Female coaches... where are they?

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Playmaker38

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With so many female players, there is a huge disparity in the number of female coaches. Have any of your DD’s expressed any interest in coaching once they’re finished playing? Anyone with any insight into why more girls don’t get into coaching?
 
Thank you for posting this. I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Seems that female coaches are out there, but they only last a season or 2. It’s baffling as to why there aren’t a lot more. Many are young and recently finished their college playing careers.
Is it an “old boys network” that keeps them down?
 
It’s a question many of the parents I know ask continuously. It hope to see more women in coaching. I have theories but could it be proportional to the number females who are involved in the game after college?
 
Or maybe it is just that men and women are different. Men receive a vicarious competitive pleasure of controlling a team to victory that women do not get as much or find elsewhere. It is probably the same reason that video games are more appealing to men than women. It is a way to express dominance at an age where your body can no longer keep up. It lets men relive past glories and feed off the energy of youth. Have you met a woman that has spent over a 100 hours taking a team from 3rd division all the way to premier and start a 20 year dynasty through meticulous and effective coaching, management and scouting..... in FIFA 18 the video game? I'm not saying that men are better or anything, this mentality can be both a gift and a curse.
 
An all girls club, run by all women would be something I would sign my kid up for in an instant. (Pending they aren’t complete fools)
 
There should be more women coaches it is an interesting occurrence that there are so few. I would love to know the reason why there are so few. I hope they aren't being frozen out and if so like timbuck says do an all girl club with female coaches
 
Family? We just lost 3 coaches this year and two the previous year because of wanting or starting a family, job move, getting married. I think most women don't look at this as a career, which I completely understand. It is super tough to be a good mom and a coach, that is just the honest truth.
 
Socal United said:
Family? We just lost 3 coaches this year and two the previous year because of wanting or starting a family, job move, getting married. I think most women don't look at this as a career, which I completely understand. It is super tough to be a good mom and a coach, that is just the honest truth.
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This may be part of it. Or put another way, successful women who were prior successful players may have higher aspirations (or morals) than the so called "track suit" guys. That being said, I've known plenty of great female coaches that have lasted quite a awhile.
 
I think family is the main reason. Women are still generally the primary caretakers of children and coaching for most isn’t an attractive pay/family balance option as a career choice. The vast majority of female coaches I know across multiple sports are either before/without marriage and kids or just coach their own kids’ teams.
It would be nice to see more at all levels!
 
My daughter has guest played for a female coach while her current coaches are male. Makes no difference. If you are good you are good.
 
Not sure what is so "baffling" about it. Why not break down your own response and I think you will find your answer. Yes, there are many young women who have recently finished their college playing careers along with completing their academic career which means that they not only learned to play and love the game but also learned how to earn a living which now gives them options. Yes they can choose to go into coaching or they can pursue a career in their chosen field. In my opinion, my girls have two options, utilize the skill set developed over many years of team sports, like club soccer, to navigate her way through the business minefield and up the corporate ladder learning to deal with those competitive sharks and a-holes. Or they can slum and go into coaching and deal with real scum. Put yourself in their place, these are strong, young, intelligent women and they are smart enough to know that coaching is mostly a dead end for them. How would that same young woman enjoy working under a bunch of stiff dicks that are less skilled, less accomplished and less educated but think that they are the sh*t because they assist at a local high school or played on the community college team?
 
Our Club (CDA SLAMMERS FC - Whittier) has one of the only Female DOCs that I know. Working with her as one of the other directors there I know that trying to add female coaches is always something we're trying to do. But it's easier said than done. There's just not nearly as many available. Of 22 or so total coaches we only have 4. But I can definitely tell you from a directors standpoint our female coaches perform just as well as the male coaches do. We just don't get the numbers to be able to add more.
 
For the last three years, my older daughter's team has had a male coach, but he hires a female trainer to run the sessions and the drills. It worked out great until she moved on to coach at the collegiate level. She was single with no kids, so perhaps that is why she sticks with the coaching.

The coach has now brought in another female trainer along with a few male trainers that rotate.

Her HS varsity coach is also female.

My youngest daughter's assistant coach is also female.

I don't see too many of them, but we've only been in club soccer for about 5 or 6 years. They are out there, but not too many of them.
 
There does seem to be quite a few females that do private training.
They don’t pick up a team for one or more of the following reasons:
1. They can’t dedicate every weekend to coaching. They are either working a job that requires weekend work or would prefer to spend time with family.
2. They prefer the flexibility of private training and can set their own schedule.
3. They prefer the under-the-table cash of private training vs the 1099 of coaching.
4. They don’t want to deal with parents.
5. They don’t want to deal with club politics. As a new coach, unless they are bringing a team over, they’ll be working with lower level / lower age group teams. And then have their best players plucked away by the coach who has the higher team.
6. As mentioned above- they have higher aspirations. And probably parental expectations. “You went to Standford for 4 years and now your just running around with 9 year olds on a soccer field? You need to get a real job, with benefits and move out of our house”
 
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LASoccerMom said:
This article talks about women coaching D1 basketball. It had stayed with me.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/30/sports/ncaabasketball/coaches-women-title-ix.html

A few years ago I witnessed several coaches run a run a round robin at the end of practice their littles practices. The one woman coach kept the teams moving while the four men coaches looked at their phones. She is not coaching any more.
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Aren’t they looking at their “coaching app?” That is what I was told by the club’s DOC when I mentioned that issue about a coach.
 
Playmaker38 said:
With so many female players, there is a huge disparity in the number of female coaches. Have any of your DD’s expressed any interest in coaching once they’re finished playing? Anyone with any insight into why more girls don’t get into coaching?
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interesting topic and a book someone mentioned on a different thread goes into detail about this subject. ("How College Athletics are Hurting Girls' Sports the pay-to-play pipeline"), no real answers there either, just a lot of thoughts but, now with Title IX, there's even fewer women coaches and the numbers are getting worse. Interesting read and while I don't agree with a lot in the book, it appears it is a "male dominated" sport when it comes to coaching and the good ol boy's network, I had to laugh as they talked about this and even mentioned, if you have an accent and you're male it's a huge plus as a coach.
 
Overlap said:
interesting topic and a book someone mentioned on a different thread goes into detail about this subject. ("How College Athletics are Hurting Girls' Sports the pay-to-play pipeline"), no real answers there either, just a lot of thoughts but, now with Title IX, there's even fewer women coaches and the numbers are getting worse. Interesting read and while I don't agree with a lot in the book, it appears it is a "male dominated" sport when it comes to coaching and the good ol boy's network, I had to laugh as they talked about this and even mentioned, if you have an accent and you're male it's a huge plus as a coach.
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Pure anecdote, that I doubt is accurate. Show us the women being turned down, or turned out to coach girls. Never seen it, and doubt it exists to any great extent. Most clubs I know are looking for women coaches, not the opposite.
 
coachrefparent said:
Pure anecdote, that I doubt is accurate. Show us the women being turned down, or turned out to coach girls. Never seen it, and doubt it exists to any great extent. Most clubs I know are looking for women coaches, not the opposite.
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But are they genuinely looking for them to take up higher positions in the club? Or is it tokenistic? From the few women I have seen coaching they are mostly in the juniors programs. Head out to tournaments like surf cup and Silverlakes with hundreds of “high” level girls teams in the one place and it is a ghost town for female coaches.

Maybe there are in roads to coaching but also dead end roads to advancement?
 
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