UPDATED 

Greater Female Sports Participation ...

There is widespread support for the idea that since the passage of Title IX in 1972 the fate of girls and women in school sports has greatly improved. Participation figures alone show a mass societal shift in acceptance of female athletes. At all levels, from community through professional leagues, female athletes are participating in greater numbers and in a greater variety of sports than ever before.

The magnitude of progress can be measured in the growth of opportunities available for female athletes. Nearly 40% of all athletes participating in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece were women. The team from the United States in the 2004 Games came ever closer to gender parity, with 282 men and 263 women representing the nation.

According to the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFSHSA), participation among females in varsity sports nationwide has grown from 300,000 in 1972 to over 2.9 million during the academic year 2004-2005. This represents an 800 percent increase in participation in the span of three decades. At the college level, female participation in varsity sports has risen from 30,000 to almost 151,000 between 1971-1972 and 2003-2004.

Linda Carpenter and Vivian Acosta, former physical educators and coaches who have studied trends in women coaching and athletic administration for several decades, attribute the massive increase in participation to the convergence of several factors, including:

• A generation of females who grew up with the advantages of Title IX and whose daughters now represent the second generation of Title IX beneficiaries;
• A long line of successful Title IX lawsuits that clarified the need for girls and women to receive athletic opportunities;
• Society's greater acceptance of female athleticism;
• More frequent exposure of female athletes in mass media;
• The provision of fuller access to athletics for both females and males within the nation's schools.

... But Declining Number of Coaches & Administrators

Against the backdrop of this phenomenal rate of growth in female sport participation, a persistent decline in women coaches and athletic administrators is at once noteworthy and troubling. Compared to the early 1970s, when roughly 90% of the coaches and administrators of female teams were women, women in the year 2004 at the college level occupied:

• Less than 45% of the head coaching positions for women's teams [update: according to Carpenter and Acosta, the percentage in 2012 was 42.9%];
• Less than 20% of the head coaching positions at the college level overall [update: Carpenter & Acosta report that the percentage was about the same in 2012];
• Less than 2% of the head coaches of men's teams [update: the percentage was 2% to 3% in 2012], and;
• Less than 19% of athletic director positions [update: the percentage crept up to 20.3% in 2012, according to Carpenter and Acosta].

The representation of women coaches in the Olympics is equally sparse. For the 1996 and 2000 Summer Games in Atlanta and Sydney, "roughly 20 percent of the NGB [National Governing Body] designated head coaches and assistant coaches were women" while the representation of women in coaching in the Winter Games has been far less.

As researchers at Penn State point out, "the basic fact of the decline is surprising given that the pool of prospective women coaches - among women student-athletes - has expanded over 10 fold since the passage of Title IX in 1972"

Reasons for Decline

1. Discriminatory hiring practices ("old boy network")

In an era when girls and women in sport have never had it so good, what accounts for the disappearance of women from leadership roles in sport? The steady disappearance from the coaching and athletic director ranks is the result of a combination of forces. For full time coaches at the college level, there is general agreement that sex discriminatory hiring and personnel practices have contributed to the problem.

At one level, once coaching positions for female teams became more lucrative, male administrators sought to hire coaches and other administrators who fit in with their vision of what people in the athletic workplace should look and act like. In other words, in a system dominated by what has been called "the old boys network", male administrators have historically been inclined to hire other men.

Evidence of this expectation can be found in the adjustment women high school athletic directors have had to make in order to be successful in a male-dominated profession. As Washington Post writer, Eli Saslow reported in October 2005, "Women, it seems, can become high school athletic directors - so long as they sometimes act like men". Among the conscious choices female athletic directors made in altering their demeanor and mannerisms, one explained that she learned to speak loudly and forcefully "to be heard in male dominated meetings", another coached two boys sports and sought to become an expert in male sports culture, while a third worked to get into even better shape so that she was not perceived as a "weak female"

A 2005 study of women coaches and administrators also found that sex stereotyping of coaches, where males are perceived to be more competent and authoritative, does not just occur among male administrators but also among female athletes themselves. There is speculation that because female athletes rarely experience the presence of female coaches in the athletic environment, they have become accustomed to associating the coaching profession with men.

2. Excessive Hours

As powerful as sex discriminatory practices are in creating an environment where women coaches are in the minority, sex discrimination by itself does not account entirely for the downward spiral of women in coaching and administration. Workloads for coaches have been described as "excessive" because they work hours "far above the averages for women or men in other occupations." Further, the athletic workplace has been described as being family unfriendly, among the slowest to adopt polices that would assist coaches in balancing the demands of work and family.

