Are we Failing Young Athletes Through the Lack of Female Coaches?

  Growing up, I played three different sports: soccer, softball, and basketball. Despite the overwhelming amount of different teams I played on, I certainly had an underwhelming amount of female coaches. In the Athletes Assessment Article, LaVoi states “One hundred percent of male athletes have had a male Coaching role model during their athletic careers, to their benefit; young women likewise need and deserve more same sex role models,” so clearly I am not the only one who lacked female role models on the athletic field. Throughout around 30 sports seasons over the span of my life, I could count on one hand the amount of those teams that have had a woman as their head coach, and all those instances were on my soccer teams. I remember having issues with some of my female coaches; I’d go home complaining to my mom that they were too mean or annoying, even to the point of wanting to quit soccer. Although subconscious, I think I had biases against these women in authority positions, labeling them as rude or bossy, while a male coach would more likely have been described as “intense” or “passionate.” Now that I am able to recognize this bias, I’m not extremely shocked that these ideas were so engraved in my mind, as many others hold the same biases against women in power. Normalizing women coaching sports from youth levels all the way up to professional sports can help to minimize the bias that is instilled into so many young kids, which later affects their everyday and professional relationships with women.  

Although title nine spiked an increase in female collegiate athletes, there are significantly decreasing numbers of females who are coaching them. Something interesting about this decline in female coaches is the positive correlation this has to the amount of money being made at the collegiate level of coaching. As college athletics become a bigger cultural phenomenon, money starts to play a larger and larger role in coaching, and I wonder whether this decline in female coaches is intertwined with the ongoing issue of the gender wage gap. Having an industry where women who coach are celebrated and respected is vital to the success of the growing number of young female athletes, and not prioritizing gender equality in coaching is failing our next generation of athletes.