Where have all the women [coaches] gone?

[Scamp]

Where Have All the Women Gone?
Even as the number of female players soars, college coaching is increasingly a male domain
The Chronicle of Higher Education -- May 4, 2007 issue
by Robin Wilson (via Tennessee fan board, The Summitt)

... "I find fewer and fewer females who want to go into coaching," says Jim Livengood, of the University of Arizona, where nine of the 11 women's teams are coached by men.

With numbers like those, he says, college athletics should be worried about the future. "Sometimes when you're watching Rutgers play Duke, with two great female basketball coaches, or Pat Summitt at the University of Tennessee, you think: These are the people who have been in the game," he says. "But who are going to be the next Pat Summitts?"

...The delicate job of interacting with female athletes can actually make the job of head coach more difficult for women than for men. One female coach of a Division I women's rowing team says she routinely asks her male assistant to tell the team when there is something unpopular to announce, like adding an extra practice. "If I say it, even though I'm the head coach, I have to explain," says the woman, who asked to remain anonymous. "He can boss them around and say something I couldn't, and the kids will take it better." ...

http://chronicle.com/free/v53/i35/35a04001.htm

[tx4OU]

...The delicate job of interacting with female athletes can actually make the job of head coach more difficult for women than for men. One female coach of a Division I women's rowing team says she routinely asks her male assistant to tell the team when there is something unpopular to announce, like adding an extra practice. "If I say it, even though I'm the head coach, I have to explain," says the woman, who asked to remain anonymous. "He can boss them around and say something I couldn't, and the kids will take it better." ...
Hmm? Some how, I don't think Sherri or Kim have that problem, let alone Pat.

[walkaway]

Okay, this is highly offensive language.

The coach who cannot "announce" something "unpopular" like an "extra practice"?

Should NOT be a coach. Period. Male or female. Explaining the need for extra practice ("we need to work on this because we haven't mastered it") is not a traumatic procedure.

A coach who's too big a wuss to make that statement to a team doesn't belong in charge of anything more complex than the coach's own shoelaces.

[jcarter]

Vanderbilt has a female head coach Balcom

[TTU79]

I agree with Walkaway and I've never seen a female basketball coach, softball coach, volleyball coach or tennis coach have a problem with this.

[swok34]

I agree with Walkaway and I've never seen a female basketball coach, softball coach, volleyball coach or tennis coach have a problem with this.

Me, either.....

especially at the DI level.

[LadyBuff]

I agree with Walkaway and I've never seen a female basketball coach, softball coach, volleyball coach or tennis coach have a problem with this.

Me either and I know some women out there who would love to be head coaches.

[Scamp]

Putting life before sports
Oregon Director of Basketball Operations Natasha Ruckwardt will leave the team to spend more time with her family

Her two young children tugging at her emotions, Natasha Ruckwardt made the decision she felt most comfortable with.

The Adelaide, Australia native is leaving the Oregon women's basketball program to spend more time with her son Logan, 3, and daughter Adelaide, born last August. Ruckwardt, the Director of Basketball Operations, discussed it with her husband, Mark, last fall. She decided to leave in October and made it official after the season.

"My husband said to me one evening 'Hey, you're enjoying being at home and I was like 'I love it,'" Ruckwardt said.

She is tentatively set to leave at the end of May, but will help run the basketball program's summer camps. Ruckwardt, who's been a part of the program for the better part of 10 years since she played for Oregon from 1997-99, says last season was a challenge with her young daughter. ...

http://media.www.dailyemerald.com/media/storage/paper859/news/2007/05/01/Sports/Putting.Life.Before.Sports-2889811.shtml

As for the female rowing coach who had her male assistant be the "bad guy" with the team, I think she is a manipulative wimp. :p

[Gator]

As for the female rowing coach who had her male assistant be the "bad guy" with the team, I think she is a manipulative wimp. :p
I was TRYING to find something to say about that person but couldn't come up with the right combination of words - so thanks! You hit the nail (or the idiot) on the head!

