Now this isn't right

[OhMandy]

I posted about how some male coaches are getting screwed for the higher profile schools. One thing many female coaches say to defend the practice is how male coaches who have little to no experience coaching women can get hired to coach a women's team.

Well that just happened at San Diego St. They hired Jim Tomey who was an assistant with the men's team. Before that he coached boys basketball. So from ESPN's story and from his bio on the SDSU site he has no experience coaching women at all.

There has to be a good qualified coach out there who has experience coaching women that San Diego St could have hired.

http://espn.go.com/ncw/news/2002/0409/1365910.html
http://goaztecs.fansonly.com/sports/m-baskbl/mtt/tomey_jim00.html

[YCN]

I don't know the situation at SDS, but from past experience, there is at least the possibility that the blinders of prejudice were worn.

One doesn't have to a member of a minority group to feel that way; only a person belonging to a group of lesser power.

As long as NO NCAA schools have EVER hired a woman to coach a men's team, I will be forced to consider gender bias as a possible factor in hiring decisions in women's basketball that wind up selecting a man as the coach.

If anyone wants to get on my case on this, get a life.

[OhMandy]

YCN you wrote:

I will be forced to consider gender bias as a possible factor in hiring decisions in women's basketball that wind up selecting a man as the coach.


Well you can stop using gender bias as a factor. Kentucky under Rick Patino hired a woman as an assistant coach. Bernedette Peters is her name and she is now the head women's coach at UK.

But for the most part I think it's wrong in that very few men's program are willing to hire a woman as coach but schools like BYU and SDSU hire male coaches who have never coached women's basketball before.

[YCN]

OhMandy, am I missing something? I thought that my assertion was that UNTIL an NCAA Division I program hired a woman as a head coach for a men's team, I have to include the possibility of gender bias as a factor.

Hiring a woman as an assistant - are you telling me that Kentucky is the first program to EVER hire a woman as an assistant?

Wow, things are worse than I thought!


[This message has been edited by YCN (edited 04-11-2002).]

[OhMandy]

Check your original post. No where did it say head coach. People have to start somewhere and a female coach no matter how successful has to have coached men before she gets a head coaching job.

[YCN]

People have to start somewhere and a female coach no matter how successful has to have coached men before she gets a head coaching job.

I'm going to approach this reply with caution, because we are in uncharted waters here - I'm talking about the possibility of a woman as head coach of a men's division I basketball team.

While Bernadette Mattox was an assistant at Kentucky for half a decade in the 90's, the fact that she was the first female assistant coach on a men's division I team hasn't been much of a factor in the progress of her career.

I would go so far as to suggest that she hasn't a prayer of ever being a head coach of men's D-I basketball in her future.

In her seven years prior to this one at Kentucky her overall record was 71-99. I don't think there is any "coaching men" magic going on here. Averaging 4 more losses than wins per year at a high level D-I school is not what I would call unqualified success.

I'll reiterate my suggestion that a woman could not only coach a men's college team, but dominate.

The fact that no women have ever crossed the barrier to be head coach for a men's D-I team only adds fuel to my fire. Please note that many cases exist of men crossing over to coach women's D-I teams, and zero cases can be found of the converse.

People are people, male or female. (I'm talking about the athletes here.) If you have a burning desire to succeed in your endeavor, you don't really care who's minding the ship, as long as that person is competent to do the job.

Eventually, there will be a woman coaching a men's team, and the chances of that person having huge success are actually quite large, because overcoming the hurdle of being "the first" means by definition that the woman who breaks that barrier must be an insanely great coach to begin with, or she would just be kept "barefoot and pregnant" in the women's game until she either retires or becomes an icon of the "perceived" lesser game.

And that is much worse than sad.

[swok34]

It would be fine with me if a woman "never" coached a men's team.... http://hoopscoop.net/ubb/smile.gif

I'm not a fan of the men's game; and the more that I watch the women's game; the more I feel that way.

I did read an article about how the perception of the women's game has changed and why so many more men are willing to go from the men's game to the women's game.........and the money's gotten a whole lot better the last 10 years.