A Title IX Paradox: More Female Athletes but Fewer Coaches

When Title IX was passed 15 years ago, women flooded into locker rooms, onto playing fields and into sweat-soaked gymnasiums. They embraced this shining provision of the Education Amendments of 1972 that banned sex discrimination in schools receiving federal funds and opened doors to those bastions of male supremacy theretofore unstepped upon by female sneakers.

While femininity didn’t exactly take a back seat, it was suddenly OK for women to be serious athletes. And it was OK for men to coach them.

In fact, the burgeoning women’s programs needed male coaches. Experienced female coaches were in short supply and would be, so the theory went, until those burgeoning women’s programs produced them.

Somehow, the theory didn’t work.

Despite the gains women have made in other sports areas, the percentage of female coaches has been declining since 1972, when 90% of women’s athletic teams were being coached by women. Today, according to a study by two Brooklyn College professors, that number is 50% at the intercollegiate level.

In basketball, the most popular sport among female collegiate athletes, 61% of the coaches are women; down, from 65% in 1984. Cross-country and track, the fifth and sixth most popular, had 22% and 23% women coaches, respectively.

State-by-state figures compiled at the high school level by Susan True of the National Federation of State High School Athletic Assns. paint a slightly bleaker picture.

In 1984-85, the most recent year in which figures have been compiled, Alabama was first in percentage of women in coaching with 58%. Only six other states were at or above 50%, South Dakota and Montana had lows of 24%, and California ranked 28th with 39%.

In an ongoing study, Linda Carpenter and Vivian Acosta of Brooklyn College found that the main reasons for the decline of women in coaching are:

--The existence of an “old boys club” network through which male administrators are encouraged to hire their male colleagues.

--The absence of a similar “old girls club.”

--The lack of qualified female coaches and administrators, particularly in some sports.

--Unconscious discrimination in the selection process.

--Men’s perceptions about women’s willingness to travel and recruit and constraints placed upon them by family duties.

“We see women in sports as an endangered species,” said Christine Grant, women’s athletic director at the University of Iowa. “What’s happened to all these talented young participants ever since the early 1970s? Why aren’t they coaching? How come the trends are the way they are? Men are absolutely everywhere.”

In Iowa, where high school girls participate in athletics at a higher rate than in any other state, 25% of the coaches are women.

Said Grant: “We’ve done very well in promoting high school sports and giving opportunities to young girls. But I’m afraid on the number of coaches, we’ve done an absolutely abysmal job.”

It’s unlikely that states and universities would have done an abysmal job had Title IX not created a structure that made coaching in women’s athletics more attractive to men. Title IX also gave rise to a situation in which women have slowly disappeared from the administrative structure of women’s athletics.

Title IX provided a short-term boost to female athletic participants--those numbers went from 300,000 in 1972 to more than 1.8 million in 1986--but in its present form, it may spell long-term disaster. For women in coaching, the Title IX legacy is a tarnished one.

Title IX lost much of its punch in the 1984 Supreme Court ruling in Grove City vs. Bell that said, in effect, Title IX would be applied on a program-by-program basis. Since few athletic departments actually receive federal funding, they could sidestep Title IX if they so desired.

Most women’s sports activists have viewed the Grove City decision as a setback primarily for women participants, but if there are fewer participants, there will be a smaller pool of women coaches from which to draw.

Title IX, if not the direct cause, at least accelerated the demise of the Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women when the more powerful National Collegiate Athletic Assn. got into administering women’s athletics. The NCAA fought hard against Title IX, fearing that it would mandate an NCAA takeover of women’s athletics, which would divert funds from the lucrative men’s sports such as football and basketball.

But men’s and women’s programs continued to grow. So, the NCAA decided that if women’s athletics weren’t going to die, it would be best to keep an administrative eye on them. Enough schools agreed to make the switch from the AIAW to NCAA that the AIAW’s death in 1982 was inevitable.

There were advantages to the takeover. The NCAA was able to pay for teams traveling to national championships, something the AIAW couldn’t. It also allowed for more scholarships.

“I think one of the problems (behind the decline of women in coaching) is the women’s athletic movement is divided,” said Barbara Hedges, associate athletic director at USC. “It was split by the NCAA-AIAW merger. There were decisions made by women on both sides. I’m sure there was some frustration, and I think the wounds are only now being healed.”

Many universities interpreted Title IX to mean that men’s and women’s athletic programs could no longer be administered separately. When the departments merged, the men’s athletic director stayed in charge and the women’s athletic director became his assistant. At most institutions, the men stayed in the hiring position.

The “old boys club” was firmly planted in women’s athletics.

“When the athletic director is a male, and 84% of them are, it’s reasonable to expect that his associations are (with) other male athletic directors and male coaches,” said Donna Lopiano, women’s athletic director at the University of Texas. “Both in number and in terms of ease of contact, they are not going to be familiar with a pool of talented women. . . . The fact of the matter is, when you’re hiring a coach, you don’t go off of (resumes) . . . and applications, you talk to people you know or you hear about.”

Part of the problem with the old boys network is that some of its members are unconvinced that there are enough qualified female coaches. In the Carpenter-Acosta study, more male than female administrators attributed the decline of women in coaching to a lack of qualified women.

Based upon level of playing experience and field of training, however, women who coach girls are more qualified than men. A study done by Cynthia Hasbrook at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee shows that 73.8% of women who coach girls have intercollegiate playing experience and 75.3% were physical education majors, while 71.8% of men coaching girls have intercollegiate playing experience and only 46.1% were physical education majors.

In some sports, there are shortages of qualified women coaches. And, the priority in all athletics is to win. Judith Holland, women’s athletic director at UCLA, says world-class athletes demand world-class coaches.

“In Division I, everybody wants to win. I couldn’t blame that on the good old boys network,” Holland said. “I’m not a good old boy and I’ve hired men coaches.”

“I’m not going to go out and fire one of my (male) coaches (to hire a woman),” Hedges said. “That’s ridiculous. That’s wrong, too. And I’m not going to put in a (coaching) position someone who isn’t fully prepared. That’s just setting them up for failure. Our top priority has to be good coaching.”

Lopiano said that it’s particularly difficult to find top 10 female coaches for swimming and track and field.

“What we’ve had to do is say we will hire women at the assistant level,” Lopiano said. “All of our assistants must be women in an effort to get an affirmative action program going.”

Lopiano is not alone in instituting an affirmative action plan of sorts at the assistant coaching level. Both Holland and Hedges said they try to hire female assistants, particularly to work with male head coaches, and the Big Ten Conference has an affirmative action program at all levels.

“We need everybody at the university and high school level to make a commitment to seeking out women coaches,” Grant said.

“I know it is sometimes very time-consuming. It’s hard work to go out there and find qualified women and qualified administrators.”

In addition to being benefactors of a better network, men have more coaching experience.

“It’s very easy in looking for qualifications to stack the deck so you hire men even when they aren’t the best people,” said Margaret Dunkle, director of the Equality Center in Washington. “(Employers) ask, ‘Did you play high school and college sports, did you participate on the Olympic team?

“Those programs are available to more boys and young men than to girls and young women. If you make that a credential, you’re going to exclude a lot of women who could do the job very well.”

Coaching salaries for men’s and women’s athletics still are not equal, but women’s coaches make more than they used to. Some male coaches see women’s athletics as a stepping-stone to a men’s coaching job.

Rod Wilde, men’s volleyball coach at Pepperdine University, began his coaching career as head of the women’s team at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. “I knew all along (the women’s job) was an entry-level position for a men’s job, but I didn’t expect to come into one of the top programs so quickly.”

Leon Barmore, women’s basketball coach at Louisiana Tech in Ruston, La., also planned to make his stay in women’s athletics a short one.

“I originally thought I’d (coach the women) for just a couple of years,” Barmore said. “My first motivation was to get into men’s college basketball, but I didn’t expect to be so successful.”

