In Part I of the ‘supports’ series I discussed that continuing education opportunities are key for professional development and developing confidence. Supports can exist at many levels. There are things that women can do for themselves to support and bolster their careers, and this is the primary focus of Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In.  Colleague and fellow Women in Coaching blogger Ellen Staurowsky posted her thoughts on how Lean In applied to women in coaching, which is a great read. Sandberg’s premise it to provide strategies and advice for women on how to minimize or eliminate internal barriers that limit women from gaining power and erode their confidence. The focus is on what women can control for themselves.

An individual level focus is important while also keeping in mind that many of the barriers women face like organizational policy (i.e., children can’t travel with the team) and societal norms about gender and leadership (i.e., what is looks like to be a leader is aligned with characteristics of masculinity) also exist, but are harder to change. Therefore Sandberg invites women to Lean In, think about, and focus on what they can do ot support themselves and their careers.

One of Sandberg’s tips is “don’t leave before you leave” which came up in a recent conversation but is typical of what I hear from young female coaches. This young woman is kind, bright, hard working, motivated and currently a Director of Operations for a D-I basketball team. She is exactly they type of female we need and want to keep in coaching or sport administration. I asked her what her next career move would be as it is soon time for her to move up/on. She said she wasn’t sure but that she “didn’t want to live the lifestyle of a head coach” and that it was “too time consuming” and it would “prevent her from someday having a family.”

I had just finished Lean In, and thought: she is leaving before she leaves! I asked her to think about how she would manage being a head coach differently in a way that might work for her and her vision of a family, rather than reproduce what she was seeing from the current head coach. I asked her how would she know is she could balance work-life if she didn’t try it first!? Following, she stated she “didn’t have the right personality” to be a good head coach. I asked her what that meant to her. She paused and didn’t really have an answer, but thought a head coach should be loud, extroverted and commanding. I asked her is these qualities were the kind of personality she liked in a coach as a former player. She said NO. I then asked her what kind of personalities traits and qualities it takes to be a good head coach. She listed being knowledgeable, caring about athletes, good communication, managing staff, and have a solid philosophy among other things. I asked her then if she had those qualities, and she said YES. I then invited her to think about considering staying in coaching and coaching in a way that fit her personality and style, rather leaving the profession before she really got her feet wet. We ended the conversation talking about not leaving coaching before she leaves, and to try on some more roles before she makes such a life changing decision. I assured her she could be a great head coach and to stay in the game.

A week later, I got an email from her thanking me for talking with her and “making her think” and that she is going to lean into her own career and consider our conversation. For aspiring young females who want to get into coaching, it doesn’t have to look exactly like what you see. Be the kind of coach you want to be, be you!

In past blogs I’ve written about the barriers female coaches at all levels face in pursuing, maintaining and thriving in their careers (read barriers Part I and Part II). It is important for women to know and understand the many barriers they face, so they don’t feel alone, isolated, or blame themselves when barriers arise. Knowledge of barriers can help women understand the system of marginalization many of them face, so they can develop strategies, coping and support systems to combat them.

In my next series of blogs, I’m going to share evidence-based information about key things that help and support female coaches.

The most common support female coaches cite is feeling they possess adequate knowledge and skills to perform their job. This knowledge is acquired through formal educational means, coaching work shops, mentorship or by experience. When female coaches believe they are competent, they also feel more confident and are more likely to stay in the profession. Every human being, regardless of gender, persists in things she feels competent to do and will avoid or quit something in which she feels incompetent.

One study found that female coaches compared to male coaching peers were more likely to have earned an undergraduate degree or higher, and accrued elite level competitive experience…meaning they are highly competent and possess a high degree of educational and athletic capital. But women often to not perceive they possess adequate knowledge, when they do!

Female coaches also state that attending all-female coaching clinics run by an all-female staff is highly beneficial to helping them develop confidence, knowledge, and skills—not to mention it is a great opportunity to network and find support. The Alliance of Women Coaches is a great organization that helps support female coaches and eliminates many of the barriers that impede and limit women who coach.

Coaching at the elite college level can be a lucrative career.

However, coaching is more lucrative for some groups than others ―bigger schools, coaches of men’s teams, coaches of high profile sports, and arguably men in general.

NCAA IA head coaches ($297,412) make much more than their NCAA II ($40,303), and NCAA III counterparts ($29,201) (Equity in Athletic Data Analysis [EADA], 2011)

Based on this data, NCAA IA head coaches make considerably more than the average U.S. citizen (US Census Bureau reports the median household income in 2012 was $50,054).

NCAA Division-IA coaches of men’s teams ($462,718) (most all of whom are male) get paid on average much more than coaches of women’s teams ($132,106) (57.7% of whom are male, Acosta & Carpenter, 2012).

Additionally coaches of some sports get paid much more. For example, based on publicly available data (*minus Northwestern & Penn State), the average salary for BIG 10 head coaches of men’s football ($2.27 million) and men’s basketball ($1.91 million) are muchhigher than for women’s basketball ($365,455) and volleyball ($155,820)…not to mention other sports!

Downloadable Poster on Economic Inequality & Female Coaches (LaVoi, 2013)

Here is the point…

College coaching is  lucrative for both men and women, yet many women fail to envision coaching as a possible career pathway and face many barriers to access and maintain their coaching careers which can result in impeded and limited economic earning potential.  Overall, women are under-represented in all coaching positions, and have limited access to coach men’s teams―the most lucrative positions in college sport.

One solution?: Females should apply for coaching jobs of male teams!

Over the course of the last year I have heard a number of accounts from female coaches about their experiences with (mostly male) referees. In short, female coaches in a variety of different sports, feel they are treated differently by referees.

For example, many female coaches have told me they say one thing such as, “Hey Ref, watch the hands” and get carded or given a technical foul, while their male counterpart down the sideline says the same thing and the Ref doesn’t even blink. One college soccer coach told me she swore about something on the field, not even about or to the Ref, and the sideline Ref turned around and told her that she was not being a good role model for her players…meanwhile the male coach of the other team is swearing a blue streak with no comment from the Ref.

Based on the experiences of female coaches I’ve spoke with, here is what I can summarize–In comparison to male colleague female coaches:

•  get penalized harsher
•  get penalized quicker
•  get penalized for less
•  get reprimanded or lectured to by referees
•  are talked down to in a very condescending manner by referees
•  are more often treated rudely by referees

Are these situations consistent with your experiences? Are there others I have missed? If so, I’d like to hear about it as I am beginning a new research project on this topic to bring awareness to this issue in order to create change.

KEY POINT:  what these female coaches are experiencing is good old fashioned sexism….one of the many barriers that female coaches face in the workplace (which I’ve written about previously here and here). I will be writing more about this topic in the future so stay tuned…but in the meantime, if you have a good example, send it to me at nmlavoi@umn.edu (don’t worry I won’t post it here, you’ll remain anonymous).

This fall at the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport we focused our fall Distinguished Lecture on the topic of gender and sport leadership. Specifically we invited two renown sport management scholars, Dr. Janet Fink (UMass Amherst) and Dr. Sally Shaw (U of Otago, New Zealand) to flush out why the numbers of women sport leaders is declining in the US, and why women in other countries have failed to ascend to positions of power. Their insights are compelling and thought provoking.

You can view the entire lecture for free online.

Female coaches at all levels face many complex barriers that prevent and impede them from thriving and surviving in the sport landscape.  This remains true 40 years after the passage of Title IX.

Read more about Socio-Cultural barriers and the full length “Part III” blog by clicking here.

One way females can gain power and become a critical mass in sport  is by joining the Alliance of Women Coaches.

Good coaching is good coaching, regardless of athlete gender.

Male and female athletes are much more similar than they are different. There is just as much variability within females and within males, than between males and females. Despite the popular Mars/Venus perspective that females and males are vastly and inherently different, psychological research has not proven this true (see APA keynote from Janet Hyde titled “The Gender Similarity Hypothesis”).

Similarly, despite widespread opinions, anecdotes, quotes from famous coaches (i.e. Anson Dorrance), and popular press “coaching girls” books that are not evidence-based, research in coaching science and sport psychology does not support the idea that coaching males and females is different….

To read the full blog post Click HERE.

With March Madness and basketball on the minds of many, I thought I’d provide a “by the numbers” analysis of coaches of women’s basketball.

To see the stats and read the analysis and full blog CLICK HERE.

Today I will discuss two additional barriers identified in the literature faced and navigated by many female coaches. (for Part 1 click here)

1. Lack of perceived competence. Despite possessing a great deal of professional, athletic and social capital, many women feel they lack athletic or coaching experience, knowledge, and sports or management skills and therefore do not enter coaching. This is true at all levels of competition. In one research study we talked to women who had played D-I soccer and had kids in soccer, why they did not coach their child(ren) in youth soccer. Many felt they were not competent enough or lacked the qualifications to coach! When probed about the qualifications of their child’s current coach, many would laugh and say s/he (mostly “he” however, as less than 20% of youth sport coaches are female) had no clue what they were doing! One woman said it best, “Well most men haven’t played soccer but they read a book and feel qualified!” The lack of perceived competence also stems from societal stereotypes that many women internalize.  In many studies researchers cite  in general people believe that male leaders in any context are more competent than females, and sport coaching is no exception. Therefore, to be a qualified coach, means to be a male or adopt leadership behaviors associated with male coaches and/or masculinity.

