unreliable and not engaging enough to keep the student body adequately informed on Smith Athletics events. “We’ve watched the live streams and looked at the feeds, and it doesn’t have very much fanfare around it. They’re not always the best platforms to find out what’s happening in a sport. They’re not always updated, sometimes you’re like what is this commentator saying and it’s just like, we can do that in a way that maybe the guy from FloSports can’t.”
Their show provides students with in-depth and accessible commentary that celebrates Smith athletes for their athletic performances as well as for their broader impact on the community. “These are our peers, these are people we know, and so I feel like it’s fun to give it that more personal element.” Formika said.
While all three hosts are big Smith Basketball fans, they offer their support to all of Smith Athletics and are committed to raising awareness about other teams on campus. One of the ways they achieve this goal is by educating Smith students on the rules of other sports and how to spectate. “I feel like it definitely depends on the sport,” Levine said. “Especially for cross country, which I learned to watch last year. The first time I showed up to a cross country meet, I was wearing flip-flops and I didn’t realize that I had to chase the course around. And so I think […] teaching people the rules of field hockey and soccer and cross country and swimming and diving and all these other sports would definitely increase interest because if you know how a game works, you’re more likely to focus in and pay attention to it.”
Formika added that increased attendance at Smith sports events would make the community even stronger. “I think sports are a thing that can really cultivate community, and that’s how I met so many of my friends. Syd and I met through basketball. That’s literally how we became friends is because we were going to all of the games and we love doing it together […] I think that a lot of times people don’t really take advantage of that community space.”
“A lot of people know an athlete or they’re friends with an athlete.” Levine agreed. “I think that’s a really big part of being here at a small college. It’s just like getting your friends to show up for things, and supporting in the way that non-athletes show up for each other, we can also show up for our athlete friends.”
To the hosts of “The W in Win,” the show encompasses more than just providing women’s sports coverage; it’s providing support, community and representation. Cave said she believes this increased representation helps empower women not just in sports, but also in their everyday lives. “I think that especially uplifting women in women’s spaces […] and showing that women can succeed on their own outside of a male-dominated field can be really empowering.” she said.
Cave and Formika were both student-athletes prior to coming to Smith, experiences that were instrumental to their passion for uplifting women’s sports today. “I grew up with three brothers, and all four of us were athletes, but because I grew up in a very male household, I literally had never seen a women’s sport that wasn’t what I was playing ever,” Formika said. “I never really got to see myself in mainstream athletics and so I think it’s really important to give female sports, on the national level, a bigger platform so that young female athletes like myself can kind of see that there is room to grow and a place to keep going and that their sport is as valued as male sports.”
Cave’s experience with athletics was critical to building her support networks and her confidence, which is why representation is so important to her. “Athletics is so good for a person for so many reasons, like, obviously physical health but also community and team building,” she said. “Like I still talk to all my softball teammates in high school and I think that having that community and space and knowing that there are people pushing for you to succeed in athletics even though it is not widely talked about. Especially going to a DIII school that’s more focused on academics than athletics, I think highlighting our athletes who do work so hard is so cool.”
Growing up exclusively as a sports fan, Levine added that representation was still foundational for them. “I was never a sports kid but I grew up on men’s DI college basketball culture, which, if you’ve ever experienced it, is literally insane,” they said. “Just to travel across the country just to watch Syracuse University men’s basketball play in one game […] Like, that was my entire life and I never saw myself reflected in that. I always knew that these women’s sporting spaces existed, but they never got to exist for me”
Levine hopes to end this cycle of underrepresentation by creating spaces like “The W in Win.” “I have a 10-year-old sister, and I’ve made sure that [these spaces] exist for groups like her […] I know that she tunes in every week because she has fallen in love with the WNBA, she’s fallen in love with Smith Basketball and I have given her a space to see herself in sports […] It’s just really good to be able to be like, these are the spaces that exist for you and they’re growing and they’re getting bigger and maybe one day we’ll be a women’s college basketball family and we will travel across the country to see Syracuse women’s basketball play.”
The hosts invite other Smith community members to become women’s sports fans and to join them off the air at Smith events. “Just in general, we go to a lot of sports games and we think everyone should go too.” Formika said. “We love at the end of our show, to be like, I’ll be there if anyone wants to join. So yeah, come to the games, hang out with us.” “The W in Win” doesn’t always mean beating other teams. To these hosts, it means uplifting their own.
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