The Lady Techsters won two national championships under the previous coach, Sonja Hogg, when Barmore was an assistant, and last March lost to Tennessee in the NCAA finals.

Female coaches also may be excluded by a perception that they would rather not travel because of their family. In the Carpenter-Acosta study, men listed time constraints due to family responsibilities as the No. 4 reason for the decline of women in coaching.

However, according to Hasbrook’s study, men are more likely than women to leave coaching out of concern that they are not fulfilling their family responsibilities.

But the same study shows that twice as many male as female coaches are married. With the demands of both a family and an athletic team, 52.4% of women coaches are choosing to stay single.

“A lot of people are going back to building a strong family,” said Debbie Williamson, an assistant women’s basketball coach at Southeastern Louisiana and former player at Louisiana Tech. “If you’re a coach, there isn’t a lot of time to do that. It’s hard for a woman to raise a family with the demands of recruiting. That thought has crossed my mind, ‘how am I going to shuffle things around?’ ”

Chris Gobrecht, a former women’s basketball player at USC and now coach at the University of Washington, shuffled things around last season by taking her infant son, Eric, on the road. It’s a balancing act few men coaches have to perform.

According to most women’s sports activists, the problem with the decline of women in coaching is not the presence of male coaches, but rather the lack of opportunities for women in coaching.

“As a young girl, how do you see yourself as a coach if there are no women?” said Barbara Eisenbarth, the consultant for sex equity for the Idaho State Department of Education. “When Title IX passed and the opportunities really opened up for women, we assumed that when these athletes stopped playing they’d go into coaching, but they haven’t exactly had the opportunity.”

Dunkle said: “It’s not discrimination in the short run. You aren’t depriving the students of good coaching; it’s closing doors to (women) in the long run. The women athletes have no place to go.

“From the student’s perspective, it’s a very subtle form of discrimination, like having a school with black students and white teachers. But if you also don’t have black teachers in that school, you’re sending a very specific message to those students.”

The message is that there are few female role models for young girls in athletics, mostly because few female athletes, outside golf and tennis, play as professionals. The top female athletes in sports such as basketball, swimming and track and field languish in anonymity most of the time.

The coach, then, becomes an important role model at every level.

“There are some great men coaching (women) on both a high school and a college level,” said Joan Bonvicini, women’s basketball coach at Cal State Long Beach. “But if there’s a good woman, you have a role model. Right now, there’s no real (professional) role model, someone you can continue to look at beyond college. So the girls coming up, they really look at the coach.”

Bonvicini’s path into coaching came through her own playing career at Southern Connecticut State College for Louise O’Neal, now the associate athletic director at Dartmouth. As a player, Bonvicini was an honorable mention All-American and a finalist for the 1976 Olympic team. As a coach, she has had her teams consistently in the Top 10 and last year reached the Final Four.

“I feel very fortunate because I had a very, very good college coach,” Bonvicini said. “I know I couldn’t be coaching if it wasn’t for her. I’ve always felt if I can have a similar impact, it’s something I should do.”

In recent years, a number of “intervention” programs, primarily in high schools, have been established to increase coaching opportunities for women. Some actually train women as coaches and officials; others merely attempt to keep women interested in coaching in touch with each other and with potential employers; still others have done nothing more than identify the extent of the decline of women in coaching in their state.

Susan Shafer, sex equity consultant for the Colorado, Dept. of Education, developed what is regarded as the model program. In the four years the program has been going, the percentage of women in coaching in the state has gone from 38% to 41%. It’s not a huge jump, but “at least we’ve reversed the decline,” Shafer said.

Colorado’s Sports Needs You program consists of holding an annual conference on the topic of women’s coaching for current and potential women coaches, publishing a newsletter and putting up posters and brochures in health clubs, corporate fitness centers or wherever else women might congregate.

The emphasis is on developing a support system in coaching and making them aware of opportunities. Shafer said that, for the most part, school districts have been grateful to learn about qualified women coaches.

