For women working in coaching and athletics administration, none of what Sandberg writes about is particularly new.  But the questions she poses are well worth thinking about. Consider these few drawn from the discussion guide.

1.  How does fear affect the decisions you make about your own future?  For women in sport, the issue of fear is an interesting one to consider.  The physical confrontations and challenges that are routinely conquered in the course of athletic lives serve as lessons in how to overcome, how to “lean in” as Sandberg says.  At the same time, women in sport are ambivalent about their own power, checking it against cultural standards and norms.  Evidence to this effect comes in physical terms, the research that shows female athletes may consciously scale back their training so as to avoid the appearance of being too big, too powerful and the conformity to femininity standards that place a high priority on appearance.  According to Sandberg, “Fear is at the root of so many barriers that women face.  What is your greatest fear?  What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”

2.  Are you open to taking career risks?  For women working in sport settings, the issue of career risk is complicated.  On one hand, the male dominated nature of the business elevates the level of risk for women.  As researcher Cindra Kamphoff reports, women in coaching, whether they remain in or leave the profession, often have to strike a “bargain with patriarchy”, engaging in ongoing negotiations around gender in order to be successful.   It is in this space of negotiation where Sandberg suggests that women “lean in” rather than step away.  For those who have been negotiating those gender boundaries for a long time, the concept is counter-intuitive but does warrant consideration from the standpoint of how women may, due to their own expectations, actually sabotage themselves.   For example, while the coaching profession is gender segregated (less than 50% of head coaches of women’s teams are women and less than two percent of head coaches of men’s teams are women) and male dominated (women comprise approximately 20% of the coaching workforce overall), women rarely if ever apply for positions coaching men’s teams where salaries are higher, publicity is greater, and support is more abundant.  As a result, women remain marginalized in the coaching ranks.  In effect, “we leave before we leave” according to Sandberg.  While women often labor under career decisions, tentative to apply for positions if they do not satisfy all job requirements, men as a general rule do not suffer such concerns.  They are more likely to apply for positions if they meet some of the requirements.  Sandberg observes, “At a certain point, it’s your ability to learn quickly and contribute quickly that matters.  Women need to shift from thinking ‘I’m not ready to do that’ to thinking ‘I want to do that – and I’ll learn by doing it.”  Women coaches are often thought of as risking a great deal just to be in the profession.  Sandberg might argue that women have yet to risk enough.

3. How much do you separate your personal life from your career life?  Much of the research on the coaching lives of women has centered around work-life conflict, as if work and life were somehow oppositional concepts.  Recent research from Jarrod Schenewark and Marlene Dixon  reframes the balancing act women and men coaches face in meeting the multiple demands of career and family by suggesting that work and family do not necessarily have to be mutually exclusive and, when combined in the right way, may contribute to overall satisfaction.
 

Sandberg’s vision of “a truly equal world” where “women ran half our countries and companies and men ran half our homes” is an interesting one to contemplate and aspire to.   Her motivation is stirred by a sense that women’s progress once prompted by the Women’s Movement has been stalled.  She writes:

We can reignite the revolution by internalizing the revolution.  The shift to a more equal world will happen person by person.  We move closer to true equality with each woman who leans in.

Imagine what the coaching world would be like if women leaned in all at once and together.

Click here to view the embedded video.

NBC Sitcom Parks & Recreation, Season 5, Episode 11, Women & Garbage

For those of you who are fans of the NBC situation comedy, Parks and Recreation, you may have caught the recent episode  entitled Women and Garbage where city councilwoman, Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) takes up the banner of carrying on the legacy of women serving in government by encouraging the creation of a Gender Equality Commission.  At the urging of Knope, city manager Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe) puts out a call to all departments seeking representatives to serve.  At the first meeting, Leslie looks out at the individuals assembled and asks , “Did anyone notice that there are no women on the Gender Equality Commission?”

Taking on the Department of Sanitation whose hiring record in terms of women is described by Leslie as “abysmal”, she asks why there are no female garbage collectors.  One of the members of the staff says, “There aren’t that many women who apply plus it’s a very demanding job.  The average woman can’t handle it.”  In an effort to prove them wrong, Leslie and colleague April (Aubrey Plaza) take on the challenge of handling trash removal on a scheduled run, fulfilling their plan of not just completing the run but doing it better than the men who have been doing the job.  Just as they are on the cusp of succeeding, they receive another assignment, this time a huge refrigeration unit that appears to be unmovable.  Faced with an insurmountable obstacle, they learn by happenstance that the men in the department couldn’t move it either.  Using ingenuity and outside of the box thinking, they eventually prevail in doing something that the men had been unable to do.

