A Generation After Title IX, Too Many Female Coaches Still Benched
Only 500 meters stood between Amanda Trotter and an NCAA championship. As she covered the frozen golf course used for the 2003 Division I Cross-Country Championship in Waterloo, Iowa, I sprinted along behind the rows of spectators lining the course, catching glimpses of her as often as I could between the heads of the screaming fans, willing her toward the finish line. The hundreds of miles covered during the course of the season had culminated in just 20 minutes in sub-freezing temperatures, and now it was all down to her. Although she didn't know the exact score, she knew that the difference between her and BYU's fifth runner would be crucial. Would she be grasping the shoulders of the teammates next to her as the trophy was held aloft or rehashing an opportunity lost over Thanksgiving dinner? The result remained unknown as she still had plenty of ground to cover.
In the 33 years since Title IX became law, steadily swelling numbers of women have known these moments, basking in the public attention and glory once reserved solely for their male counterparts. Today, most Division I collegiate athletes will spend more time with the coaches in their sport than they will with any professor. As colleges and universities grapple with ways to broaden and strengthen the pool of female instructors and academic leaders in their halls of learning, the 25th anniversary of the NCAA's sponsorship of women's championships provides an appropriate occasion to look at the coaching profession, whose members' constant interaction with student-athletes results in daily role-modeling for their young charges. Amanda had the NCAA championship all but by its tail and still the hardest yards remained ahead. Likewise, the women who pursue coaching at the Division I level have an abundance of athletes to coach, yet many face a professional finish line that continues to elude them.
Tradition begets tradition in college athletics, just as in the world of academic prestige. Success makes the recruitment of tomorrow's heroes easier, regardless of cost, distance or other challenges. Stanford has traditionally enjoyed favor in both academics and athletics, and for this reason (among others), it can field nationally competitive teams in almost every sport. That cold day in Iowa, I counted it a privilege to have shared in the achievements of these students-athletes as they became the latest iteration of a tradition of excellence, that I was on duty when they had their chance to shine.
Only afterwards did I remember I was a woman.
A few days after our return to the warmth of Palo Alto, somebody speculated to me that our victory marked only the second time a woman of color had ever been at the helm of an NCAA Division I team championship in any sport (Carolyn Peck, Purdue basketball, 1999, was the other). Cross-country and track and field are limbs from the same tree, so I quickly realized that was not true, as both Bev Kearney of Texas and Jeanette Bolden of UCLA have won multiple titles in track and field. Plenty of other women, minority or otherwise, I concluded, must be winning championships left and right. More than two years later, having made the decision to leave coaching at Stanford for a life with the scale tipped more decisively toward my family, and thus having the luxury to be able to consider these issues in more depth, I still am looking for this overwhelming wave of women coaches.
Of the 20 all-female and co-ed sports whose championships are fully sponsored by the NCAA, only seven have more than 50 percent women in their head coaching ranks at the Division I level. Since 1995-96, that list has added only one sport (bowling) and its modest sponsorship of 20 schools. The sports that have featured the largest numbers of female head coaches remain strong, but others still have a great distance to go to remove their glass ceilings. Through December 2005, six sports, including volleyball and swimming, have never crowned a team champion with a female head coach. Soccer has had only one, tennis and rifle one each with multiple titles. As for cross-country, our title in 2003 represents only the third in that sport for a female head coach.
Between 1995-96, my senior year at Stanford, and 2003-04, not one sport of the 20 increased its percentage of female head coaches more than 10%, and several actually decreased their percentages of female head coaches during this time.
Women in Intercollegiate Sport, a Longitudinal, National Study, by Linda Jean Carpenter and R. Vivian Acosta of Brooklyn College, includes additional disturbing revelations. Women are participating in both fully sponsored and "emerging" NCAA sports at the collegiate level in unprecedented numbers. However, the percentage of female head coaches overall is at its lowest level in 30 years (43.9 percent at the Division I level for both fully sponsored and emerging sports), and there is a clear statistical connection between the presence/absence of female administrators and the number of female coaches within their departments.
Many great coaches have not had the good fortune needed to win championships, and a look at the championships that are won tells us more about brilliance of great athletes than anything else. However, these numbers should also lead us to a discussion of access--access to the most desirable and prestigious appointments and their attendant salaries, the best athletes and facilities, the most reliable institutional support and the greatest respect among their peers. If we as a society reject the idea that women are not able to coach other women effectively, and if an entire generation has come of age as competitors and potential professionals at the highest levels of female athletic achievement in history, why are so few women present in this role for our current generation of Title IX beneficiaries?
For me, access was the most obvious and valuable currency I enjoyed. I had access to some of the nation's finest high school athletes in our recruiting pool, access to an assistantship in a storied program and a virtuoso mentor in my head coach. After first convincing me to try coaching, he gave me sound athletic templates from which to learn, meaningful roles on the staff and space to gain credibility with the athletes. He forced me to involve myself within the coaching community so that when the time came for him to advance his own career and move on, I was left with a host of valuable colleagues and connections. I had an athletic director who wholeheartedly supported my promotion, who was actively involved in the future of our program and whose door had always been open to me since I was a student. Even many male coaches do not enjoy these advantages, but rarer still is this type of encouragement for a woman to succeed in big-time athletics. The gatekeepers at Stanford gave me the keys, fully conscious of the impact my gender could make. I was not only given an entry level opportunity, but was groomed specifically for a position at the most prestigious level.
Someday I will need to explain to my two daughters, as I did to each of the women I coached, why I chose to step down from what I consider to be the most desirable job in my field. Am I sending exactly the wrong message by "giving in" to the challenges I faced in making it all work? Perhaps some will think that I have squandered my chance as well as the opportunity to lay groundwork for others. Does the current structure of our jobs make it more difficult for women (and men) with young families to traverse these years successfully with an upward career trajectory still intact? Absolutely, and any discussion of increasing the numbers of females in coaching would be incomplete without a full examination of the factors in play. But before we can make substantive changes, we must first agree that the goals remain beyond our grasp and that they are worth the effort.
I remain convinced that among the hundreds of student-athletes I have met over the course of my journey in coaching, many would be brilliant coaches, daily mentors, teachers of sport and life to the generation of athletes just now breaking in their first pair of running shoes, soccer cleats or competition swimsuits. Who among them will end up not making a difference in her sphere of influence because no one thought to give her the keys of access? Which student-athletes will miss out on a fantastic coach because that potential coach never thought of the profession as an appealing career direction?
Change will not happen automatically. We will need the conscious and tangible commitment of people with the power and access to unlock the doors so that more can enter. As we celebrate the 25th year of NCAA championships for women, let us also consider the thrill of the moment experienced by Amanda Trotter on that sub-freezing day in Waterloo, Iowa. Now imagine the quality and durability of its resonance as it reaches the ears of all those who hope to follow in her footsteps.
Dena Evans coached in the Stanford cross country / track & field programs from 1999-2005. She was named Division I Women's Cross Country Coach of the Year as Stanford won the 2003 NCAA championship, her first season as head women's cross country coach.On Tuesday, May 30th, Stanford's Center on Ethics, along with the Bay Area Women's Sports Initiative and Stanford Athletics, are co-sponsoring a one day conference entitled Work, Family, Excellence, and the Female Coach. For more information and online registration, please visit:
http://ethics.stanford.edu/workfamily.htm.