“(Colorado) is turning the tide,” said Sue Mottinger, executive director of the National Assn. for Girls and Women in Sports. “With their model, they go directly to superintendents and athletic directors with a list of qualified women.

“They (athletic directors) can’t start making excuses (about the lack of qualified women). That’s when we start saying we are hand-delivering to you three people who are qualified. We’re not telling you to hire them. We’re asking you to really look at them in an honest, objective manner.”

Similar programs or conferences on women in coaching have been developed in Kentucky, Idaho, Wisconsin and Philadelphia. NAGWS recently provided grants to five states--California, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Oregon and Texas--to develop networks or training programs for women interested in coaching, and the Women’s Sports Foundation is now working to coordinate the efforts of programs in these state as well as to put out a women’s coaches resource guide.

Most of the intervention programs are in states or school districts that have done more detailed studies about the decline of women in coaching than the rough figures True compiled two years ago. Becky Sisley, the former University of Oregon women’s athletic director and softball coach who is directing her state project, said she was shocked to find out that in some Oregon high school sports 87% of the girls coaches were men.

In Idaho, Connie Thorngren of Boise State University found that the percentage of female high school coaches in basketball, volleyball and track and field dropped from 80% in 1975 to 40% in 1986. Overall, 86% of the girls’ high school coaches were men. Eisenbarth took the statistics and decided it was time to reverse the decline, beginning with a statewide conference in early June.

“It’s been a real shocker to see these figures,” Eisenbarth said. “We lose so many good athletes. Where are they going?”

Many of them seem stuck in the role of assistant coach. The problem in hiring female coaches at some universities is simply the stability and success of current coaching staffs. Hedges hasn’t hired a coach since Fred LaPlante took the women’s track position five years ago. Holland said UCLA regularly hires past athletes as assistants.

“We just don’t have the turnover at our head coaching positions,” Holland said. “I think a lot of (assistants) are interested in being head coaches, but somebody has to give them the opportunity.”

However, the glut of women at the assistant level could be viewed as a positive sign for the future of women in coaching. It seems to be only a matter of time until the women in assistant coaching positions replace the men who are their bosses.

But while few feel the battle to increase the number of women in coaching--or at least reverse the decline--is anywhere near being won, most feel it has at least been joined.

“What we’re having to do is take matters into our own hands,” Mottinger said. “You can call (the intervention programs) progress if you want, and it is, but there’s much more to do. You have to be an advocate on the legislative level and the executive level. You have to spend the time going to the administrators and letting them know there is a problem.”

Percentage of Female Coaches in Girls’ High School Athletics

State by state statistics complied by Susan True of National Federation of State High School Athletic Assns., from Clell Wade Coaching Directories for 1984-85 school year:

State Pct. Rank Alabama 58% 1 Alaska 36% 33 Arizona 47% 8 Arkansas 35% 34 California 39% 28 Colorado 39% 30 Connecticut 47% 8 Delaware 51% 6 Florida 44% 13 Georgia 39% 28 Hawaii 28% 44 Idaho 35% 34 Illinois 52% 4 Indiana 50% 7 Iowa 25% 48 Kansas 33% 38 Kentucky 41% 19 Louisiana 57% 2 Maine 32% 40 Maryland 52% 4 Massachusetts 42% 17 Michigan 35% 34 Minnesota 37% 32 Mississippi 28% 44 Missouri 40% 23 Montana 24% 49 Nebraska 30% 42 Nevada 40% 23 New Hampshire 47% 8 New Jersey 41% 19 New Mexico 38% 30 New York 44% 13 North Carolina 40% 23 North Dakota 28% 44 Ohio 40% 23 Oklahoma 27% 47 Oregon 33% 38 Pennsylvania 44% 13 Rhode Island 44% 13 South Carolina 46% 12 South Dakota 24% 49 Tennessee 35% 34 Texas 47% 8 Utah 53% 3 Vermont 40% 23 Virginia 42% 17 Washington 32% 40 West Virginia 41% 19 Wisconsin 41% 19 Wyoming 29% 43