As for the notion that AD's have an "obligation" to make coaching positions more family friendly: bah humbug

Coaching positions are what they are. I can only speak to basketball and that, of course, only from the outside. However, the demands on one's time are overwhelming. It takes a very special person to be able to juggle to job and a personal life. Starkey is only one of the people who have decided that the chunk that a head coaching job can take our of your life isn't worth it. Assistants don't have it much better. I was taken aback by a comment of Kim's about Karen Aston coming to Baylor. It was something to the effect that it was great because she had no life outside basketball. I remember the number of times Sherri publicly thanked her parents, in-laws, and husband for their support saying that there was no way she would handle the job without their stepping in. Female WBB coaches with families but without that type of extensive support system - I have no idea how they cope.

No AD is going to tell a coach not to pour her heart and soul into the job. No AD is going to limit the amount of time a coach can spend on the job. No AD is going to tell a head coach what to expect of his/her staff.

I assume that the higher the pay, (ie, the more competitive the program) the more demanding the job in terms of time. It isn't a gender issue. It is a matter of personal choice.

Fact: women are going to be more likely to say no to the commitment demanded by the job than are men. Culturally, men are more often "excused" from non-job commitments while women often refuse to excuse themselves from those commitments.

I don't know what you do about that or if anything should be done about it. I do know it ought to be taken into account when folks look at stats about equal pay, percentage of female coaches, etc.

[swok34]

Didn't a female coach say that the best kind of coach to be is one that is divorced with no children?

[Scamp]

Assistants don't have it much better. I was taken aback by a comment of Kim's about Karen Aston coming to Baylor. It was something to the effect that it was great because she had no life outside basketball."What Karen does that makes her so special is that this is her life," Mulkey said. "She has a dog she goes home to, but this is her life."
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/colleges/baylor/stories/101906dnspobig12bkwlede.319a8ae.html

[Scamp]

Didn't a female coach say that the best kind of coach to be is one that is divorced with no children?[Mary Jo] Kane, the sports sociologist at Minnesota, said she once heard a female coach say that the best coaching qualifications for a woman are to be divorced with no children. This ostensibly establishes her heterosexuality while leaving her free to hit the road on recruiting trips. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/sports/ncaabasketball/19lsu.html?ei=5070&en=fee5b757a2239c56&ex=1178078400&emc=eta1&pagewanted=all

[hornsofthedillema]

Am I the only person who has noticed that when a man says something forcefully (especially in an appropriate, work situation) he's usually seen as being assertive, while a woman saying something forcefully in the same situation is seen as aggressive?

I can understand what the female rowing coach means, even if I don't approve of her solution to the problem.

[MsProudSooner]

Historically, more men than women will sacrifice family for career. It's still seen as an exception when a man refuses a promotion and transfer because he doesn't want to uproot his family. Conversly, more women will sacrifice career for family. Corporate America is littered with women who have stayed away from the management track because they feel it will take too much away from their family. I would imagine that female coaches are no different.

[OhMandy]

The other thing to look at is how many woman leave the coaching profession to start a family. I know the assistant coach at UCR resigned to start a family. UCR has been to two straight NCAA tourneys, ending UCSB's dominance in the BW. She would have been primed for a head coaching position, somewhere. How many other female coaches have gotten out of coaching to start a family?

[walkaway]

Why do women "get out of" a profession to "start a family"?
Being married isn't having a family?
Having to work while your children are small means you aren't in a profession?

[MsProudSooner]

If being married = 10 units of work per week being married with 1 child = 40 units of work per week. You would think that adding one more child would add 30 units of work a week to make the total 70, but adding the second child somehow seems to add more work than the first one did in the first place so your total units of work per week with marriage and 2 kids is 100 units of work per week!

[walkaway]

And if being married with 0 kids means you earn X dollars per unit of work,
then every kid you add cuts the number of dollars per unit of work by a factor of at least three.

Yeah, I remember that math. Makes me glad my kids are in college. They're big enough to contribute work units of their own to family endeavors.