While some have characterized the episode as far-fetched and ridiculous, the script writers could have easily recreated this scene in an athletic department and heard the same kinds of explanations, even in 2013.  According to a report published by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport in November of 2012, of the 120 athletic directors who oversee programs in the NCAA’s Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) only four or 3.3 percent are women.  Commissioners in the eleven FBS conferences are all male.  The longitudinal study of the status of women in intercollegiate coaching and administration conducted by Vivian Acosta and Linda Carpenter reveal low numbers for women in coaching, with roughly 44% of head coaches of women’s team are women.   Among all head coaches of both men’s and women’s teams, women make up approximately 20 percent.

In an NCAA study that examines the representation of women and/or racial minorities within college and university athletic departments,  women dominate in only two and comprise more than a majority in three (academic counselor – 59.8%; business manager – 59.9%; compliance director – 52.9%) out of 22 identified positions .*  Notably, the position where women are represented in the highest number and percent is administrative assistant.   The second category where women serve in substantially higher numbers than men is in the category of “life skills coordinator”.    When considered together, these data reveal a workplace that is sex-segregated for women coaches and sex-stereotyped in terms of women’s roles within an athletic department.  Women congregate in positions of support and in areas where the educational interests of athletes are served.  They are less likely to be in positions of power that affect policy, program direction, and revenue production.

In considering the antics of Leslie and April, the metaphor of women and garbage is an apt one.  As they toured around town on the back of trash hauler, they were symbolically throwing out one set of assumptions about women after the other, relegating them to the trash heap where they belonged.  They were also reminding us that there is still quite a bit of garbage that women still have to put up with and leave out at the curb.

*Senior woman administrator is listed as a position with women represented in this group at 99.6 percent.  Women typically are not hired specifically into a senior woman administrator role.  The term comes from an NCAA mandate that athletic departments must designate at least one woman as “the highest ranking female involved with the management of an institution‘s intercollegiate athletic program” (NCAA Division I Manual, 2011, p. 30).

Dear Women in Coaching Blog Readers:

Each year, the Women’s Sports Foundation (WSF) hosts a gala in the fall to celebrate the accomplishments of some of the world’s finest female athletes.  With just months having passed since the London Olympics where U.S. women were said to have “stolen the show”, earning more gold medals alone than nearly all combined men’s and women’s teams competing, they electrified the WSF event a few weeks ago with their presence.

Taking place in one of the largest media markets in the world, the WSF Gala is where female athleticism confronts the gliterati on their turf rather than the more familiar “home” venues of the athletic arena, court, or field that female athletes are accustomed to.   Women athletes as represented on the red carpet  in makeup, chiffon and satin, and stilletos bear testament to the facets of a woman’s life and the diversity of women who compete in sport. In an interview with Amy Parpaliano of Yahoo Sports, WSF president Laila Ali said, “”You can see right here that these athletes come in all shapes and sizes. Some of them are lean. Some of us are bulkier or more muscular. But we’re all beautiful, confident women.”

Still, as confident and accomplished as these women are, the red carpet walk emphasizes the degree to which women are influenced by pressures to meet certain societal expectations about appearance.  As Parpaliano observed, “… they’re wearing fancy dresses and their hair is done, and they’re walking in heels (or at least attempting to walk; some are wobbling slightly)”.

Navigating the course of societal expectations about female beauty has historically been challenging for female athletes.  Researchers for over four decades have consistently documented that some portion of the female athlete population remains ambivalent about symbols of strength as manifest in muscular definition and power and fear that athleticism undermines femininity.  In her book, Polygendered and Ponytailed, Danya Daniels discusses societal pressures for female athletes to conform to longstanding gender roles designed to maintain a femininity-masculinity divide that prevents female athletes from realizing their full potential.

Nearly four decades after scholar Jan Felshin coined the expression “the female athletic apologetic”, a term that captures the conflicts female athletes have in reconciling their athletic roles with socially prescribed scripts regarding femininity, the apologetic remains resilient.  As Brenda Riemer found after reviewing collegiate softball media guides, makeup and hair were the order of the day for some of the nation’s leading softball teams.

Researchers who have studied female athlete perceptions of muscularity have found that some portion of female athletes will consciously undermine their training so as to avoid developing too much muscle definition and bulk.  In a study by Steinheldt et al. in 2011, all male athletes surveyed wished to be muscular while 16% of the female athletes did not want to be muscular.

While the apologetic may cause female athletes to scale back on their training, there may be another cost worth considering.  According to Warren Potash, author of They’re Not Boys:  Safely Training the Adolescent Female Athlete, the vulnerability that female athletes have to knee injuries can be lessened through proper strength and conditioning tailored to the express needs of the female athlete population.  In a highly readable book written for parents and teenage female athletes, he makes the case that through targeted strength programs and wise nutritional choices, the risk of injury among female athletes is likely to decrease considerably.  Stating the case succinctly, Potash writes “All female athletes need to value training to play sports.”

In a world where female athletes are presented with conflicting messages, such a straightforward message urging younger female athletes to value their own strength and the pursuit of it seems like a message worth considering.