3. Racism and Homophobia

These issues appear to be compounded by both race and sexual orientation. According to a 2005 study, "student athletes of color are being lost in the pipeline to coaching at about twice the rate of white student-athletes." Similarly, lesbian women report experiencing substantial discrimination in both hiring and in the treatment they receive if hired.

Strategies To Get More Women Into Coaching

1. The Sex Segregated Sport System Needs A Sex Integrated Workforce. One of the lasting legacies of thinking about sport in sex-segregated terms is that it has artificially created a work environment where men are thought to be better suited for coaching and administrative careers. In point of fact, both coaching and athletic administration are non-gendered professions. If men can coach women and run athletic programs for both females and males, there is simply nothing that ought to be a barrier to women doing the same thing. School sport systems overall would benefit immensely by having a more inclusionary and diverse workforce.

2. Changing the Sport Culture At The Grassroots Level. One of the most powerful tools that could be employed in changing the way that coaching and athletic administration is perceived would be for more mothers to be coaching at the youth sport level. Just as fathers over the years have taken responsibility for their sons and daughters teams, mothers can be encouraged to do the same. The integration of coaching ranks at this level would plant a seed early in the minds of both girls and boys that women can coach, thus affecting their vision of how sport systems operate. Coaching competence and style would be associated with both women and men, not primarily with men.

3. Changing the Applicant Pool for Coaching & Administrative Positions in Schools. There has been much talk in recent years about the possibility of University of Tennessee women's basketball coach, Pat Summit, the owner of a .837 winning percentage and seven NCAA championships titles, taking over the men's program. Ms. Summit has declined invitations by campus administrators to take the job, electing instead to remain with the women's program. Whereas this is surely the right decision for Ms. Summit, more women need to begin to conceptualize the coaching profession as a sex-integrated profession rather than sex-segregated one. By doing so, they will gain access to more lucrative positions, will alter the assumptions used by administrators when they recruit coaches, and will alter the coaching environment overall.

4. Reform of the Coaching Profession As one recent study has documented, the coaching profession is among the most excessive in hours worked and the least accommodating in policies that would help balance work and family life. Reform in coaching would not only make the profession potentially more attractive to women, it would also be more hospitable to the men working in the field as well.

5. Continued Development of Recruitment Programs Targeting Female Athletes In recent years, several organizations have launched initiatives and programs to encourage female athletes to consider careers in coaching and to provide support for women aspiring to go into coaching and administration. Those programs include:

• The Snell Shillingford Women's Coaching Symposium [1] (named in honor of legendary Ursinus College coach and educator Eleanor Snell, and Ursinus alumna and former director of athletics and field hockey coach at Bryn Mawr College, Jennifer Shillingford) addresses the shortage of female coaches in sport.
• United States Women in Coaching Conference [2]. This conference was held with 34 coaches who participated in workshops designed to support women in coaching and to identify the areas where women coaches need support.
• Coaching Association of Canada's Women in Coaching Program [3]is an ongoing initiative to encourage women to pursue careers in coaching.
• NCAA Women Coaches Academy [4]. In an effort to provide more support and retain more women in coaching, the NCAA has been sponsoring these academies since 2003.
• Women's Sports Foundation - the Foundation has developed numerous resources to address issues pertaining to women coaching. One piece that might be particularly helpful is written by Dr. Donna Lopiano, Executive Director, entitled Recruiting, Retention, and Advancement of Women in Athletics. [5]
• The National Association for Girls and Women in Sport (NAGWS) [6] has extensive information regarding coaching certification programs. These include:
  • American Sport Education Program (ASEP)
  • Programs for Athletic Coaches' Education (PACE
  • Special Olympics
  • The Coaches Academy.

• The Race and Gender Report Card. An industry report card developed by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics [7] at the University of Central Florida under the direction of Dr. Richard Lapchick. This annual report card provides valuable information regarding the status of women and minorities in the sport workplace. [7]

• The Coaching and Gender Equity Project (CAGE). This project released a report on women in the coaching profession in August of 2005 with helpful information on how to recruit and retain women coaches. For more information click here [8].

Ellen Staurowsky is currently a Professor of Sport Management in the Center for Hospitality and Sports Management at Drexel University. At the time this article was originally published, Dr. Staurowsky was Graduate Program Chair in the Department of Sport Management & Media at Ithaca College.

The article has been updated to reflect new statistics on the percentage of women as coaches and athletic directors at the college level as reported by Acosta/Carpenter in their unpublished manuscript, "Women in Intercollegiate Sport. A Longitudinal, National Study, Thirty-Five Year Update. 1977-2012", which is available for download at www.acostacarpenter.org [9].

Updated June 2, 2015 

Teaser image: