Female Athletes Say Competence, Not Gender, Makes Difference

She has treasured the best and weathered the worst.

Gina Ybarra, Fountain Valley multi-sport athlete, has trained under wonderful female and male coaches. She has also endured the watchful eyes of unqualified men and women. Excellence and ineptitude in coaching, it seems, play no gender favorites.

For Ybarra and other competitors, it matters not whether they are coached by a man or a woman, it is the quality of the coach that determines whether an athlete will have a positive or negative experience.

In the fall, Ybarra played on the Baron volleyball team--coached by a man, Mike Hinton--that reached the Southern Section Division II finals. She is playing basketball for Carol Strausburg--a woman. During her athletic career, she has played for five men and six women.

“I’ve had good women and good men coaches and I’ve had bad women and bad men coaches,” she said. “It all depends on the individual.”

Jamie Shine, a volleyball and basketball standout at El Modena, was coached exclusively by men until Maureen Flannigan took over the Vanguard volleyball program last fall. Shine also believes the quality of a coach depends on personal attributes and knowledge, not the sex of the individual.

“They all teach what they know, and that’s not a girl or a guy thing,” said Shine, who added that she felt her competitive experience was complete having been coached by a woman.

All the female athletes interviewed said they formed closer personal relationships with their female coaches, but friendships had little to do with who influenced them most.

Ybarra says she prefers female coaches.

“I haven’t had anyone as good as (former Fountain Valley volleyball coach) Misty Sano or Carol,” she said. “Women have encouraged me more. They’ve been more supportive.”

Mary Gainey Hauser, Mater Dei’s first-year basketball coach, has the advantage of looking back on a career in which she had coaching input from women and men. She said male coaches influenced her more because she grew up surrounded by men, but she has learned from both.

“In my coaching, the way I relate to my kids, the way I care about them, that’s what I learned from women,” she said. “But I also take the tough approach, how to be real firm, and that I learned from my men coaches.”

Coaching girls and boys is as complex an issue as being coached by a woman or a man. Cheryl Garcia has coached the Santiago girls’ and boys’ tennis teams for five years. She has discovered that under a woman’s tutelage, boys aren’t as tough as they make themselves out to be.

“I’ve found the guys are bigger whiners,” Garcia said.

Garcia recalled attending a sports clinic where she was the only woman coach among dozens of men.

“They were talking about how they hated coaching girls because of how much the girls complain,” she said. “I told them my guys are huge complainers. Maybe they act like that because they think of me as their mother. Men coaches are very surprised to hear that.”

Almost as surprised as Garcia was when, several years ago, her No. 1 player on the boys’ team had a bad match and started crying.

“I had never had a girl or guy cry before,” she said.

And she sees a sensitive side that a male coach might never see.

“They can get just as emotional if they’ve broken up with a girlfriend, as a girl will if she’s broken up with a boyfriend,” she said. “I don’t see a difference. (Boys) try to come off as if nothing affects them, but things do (affect them.)”

Patti Laird, who has coached girls’ and boys’ volleyball at Los Alamitos, has a different perspective.

“Coaching girls and boys is like comparing apples and oranges,” Laird said. “It’s two different things. Boys are more business-like, they don’t take things personally. With girls, they take it very personally. Girls take everything to heart. Boys have their own check-and-balance system within themselves, they don’t get emotional. Girls will feel sorry for themselves and they bring it to the court so that everyone will feel sorry for them.

“With the girls, nothing’s fair. The girls will say, ‘I won’t like you anymore if you make me do that.’ I tell them I don’t care, because this isn’t a popularity contest.”

But Laird has found herself answering to boys and their fathers, rattling off her qualifications, which she said men don’t have to do.

“Men had a hard time with the idea of a woman coaching their sons,” she said. “I have to give them my credentials: high school, college, USVBA.”

Credentials and following through would eventually earn Laird the boys’ respect.

“As long as you do what you say you’re going to do and know what you’re doing, the boys will respect you,” she said.

Garcia also said she has to prove herself to her boys and has had to put up with her share of grief from them. But overall, it has been worth it.

“It hasn’t always been enjoyable, but I keep doing it because they need me,” she said. “And there are some (boys) who love the fact that I don’t yell at them. For some, that’s a real blessing.”

Los Alamitos senior Kristin Reyes, who has played varsity volleyball, basketball and track for three years, sees little difference between men and women coaches.

Bottom line?

“As long as they’re good, I don’t care who coaches me,” Reyes said.