Kindest regards – Ellen

Dr. Ellen J. Staurowsky, Professor, Department of Sport Management, Drexel University, ejs95@drexel.edu

Click here to view the embedded video.

Dear Women in Coaching Readers:

Sport, as an institution, has historically been behind the times when it comes to issues related to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. But a growing push for social justice in sport has begun to transform cultural attitudes. On National Coming Out Day, October 11, Drexel University’s Goodwin College for Professional Studies launched a research and activism network, “LGBT Issues in Sport: Theory to Practice,” which aims to be the definitive resource for research on LGBT issues in sport.

The website will provide public access to research focusing on LGBT issues in sport, with the goal of turning theory into practice in order to make sport more inclusive for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. The site also will serve as a resource for sharing research that has been vetted through peer-reviewed processes to facilitate a greater awareness of work being done in this field and connect researchers and activists in order to impact public policy and education.

I was fortunate to work alongside of Susan (Sue) Rankin, a research associate in the Center for the Study of Higher Education and associate professor of education in the College Student Affairs Program from the Pennsylvania State University, George Cunningham, professor and associate dean for academic affairs in the College of Education and Human Development  from Texas A&M University, and Joel Rodriquez from Drexel in bringing this project to life.  The website was conceived of in response to goals identified at the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Sport (SOGIS) Conference hosted by Texas A&M in April 2012 and the Nike LGBT Sports Summit at Nike World Headquarters in June 2012.

More than 20 experts and activists from around the country have agreed to contribute regularly to the website, sharing their perspectives on issues that affect athletes, coaches and administrators at U.S. colleges and universities.  The blog will feature fresh material four to five times per week.  Expert contributors include:

• Heather Barber, associate professor, sport studies, University of New Hampshire
• Erin Buzuvis, associate professor, Western New England College of Law and co-founder, Title IX Blog
• Austin Calhoun, Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport, University of Minnesota
• Nevin Caple, founder, Br{ache the Silence
• Helen Carroll, sport project director, National Center for Lesbian Rights
• Kiera Duckworth, instructor and doctoral student, sociology, University of Buffalo
• Pat Griffin, founder, Changing the Game: The Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network Sports Projects
• Matthew Jolles, student ambassador, a freshman sport management major at Drexel University and charter member of GO! Athletes
• Cinda Kamphoff, associate professor, sport psychology, University of Minnesota-Mankato
• Kerrie Kauer, assistant professor, University of California-Long Beach
• Vikki Krane, professor, sport and leisure studies, School of Human Movement, Bowling Green State University
• Nicole LaVoi, associate director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport, University of Minnesota
• Lis Maurer, director, The Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender (LGBT) Education, Outreach, and Services at Ithaca College
• Nicole Melton, assistant professor, Seattle University
• Kris Newhall, co-founder, Title IX Blog & University of Iowa
• Alyssa Norris, Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport, University of Minnesota
• Brenda Pitts, professor, sport business management, Georgia State University
• Emily Roper, associate professor, health and kinesiology, Sam Houston State University
• Melanie Sartore-Baldwin, assistant professor, sport management, East Carolina University
• Matt Tracy, student ambassador, senior sport media major, Ithaca College
• Jenny Withycombe, assistant professor, Pacific University

Breaking news bulletin.  This just in.
According to a recent report published in The Washington Post, males are more likely to throw overhand farther and with greater speed than females.  This news arrived during the same week that Erin Dimeglio made history as the first high school female quarterback in the state of Florida.  She seems to have managed to throw well enough overhand to have been drafted into that key position by her coach.

So, what are we to make of this contradictory information about female athletes, if the information is contradictory at all?  Dr. Jerry Thomas, dean of the College of Education at the University of North Texas has been studying the question of whether gender differences in overhand throwing exist for over 30 years.  He has concluded that a gap does exist and over time, it increases as girls and boys get older.

Dr. Thomas’s most recent research focusing on the overhand throwing skill of Aboriginal boys and girls revealed that while there was a gap it was smaller than for other groups.  He, along with his research team, theorized that the reason why Aboriginal Australian girls evidenced greater throwing skill compared to other girls around the world had to do with cultural influences, the legacy of a hunting society that encouraged girls to throw weapons during their upbringing.

There is an argument to be made perhaps for understanding how female and male athletes may be different developmentally so as to tailor instructional methods that will best meet their needs and unlock their gifts.  Still, there are problems with focusing on gender differences.  As a case in point, U.S. gymnast, Gabby Douglas, who rose to fame following her gold medal performance in the London
2012 Olympic Games, threw out the first pitch at a New York Mets game on August 24, 2012.  The caption below a photo of her read:  “Olympic gold medalist Gabby Douglas throws out the first pitch at Citi Field.  Like a girl.”

