Keeping the balance in Coaching: Do women’s athletics teams need more women coaches?

Here is a question for you– do you think that as a whole, we need to have more women coaches coaching women? I have to say yes for several reasons. I am always interested in following what is going on in the sports industry, and I came across this article from USA Today that discusses the issue of how there are not that many women coaches coaching women teams since Title XI came into play.

This doesn’t surprise me– because this was the time that more men starting coaching women’s teams. So, the question is– is this a good thing? You have to really look at the entire picture. First, you can clearly see the rise of athletics among females today. It seems like an absolute given that a girl participates in a team or individual sport. It is a great opportunity for women to succeed and get scholarships to college.

But, you also have to look at the coaching situation as well. I have posted several times about the issues dealing with “honeybuns” and PR Nightmare coaches. The PR Nightmare coaches that I have discussed have all either been part of a sexual harassment suit (Dorrance & Thomas), or they have “resigned” from their teams. You have to wonder why some of these men only coach women, and not men. Is it because they love the sport– hmmm…..maybe…. but probably not the main reason. Some coaches are there to try to get the athletes to become better on and off the field, but there are those out there that feel like this is an opportunity to “bond” with their athletes– which I think is an absolute no-no.

The main problem that female athletes who say “no” to their coaches are running into is the fact that they are going up against female athletes who say “yes” (aka honeybuns). Besides the use of steroids, I believe that the issue of honeybuns is one of the biggest problems facing the athletic community.

These are just some of the things that we have to think about and consider when looking at this issue. Anyway, I just thought that this was an interesting article. Hope all is going well and have a great day.

Best Wishes,

Karen 🙂