U of T’s Faculty of Physical Education and Health (FPEH) abides by an unofficial policy of hiring women to coach women’s varsity sports teams. Described by dean Bruce Kidd as a “long-standing practice that dates back to the 1920’s,” the hiring of women is meant to achieve two goals:
To maintain employment equity for women in sport
To allow women to control the development of women’s sport
Right now, only one women’s team with a full-time coach is headed up by a man. Guido Geisler, head coach of the women’s soccer team, was appointed as an interim replacement after former head coach Nikki Nicolau stepped down. The faculty is actively seeking to replace Geisler for the 2004 soccer season. The Varsity’s associate sports editors, Matt Somers and Amara Gossin, go head-to-head on the issue of female coaches. Is it right, wrong, or even worth debating? Does it help equalize a male-dominated sport world, or does it only propogate divisive gender roles? Let’s talk about sex, baby!
MATT:
The long-standing practice at U of T of employing women to coach women’s intercollegiate teams is a good one, and one that should be protected. Women have a significant and a major role to play in coaching women’s sports
First off, if women are not given preference over men for coaching jobs now, how will the history of female exclusion from sport ever be levelled? The coaching profession has been dominated by males from time immemorial, and that includes women’s teams, so the only way that women are going to get a chance to coach and work their way to equality is with a little support from the university. This is like affirmative action at its best and fullest potential.
This is also a good time for this unofficial policy at U of T to exist. Women’s sports are flourishing, with nearly as many women’s teams as men’s teams. All but one full-time coach of women’s intercollegiate teams are women. Not only that, these women’s teams have also been highly successful. The hockey team was one goal away from being the national champions last year, thanks in large part, I’m sure, to coach Karen Hughes.
Other women’s hockey teams across Canada have male coaches, but they aren’t ranked second in the country, now are they?
And who better to know the capability of women’s bodies then women? Who knows best that women need slightly different training regiments, rules, and regulations in their sports than men? Why, other women of course.
Sport, from the beginning, has been deeply masculinist. Women’s sport needs to progress and grow differently than men’s sport has, and it should be women who shape that progression.
It is also much easier and more appropriate for a woman to go into a locker room full of other females during an intermission or after a game to give a pep-talk, celebrate a victory, or chastize a loss than it would be for a man. A female coach purely and simply, increases comfort for female athletes. And not only in the locker room-also when it comes to talking about difficult issues. A coach is a mentor and should be approachable. For women’s teams, this means having a female coach.
One might argue that this sort of policy is reverse discrimination, and as offensive as the old attitudes that kept women out of coaching. But I say it is the necessary first step to equality in the coaching field. This is a way for female coaches to get their foot in the door, as it were, in a profession they have struggled to gain access to in the past.
Once it is an established and accepted fact that women are equally qualified as men to coach university sports, then the pendulum can swing back to the middle and the most qualified coach, regardless of gender, will get the job.
In order for there to be total equality in the future, female coaches need to be given the opportunity to get their voices heard now and showcase their talent to the world.
AMARA:
Affirmative action for women in sports is no less contentious an issue than affirmative action in other areas of life. On the one hand, providing women with incentives to enter athletics is certainly a good thing. Women, after all, have historical disadvantages to overcome in the sporting world. Nevertheless, I question U of T’s unofficial policy that endorses hiring only female coaches for women’s teams. I just don’t think this is an appropriate means of encouraging women in sport.
Firstly, most athletes would probably prefer that their coach, whatever his/her sex, be the best coach available. During a losing season, do you think female athletes would be comforted by the fact that their coach, though not the best, is female? For the sake of competition, I would hope not.
But some argue that a good coach must understand their athletes. Even if understanding an athletes is a requirement for the best coaches, I must then argue that female coaches are no better suited to understanding their female athletes than are male coaches.
This is because there is nothing intuitive about sports. Both men and women have to learn about sport both by watching other people participate in it, and by being taught its technicalities. If the best way to coach women is different than the best way to coach men, this is something that both male and female coaches must learn and then apply.
Finally, we must recognize that there’s more to a person than biology. We all identify ourselves differently. Gender, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation, are just some of the determinants of our personality and lifestyle.
So if an individual’s attitude and character are formed by all of these influences, who decided that gender is the most formative? Who decided that it is more important that my coach share my sex than that s/he speak my language or share my moral beliefs?
To argue that giving coaching positions to less skilled coaches based on their gender seems to me to be missing the point. It is true that women have long been excluded from and under-represented in sport, even with the recent strides towards gender equity. It is fair to say that women should be helped to gain entry into the male-dominated world of athletics. However, it is wrong to say that this entrance should be forced at the level of coaches.
Instead, make women love sports as men love sports. Let women learn from the men who have preceded them and who now coach, teach, and play alongside them. Celebrate the relative strengths and weaknesses of coaches as individuals and stop trying to limit people to gender identifications. And when it comes to hiring a coach, hire the best person for the job. I have every confidence that even without special consideration for female coaches, women can and will be incredibly successful in sport. So successful, in fact, that maybe soon they will be coaching men’s teams as well.