Why the additional flourish at the end of the caption drawing on assumptions which date back to the Victorian era about female weakness and ineptitude? The caption was sufficient without the embellishment.  She threw the pitch the way a woman who had been training in a gym to compete at the world class level on the balance beam, vault, in floor exercise, and on the uneven bars would throw.  And in point of fact, video evidence would suggest that she did a respectable job in a high pressure situation with fans looking on and in a venue that is not her sporting home.

The resilience of the “throwing like a girl” reference to retain the social power to evoke images of female athletes as awkward, unskilled, and biologically destined to be lesser than their male counterparts attests to the investment the society has in maintaining the gender order in sport.  The far more interesting question to pursue is not whether there are differences between male and female athletes in throwing and other skills but when do differences matter.

It is one thing to study throwing skills in the isolation of a lab.  It is another to consider whether a focus on gender differences in overhand throwing skill is a fair comparison given the fact that baseball remains a sport largely reserved for boys within American culture.  The insulation of the sport as male-dominated was set in place early in the 20^th century.  As physical educator, Gladys Palmer, noted in her 1929 book entitled Baseball for Girls and Women, baseball was thought to be unsuitable for girls and women because:

1. the intricate technique of the game is too difficult for the average girl to master;
2. the throwing distances are too great;
3. there is no advantage which cannot be enjoyed through participation in a more simple and well-planned but less strenuous game, based on the men’s game;
4. thedanger of injuries is unnecessarily great with the use of the small hard ball (p. 8).

It is no accident that softball emerged out of that set of beliefs, serving as a derivate of the men’s game.  Of course, this adaptation offers a societal “tell” in terms of the rationalizations used to impose a standard simply because the powers that be wanted it that way.  The game of softball may have offered female hitters a bigger target to hit, it also put into the hands of women who throw a more cumbersome object to hold than that of a baseball and a different valued throwing skill, namely an underhand rather than overhand delivery.  Given the legacy of that arrangement, which still preserves baseball largely as a game for boys and softball for girls at youth, scholastic and collegiate levels, is it all that surprising that there would be
a gap in overhand throwing skill?  If the only sport that boys and girls played was baseball, how wide would that gap be?

“Throwing like a girl” testifies to the set of expectations and possibilities female athletes are afforded in the sport system.  For Erin Dimeglio, the Florida high school quarterback, she learned the position through the only route really available to her, that being flag football.  It was there that she met her coach and learned how to play the game.  It was there that her coach realized that she had talent that would qualify her to try out for the high school football team.  How much further down the path would she be developmentally, however, if she had played youth football rather than flag football?

These questions are being examined from a wide variety of disciplines and perspectives.  For further reading on this, you may wish to check out neuroanthropologist Greg Downey’s thoughts on the subject or the classic feminist work of Iris Marion Young.

Kindest regards, Ellen
Ellen J. Staurowsky, Ed.D., Professor, Department of Sport Management, Drexel University

References

Downey,G.  (2009,  February 1). Throwing like a girl’s (brain).  Neuroanthropology.  http://neuroanthropology.net/2009/02/01/throwing-like-a-girls-brain/

Haspel, T.  (2012, September 10).  Throw like a girl?  You can do better.  The Washington Post.   http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/throw-like-a-girl-with-some- practice-you-can-do-better/2012/09/10/9ffc8bc8-dc09-11e1-9974- 5c975ae4810f_story.html

Hess, A.  (2012, September 13).  Boys throw better than girls, good job?  Slate Magazine.  Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/09/13/you_throw_like_a_girl_boys_throw_better_than_girls_it_s_true_.html

Issacson, M.  (2012, September 12).  Erin Dimeglio a football natural at South Plantation.  espnW.  Retrieved from http://espn.go.com/espnw/more-sports/8367688/espnw-erin-dimeglio-makes-history-south-plantation-high-school

Larson,L., & Jaccarino, M.  (2012, September1).  Forget Tebow, Erin becomes first female quarterback in Florida high school history, The Daily Mail.  Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2197050/Erin-DiMeglio-Female-QB-FIRST- secondary-school-signal-caller-state-high-school-football-history.html

Thomas, J. R., & French, K. E.  (1985).  The development of gender differences across age in motor performance: A meta-analysis.  Psychological Bulletin 88, 260-282.

Thomas, J. R., Alderson, J. A., Thomas, K. T., Campbell, A. C., & Elliott, B. C.  (2010, December).  Development gender differences for overhand throwing in Aboriginal Australian children.  Research Quarterly for Exercise & Sport 81 (4), 432-441.

Young, I. M.  (1990).  Throwing like a girl and other essay in feminist philosophy and social theory.  Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN:  Indiana University Press. Retrieved at http://www.amazon.com/On-Female-Body-Experience-           Philosophy/dp/0195161939#_

For Videos of Gabby Douglas & Erin Demeglio click on links below.