STRATEGY: Ask women to coach or to apply for coaching jobs...and that means jobs for coaching boys and men too! Point out to women they indeed DO possess a lot of coaching knowledge. In conversations I’ve had with women, I list the many bodies of knowledge and expertise they have (e.g., parenting, work, community organizing) and how those skills  can be applied to coaching. In nearly all cases they tell me they had never thought of it that way and started to think about coaching as a possibility. In fact after such a conversation, one of my college teammates (tennis) who had been a teaching pro for 5yrs right out of college, immediately started giving tennis lessons to her daughters and other kids in her community. At the college level, we also need to advise, encourage and teach young women to apply to jobs to coaching men.

2. Lack of support from partner. Again at all levels of competition and at all ages, women consistently cite a lack of support from a partner as a barrier to entering or staying in coaching. Navigating the “mother-worker-coach” role triad or the “worker-coach” proves to be very challenging for women when little support from a partner exists. (I use the term “worker” to include work conducted both inside and outside the home. Gloria Steinem argues domestic labor done mosty by women in the home should be valued and therefore counted in our GDP). While male coaches with females partners benefit from support at home, the reverse is often not true. Females in US society are still primarily responsible for domestic and child caring duties, therefore when faced with adding a coach role to an already full plate, the idea of coaching is daunting. This is also true for women who are contemplating having children. Adding the mother role, often forces many women to choose between maintaining their role as a coach with limited support at home, or quitting their coaching careers to raise children.  To my knowledge no researchers to date have investigated this barrier and its implications for gay and lesbian coaches.

STRATEGY: Discuss, advocate for, and demand equal (or close to equal) domestic labor in the home with current or potential life partner. Most men do not have to “choose” between a career, and/or fatherhood and/or coaching!

One of my primary areas of research pertains to the many layers of barriers that influences the scarcity of female coaches at all levels. Given the percentage of female head coaches coaching females BARELY moved (in 2010 is was 42.6%, in 2012 it is 42.9%) in the most recent update of Acosta & Carpenter’s Women in Intercollegiate Sport (2012), increasing awareness of the complexity of barriers is important. When I do coach workshops I often hear from women they feel isolated, uncertain and perhaps discriminated against. They also feel helpless to create change, which often leads to burnout, lack of enjoyment and job satisfaction, and perhaps quitting coaching altogether.

In my series of blogs in 2012 (1st Monday of each month), I will outline a few different barriers so female coaches have increased awareness of the issues they may face, so that individual, social and organizational strategies to combat those barriers can be developed and implemented. At minimum, some female coaches won’t feel they are alone in experiencing and battling these barriers, which may provide some sense of comfort and support.

1. A great piece on espn.com covered the implications of homophobia and negative recruiting that plague women’s athletics and particularly women’s basketball. I thought this piece was very well done and lays out the complexities of the issue and how it may detract females, regardless of sexual orientation, from entering and staying in coaching, as I had wrote about in a previous blog.

STRATEGY: Do not tolerate or participate in negative recruiting or disparaging remarks about lesbians. For example, when I coached at Wellesley College, and all women’s institution, I experienced gender stereotyping and negative recruiting all the time. As a young, naive, recently married coach I didn’t recognize it for what it was. Parents would often say to me, “What kind of players do you have on your team, because we heard there are a lot of lesbians here.” The parents wanted me to reassure them this was not the case, so their daughter would be “safe” coming to Wellesley (i.e., not be surrounded by lesbian teammates and a lesbian coach). Once I learned about the insidious practice of negative recruiting, I would simply say to the parents, “If you are concerned that your daughter is going to be exposed to lesbians in college, then perhaps college is not for her, and particularly Wellesley, as we value diversity here.” Enough said. Ask your lesbian colleagues how you can help fight negative recruiting.

2. A job posted in Jan 2011 in the NCAA Job Market by Rhodes College for a “Assistant Football Coach & Assistant Softball Coach” is a somewhat unusual combination. However, what is more unusual and ridiculous is the job description which states, “Bachelor’s Degree required. Must have served as a high school and/or college football coach, and be able to (learn and) coach softball.” LEARN softball?! It is a college coaching position! How would you like to be the women on that softball team? Would a job posting ever read like this, “Bachelor’s Degree required. Must have served as a high school and/or college softball coach, and be able to (learn and) coach football”?  This example highlights how certain sports (in this case football) are valued over others on this particular campus, but reflects the sentiment on many other campuses. A majority of female coaches often cite feeling devalued and not supported by their administration.

STRATEGY: Fight for and suggest equal visual representation of male and female athletes and coaches in all media (print, website) and in the athletic facility.

I’ve offered one strategy for each barrier, but there are many more! I’d love to hear what you do to combat barriers so that everyone can benefit and feel supported.