MPR: Fewer Women Coaching Girls' Sports

Fewer Women Coaching Girls' Sports
By Mark Steil
December 10, 1997

Basketball is a high-profile sport for high school girls, and its popularity continues to grow. About 400 Minnesota schools offer the sport. It might be expected that basketball's popularity would provide an attractive career path for women who want to coach, but that doesn't seem to be the case: the number of women coaching the sport has decreased. About a third of the girls' high school teams in Minnesota this year will be coached by women. Twenty years ago about half the coaches were women.

NO ONE IS SAYING MEN shouldn't coach girls' teams. As one coach put it, "There are terrific male and female coaches and lousy male and female coaches out there." But the fact most girls' teams are supervised by men is an eye-catcher to some. Mary Jo Kane is a sports sociologist at the University of Minnesota. She says it sends a message.

Kane: I think in terms of role models, I think in terms of providing employment opportunities, it's very important for young girls and women to see and to know that if they have the ability and the desire and the commitment, that they can be a coach as well.

There are many theories why women make up such a small percentage of girls' high school basketball coaches. There's the control theory - since men dominate sports administration and hiring, they tend to pick other men as coaches. Then there's the interest theory. It says women athletes are more likely than men to look for a career outside sports, resulting in a small pool of female coaching candidates. The most popular theory, though, centers on family. It says women are more likely to leave coaching than men when family duties increase, like when there are children. This means men coach longer, increasing their dominance in the coaching ranks. Darla Bly coached basketball at Murray County Central High School in Slayton for five years, before resigning the post a couple years back to spend more time with her family.

Bly: I guess my kids were probably more important to me than basketball at the time. The money didn't seem to really matter, but the time that it took for basketball and the time I thought I needed to spend with my family was, you know, I could definitely draw the line there of what I needed to do.

Bly has two children and a husband in sales who spends much of his time on the road. Sometimes her work days extended late into the evening and finding day care was a challenge.

Bly: It was something I needed to plan out week to week, of who would take them, when they would take 'em, where I would pick them up, where I would go, or where they would go. The days were real long and I didn't see a lot of my kids as much as I'd like to of.

Bly believes many women coaches leave basketball because of family duties. She can think of three others in the area who've made the same decision she made.

Wendy Kohler coaches girls' basketball at Alexandria's Jefferson High School. She feels the same sorts of pressures which took Darla Bly out of the sport.

Kohler: Head coaching has really gotten to be almost a year 'round thing. And if you're going to be dedicated and do the kind of job that you need to do in order to be successful, it's very difficult, especially when you have a family. You're just being pulled in many directions, and it's a tough thing.

Kohler knew she wanted to coach when she was in seventh grade, and last year her career reached a high point when Alexandria won a state championship. Sometimes the glory is mixed with guilt. Kohler's husband farms, and she cherishes the time she spends with him and their two-year-old son.

Kohler: Lots of times I feel real guilty about that when Chase looks up at me and says "Mom's going to basketball?" And I'm like, "Yeah, she's going again."

Kohler's players, though, say there are benefits to having a female coach. Carly Spencer finds it easier to talk with her than a male.

She makes us know that we can talk to her about anything, outside of basketball, any problems that we have. So that helps develop a team, and trust and unity, so that helps.

The University of Minnesota's Mary Jo Kane says women coaches face more societal pressures than men concerning work and home. She says the concept of family duties tend to weigh more heavily on female than male coaches.

Kane: The assumption is that the day care problems and staying home and being primarily responsible for the children is the mother's responsibility and not the father's. And I'm not saying that in some family arrangements that might be the case, but what we tend to do is to assume that that is somehow inherent, and therefore it ends up limiting women more than it limits men.

Kane says another reason why male coaches outnumber females can be traced to the very federal document which touched off the women's sports boom: Title IX. The 1972 law says women's athletic and educational programs must be equal to men's at schools receiving federal funds. Kane says Title IX guaranteed that girls' high school athletics would expand dramatically, creating thousands of new coaching jobs. Early on schools wanted female coaches, but Kane says that changed as basketball grew and the people doing the hiring returned to old convictions.

Kane: Oftentimes having an assumption, whether conscious or not, that if you want to take your program big-time, than you need to get a real quote-unquote coach. And in many cases, especially in team sports that have traditionally been associated with men like basketball the assumption is that on the average males are more qualified than females.

Former girls' basketball coach Darla Bly says there are many great female coaches, but for her the strain became too great.

Bly: I just wanted to prove to myself that I could coach, I could be a mother, I could be married and I could have a job. I could have all four of those things and everything will just be peachy. Maybe I've grown up a little bit to realize that coaching is not the only thing in life.

Bly says the pressures she faced in basketball are similar to what other working women go through. She says although her husband helped as much as he could, there just wasn't time for everything.

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