Gabby Douglas

Erin Dimeglio First Female HS Quarterback in Florida

Dear Women in Coaching Readers:

Ruth Brunner, professor emerita of physical education, former chair and head women’s basketball coach at Oberlin College (1965-1985) passed away at the age of 92 on August 6^th.  She was one of my first professional mentors and someone to whom I owe a great deal.

Ruth Brunner served Oberlin College loyally and with great commitment for over two decades.  By the time of her arrival in Ohio in the 1960s, she had earned a master’s degree from George WashingtonUniversity, a master’s in English literature from Radcliffe, and she had completed all of her coursework for the Ph.D. in physical education at the University of Southern California.  A working mother and wife, Ruth did all of this while raising five children with her husband John, a Harvard educated civil rights attorney with a penchant for sailing.

Ruth’s time of service between 1965 to 1985 is notable because it spanned a time of great change for women in the United States generally and women’s physical education and athletics at Oberlin in particular.  Like other women physical educators of her day, Ruth was well read and intellectually vibrant.  Always well dressed and put together, she was rarely without her signature pearls or
otherwise appropriately accessorized.

Ruth began her career at Oberlin when there was a separate Department of Physical Education for Women, run by female faculty. With the accumulated effects of the Women’s Movement and the passage of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Oberlin would face significant questions concerning the role of physical education and athletics on campus and how best to provide athletic opportunities for women.  In 1965, Ruth was appointed Chairperson of the Women’s Physical Education Department.  Ruth’s role as chair would come to an end with the merger of the men’s and women’s physical education departments.

Her influence, however, would be felt for years to come.  In the 1970s, faculty members within the Department of Physical Education worked as teacher-coaches, teaching courses in theory to support the physical education major while coaching a varsity sport. In Ruth’s case, she served as head women’s basketball coach from 1977 to 1984 and taught courses in history and philosophy of sport and women’s sport.  Interestingly enough, while some viewed Ruth and other women physical educators at Oberlin during this time as unprepared to deal with the rigors of what a competitive athletic program should be for women, in 2012 Ruth still holds the highest winning percentage of any coach in the history of the program to date according to the Oberlin College Women’s Basketball Record Book.

Throughout the time that Oberlin sought to reconcile questions related to the role of physical education and athletics, Ruth played a significant role.  Ruth, along with colleagues Bonnie Calmer, Mary Culhane, and Janet Wignall urged the institution to join the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), the governing body for women’s athletics at the time.  In later years,
she would argue the need for additional resources to support the women’s athletics program.  And she would serve as a guiding force for young women who entered the department in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Ruth exhibited remarkable devotion to her students and the Oberlin community.  Beyond her full time role as professor, administrator, and coach, she also worked as housemother.  In that role, Ruth was literally on call day and night, providing a sounding board, offering support, or simply giving the gift of her company to hundreds of students with whom she interacted.

For many of us in academic life, we are fortunate to benefit from mentors who take our interests to heart and who understand the legacy they are entrusted to perpetuate and pass on.  As an aspiring young professional unaware that I had become a trustee of the rich tradition of women’s physical education and sport at Oberlin upon my appointment as an assistant professor of physical education and head field hockey and women’s lacrosse coach in 1979, my path would be graced with the presence of a wonderful mentor and friend in the person of Ruth Brunner.  Her keen interest in the integration of mind and body has had a lasting effect on my professional life.   Through Ruth, the Oberlin ideal of “learning and labor” became a part of my worldview.

But for Ruth, I would not have grasped the magnitude of the circumstances I found myself in at Oberlin, carrying on the work started by Delphine Hannah, the great physical educator and innovator.  In truth, I am not at all certain that the work of Ruth’s mentor, the equally inspiring Eleanor Metheny, would settle into my consciousness for many more years. The passion with which I now regard that history and pass it on to my own students is something that Ruth, through gentle and witty conversation born out of constancy and companionship, most often served along with a generous slice of pecan pie, helped me appreciate.   The lessons I learned from Ruth might best be summarized in an approach to teaching, scholarship, and service that honors the past, seeks to do justice in the present, and proceeds with the goal of ensuring a future bright with possibility and promise for my own students.

Each day as I don my pearls to head to work and occasionally pause to savor a very nice piece of pecan pie, I think of her – her great kindness, her abiding belief in young people, and her oh so gentle guiding force.

Kindest regards, Ellen

Ellen J. Staurowsky, Ed.D., Professor, Department of Sport Management, Drexel University

Annie Meyers Drysdale's 2012 Autobiography Dear Women in Coaching Blog Readers:

If you are casting about for a good summer read, you may want to check out You Let Some GIRL Beat You?  The Story of Ann Meyers Drysdale

Meyers Drysdale grew up in a family of 11 children where playing sports and competing were as essential a part of life as breathing air.  With an uncommon talent and high aspirations, she was sought out by coaches at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), where she became one of the first women to receive an athletic scholarship from a Division I institution in the years just after the passage of Title IX.

