Women Coaches Slowly Making Progress

July 24, 2015

Becky Hammon is an assistant coach with the San Antonio Spurs, a historical hiring for the NBA. This summer, she coached the Spurs team in Las Vegas to a championship. Of course, this generates much discussion on the issue of women coaching men's professional sports. Let's admit, many of us self-proclaimed enlightened and progressive mindful people of the world think this will not bring a rush to hire more female coaches. This is a process that will take years to happen, one baby step at a time.

The most viable reason to look for women coaches for men's athletics is the leadership and tactical abilities. Basketball is a logical choice for women to coach because of the commonality in soccer, hockey, volleyball, and semi-team sports of track, swimming, and water polo, etc. Female coaches in football and baseball are something that I don't see happening for a very long time. To manage a locker room of sixty men and coaching staff is challenging for any individual. There are instances where women were raised in football and baseball environments, and they might get a chance to coach up through the ranks.

The process of hiring more professional women coaches for men's sports will gain  steam when we find more at the lower levels, even managing the kids as young as six years old. A cross-gender coaching movement will push the cream to the top, and then we will notice more results. Along the way, attitudes and stereotypes will be abused, but slow progress will happen. Becky Hammon is the first NBA coach, but will she be the first head coach? It remains to be seen when Gregg Popovich retires if she is considered.

The number of women coaching men athletics at the collegiate level is minuscule, somewhere under three percent. High school has some female coaches, with the most heralded head coach being Natalie Randolph, who coached football in Washington DC. Increasingly, colleges do offer sports management degrees, so more avenues are being opened. This will address one of the problems, that being the candidate pool is small for females. Surprisingly, women only make up less than 45 percent of the coaches in collegiate women's sporting teams. Sports management will add more in due time because of the available resources, mentors, and the world becoming more accepting.