In an athletics program overflowing with accomplishments in the 1970s (the UCLA men’s basketball team was in the midst of their run which would eventually lead to 10 straight NCAA men’s basketball championships), it would be Meyers Drysdale alone who was named a four-time All-American, the only UCLA athlete, female or male, to be so recognized.  Legendary coach John Wooden, who coached Meyers Drysdale’s brother on the men’s team, became her mentor as well.  Together they formed an enduring bond.  Her term of affection for the great coach is “papa”.

A key figure in challenging many of the stereotypes that had long limited women’s opportunities in sport, Meyers Drysdale defied convention upon graduating from UCLA when she accepted a $150,000 free agent contract with the NBA’s Indiana Pacers. While the contract did not lead to a roster spot for Meyers Drysdale and was itself controversial at the time, she helped lay the foundation for women to play professional basketball in the United States.

In her new book, she writes about her upbringing, her life with L.A. Dodger and Hall of Famer Don Dyrsdale, her career as a sportscaster , and her current role as a vice-president in the NBA, working for the Phoenix Suns and champion WNBA franchise, the Phoenix Mercury.

If you are looking for an inspiring read that offers insight into how to face challenge and adversity, this might be the thing you’re looking for.

Kindest regards – Ellen
Ellen J. Staurowsky, Ed.D., Professor, Department of Sport Management, Drexel University

Click here to view the embedded video.

New York Times Image - Gender Testing in Women's Sport

Dear Women in Coaching Blog Readers:  Imagine.  You have been competing in your sport, getting better and better with each passing practice, each passing contest, each passing year.  At the height of your career, just as you embark on your final campaign to be named to the Olympic team, a sport official calls to explain that due to suspicions about what accounts for your athletic accomplishments you will have to undergo tests to verify that you are, in fact, a woman.

It hardly seems possible in 2012 that women athletes would be asked to certify their womanhood and prove that they are woman enough to excel at their sport.  Under rules passed by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and the International Olympic Commttee (IOC), this is precisely what female athletes are being called upon to do in the buildup to the London Olympics.  As Stephanie Finley of thestar.com reported on June 8th, “There are female athletes who will be competing at the Olympic Games this summer after undergoing treatment to make them less masculine”.

From its very origins, the Olympic Games is one of several international sport events that has entertained ongoing cultural preoccupations with the outward expression of femininity on the part of female athletes under the guise of fairness.  The acclaimed U. S. track and field athlete, Babe Didrikson, inspired media speculation around her legitimacy as a woman, described at times as a confusing figure because her record-breaking athleticism in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics failed to match societal expectations about how women were to act and behave.  In the course of competing in those Games, she shattered the javelin record for women while winning three gold medals (one a silver-gold in the high jump as a result of internal U.S. team politics).

The “science” of gender policing of female athletes has evolved from the indecorous and humiliating “nude parades”, where female athletes had to stand before panels of physicians for visual inspections, to buccal smears, and then on to blood tests and chromosomal analysis.  In this most recent iteration, female athletes evidencing hyperandrogenism,(a condition where a very small percentage of women have naturally higher testosterone levels compared to other women), may be barred from competition unless they seek medical intervention and monitor their conditions.

Renewed interest in this issue was ignited in 2009 when South African runner, Caster Semenya, became a target of international controversy following an 800-meter performanced she won by more than two seconds,.  While Semenya did hold the record for the 800-meters in 2009, her performance was not even strong enough to move her into the top women’s 800-meter times in history.  Semenya’s husky voice and muscle definition prompted some of her competitors to insist that her competitive advantage stemmed from the fact that she was not really a woman.  Italian runner, Elisa Cusma, stated, “These kind of people should not run with us.  For me, she’s not a woman.”  Those allegations led to a full investigation into Semenya’s documentable status as a woman.

This practice of establishing that female athletes physically fall within the boundaries of set threshholds for hormonal makeup as well as physical appearance - for example, musculature, voice level, and breast development -is thought to be justified, according to sport authorities, because of the necessity of ensuring that some female athletes are not advantaged by their physical makeup.  According to University of Southern California (UCLA) geneticist and advisor to the IOC, Dr. Erik Vilain, using exogenous testosterone (the type of testosterone that enhances performance) is the substance that provides the best way to determine if female athletes are benefitting unfairly.  This belief that homonal levels are the key to ensuring that a female who is too masculine will not compete in a women’s field of competitors is reflected in in the preface to the IAAF Regulations Governing Eligibility of Female With Hyperandrogenism To Compete In Women’s Competition, which reads, “The difference in athletic performance between males and females is known to be predominantly due to higher levels of androgenic hormones in males resulting in increased strength and muscle development.”

While the London Games will mark another chapter in the gender verification of female athletes, the practice by itself has been viewed by scientists and medical officials from around the world as being based on flawed assumptions and bad science.  The famed Canadian sport policy advisor, Bruce Kidd, has said that the policy is not about fairness or protecting the health of women but patriarchal fear or doubt that women can excel in athletics.  In a recent interview, Kidd pointed out, “Personal household and national income is far more relevant to performance than hormonal makeup.”

Forty five percent (45%) of all athletes competing in the Olympic Games in London will be women.  As a measure of progress, we are a long way from the days when women were banned from the Games.  However, the prerequisite that female athletes must show proof of womanhood in order to compete speaks to a reluctance within the sport community to accept the accomplishments of women as they are.

Kindest regards - Ellen

Ellen J. Staurowsky, Ed.D., Professor, Department of Sport Management, Drexel University

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Billie Jean King, Drexel Students Grant Soffer, Aaron Coleman, & Shane Downey

Dear Women in Coaching Blog Readers:   Just a few days ago, twelve of my male sport management majors accompanied me to a reception prior to the Coaches v. Cancer of Philadelphia Women in Wellness: An Evening With Billie Jean King event. Standing under a pavilion with a group of other admirers, tennis enthusiasts, and members of the Philadelphia business community at the Arthur Ashe Youth Tennis and Education Center, a wave of quiet approaching reverence fell over the crowd when Ms. King entered. And in the quiet, slowly, one by one she greeted every person there.

     Over the years, I have had several opportunities to watch my students meet Billie Jean King. Without fail, something important happens for them. Standing before the woman who played such a profound role in shaping their mothers’ lives is sometimes so powerful that unexpected tears of gratitude come without warning. For others, the encounter serves as a spark to ignite a deeply personal and previously unexpressed vision of the good they wish to do in the world.

     Prompted by the audience to talk about Title IX, she spoke about the essence of the law, its intention to fulfill equal treatment for male and female students. She went on to reflect on her own vision for World Team Tennis, the professional co-educational tennis league she founded in 1974 that provides one of the only places in sport where men and women compete alongside of one another as equal partners.

     The next day, Frank Perri, one of the students who had heard Ms. King the night before, arrived in my office motivated to find a way to bring her to campus so that more of our students could benefit from her presence and message. As Frank put it, when it came to Title IX, Ms. King had “credibility” because she had advocated for the rights of men and women all of these years. He felt her voice was important in helping students whose views on Title IX trend toward the negative, influenced by the fear factor spawned from headlines suggesting that Title IX harms men, appreciate more fully what Title IX really means.

     In listening to Frank talk with such enthusiasm, it occurred to me that he and Ms. King really are on the same frequency in terms of the future of Title IX. In an editorial that Ms. King wrote for the Huffington Post a year ago on the anniversary of Title IX she observed, “I know firsthand the life lessons that sports teaches from an early age and I often hear stories from other men and women of all ages about how playing sports and being active has helped them build confidence, self-esteem, leadership skills and long-lasting friendships. You don’t build these on the world stage or at the Olympics – they are forged at an early age and in the grind of daily training and discipline. So as I celebrate these anniversaries, I am not interested in looking back as much as I am interested in looking forward. How do we build on the momentum and make sure this generation and the next generation of youth are provided equal opportunities in sports and in life?”

     For this generation of college students, being encouraged to look forward and to consider their role in carrying on the work of generations before them is important. In his 2012 inauguration address, Ursinus College President Bobby Fong spoke of this as one of the greatest obligations that educators have to their students, “to remind them that the work they do will make a difference for good, not just for themselves, but for us all. For this reason, our final gift to our students must be to teach them hope”. As she has done for over four decades, Billie Jean King offered a sense of purpose and a message of hope the other night to my students. Based on my conversations with them, they have every intention of honoring her legacy and making their own contributions in service to bettering sport and society.

Kindest regards – Ellen

Ellen J. Staurowsky, Ed.D., Professor, Department of Sport Management, Drexel University, ejs95@drexel.edu

Billie Jean King Receives Medal Of Freedom From President Barack Obama In 2009

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Brandi Chastain, May 14, 2012, Sports Illustrated

Dear Women in Coaching Blog Readers:  In the months leading up to the anniversary of Title IX on June 23, attention has been paid to the progress made throughout the nation’s schools in affirmatively providing equitable opportunities for all students.  The need to capture the historical moment has found expression in a variety of initiatives.

On individual campuses and in local communities, the spotlight has turned to educational programs and recognition of hometown legends.  ESPNW’s “The Power of IX” campaign is focusing on women’s sport past and present in targeted efforts to celebrate the accomplishments of women in sport, highlighting great performances and personalities.  Sports Illustrated published a special Title IX issue with the legislation’s 37 words serving as the cover. The National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators (NACWAA) had the foresight to encourage athletic departments and conferences to testify in video to the contributions of women coaches and administrators whose life works are threads in the larger tapestry of women’s collegiate sport.

And Title IX beneficiaries, legions of girls and women, perform in a range of venues from the athletic court to the classroom to the board room to the operating room to courts of law to the halls of governmental power to the battlefield.   Some move forward in their lives with a full understanding of the role that Title IX has played in shaping societal expectations and possibilities for women in general and more specifically, for them.  However, many remain unaware, doing what most do after hard fought gains in status and opportunity are won by previous generations. The tides of change wash against the societal consciousness, rendering the stereotypes that once marred the surface barely discernible much as footprints are swept away on a beach.

At some level, this is how it should be.  Achieving a level of equality where the second class status of women is but a flickering memory that has no place in the vision of who we are as Americans would be the signal that Title IX and other civil rights laws have done their work.  Even in this time of celebration, however, there are reminders that there is more work to be done in realizing the promise of what Title IX requires.

Last week, that reminder was delivered in the California Assembly after member Susan Bonilla proposed a resolution “…commemorating the 40^th anniversary of Title IX and commending the movement toward increased equality and fair treatment of female athletes, and praising the goal of greater opportunities in sports for girls and young women in the state of California.”  Invited to be in the chamber to be honored along with the resolution were two world renowned women athletes – Brandi Chastain and Sisleide Lima do Amor (known to the soccer world simply as Sissi).

Lisa Leff of The Associated Press (AP) reported that during the discussion on the resolution, and in the midst of the recognition of the accomplishments of these women athletes, Assembly member Chris Norby expressed his belief that the benefits realized by female athletes had come at the expense of male athletes.  As he stated, “We need to be honest about the effects of what I believe are faulty court interpretations or federal enforcement of Title IX, because it has led to the abolition of many male sports across the board in the UCs and Cal States.”

Associated Press photographer, Rich Pedroncelli, caught Chastain’s pained reaction to the moment, providing a visual measure of the impact of Norby’s comments.  The images of Chastain’s expression serve as haunting bookends to the editorial choice published in Sports Illustrated just a week before featuring her exuberant celebration of the U.S. women’s soccer team victory in the 1999 Women’s World Cup next to a headline which read, “The Power of Title IX”.

The story as it was told and the visuals attest, the fundamental respect that comes along with genuine equality at times seems out of reach.   As Eric Feuer, an assemblyman representing Los Angeles noted, “Equality is yet to be attained.”

And while the script enacted in the California Assembly was an old one, there was also a new one that went largely unreported.The video of the proceedings on May 14 create a context and perspective that Mr. Norby’s views were not in concert with that of the body overall.  When the proposal was introduced by Ms. Bonilla, at least ten members (seven men and three women) from both sides of the aisle rose to speak in support.  In so doing, tribute was paid to wives, daughters, and women constituents who were accomplished athletes.

By way of example, Republican Cameron Smyth spoke of his mother, whose quick speed as a child led her to race against and beat the boys because there were no sports for girls in her school.  She would go on to become a physical educator, serving as an advocate to assure that her children and students had opportunities that she had not been afforded. Assemblyman Jared Hoffman (D-San Rafael), who represented CAL-NOW in a historic Title IX case against all 23 campuses in the CSU system that brought them into Title IX compliance, spoke about his wife, who was an all-Big 8 volleyball player and the prospects of an athletic career for their daughter. Ricardo Lara (D), a representative from Bell Gardens, proudly spoke of the achievements of Brenda Villa, who will likely compete on the U.S. women’s water polo team.  Villa rose in her sport by playing on the boys’ team in high school.  Luis Alejo also offered homage to Carina Moreno, a champion boxer and mixed martial arts fighter from his district.

Katie McCord from Assemblywoman Bonilla’s office reported the resolution was passed by a vote of 71-0.  Of the 80 members of the Assembly, 68 sought to co-author the resolution.   Mr. Norby, in turn, must now face the electorate of the 65^th Assembly District, who will be voting on June 5.  His opponent, Fullerton (Calif.) mayor, Sharon Quirk-Silva commented “As someone who benefited from Title IX as a high school athlete and has witnessed the transformation of women’s access to sports over the past generation, I am struck by how out of touch Mr. Norby appears to be on this issue.”  The affront to Chastain and Sissi may turn out to be an affront to the constituents who Norby represents.

Regardless of the outcome of that race, the one to fulfill the mandate of Title IX cannot be taken for granted.  If even the most powerful women can still be blindsided in the manner that occurred in California’s lower house, there is work to be done.  And Title IX must be around to help ensure that the work continues.

Kindest regards – Ellen

Ellen J. Staurowsky, Ed.D., Professor, Department of Sport Management, Drexel University, ejs95@drexel.edu

Julie Foudy, ESPN broadcaster, Title IX

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