RebKell's Junkie Boards

[stever]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=hays/060123

"For all the men who make a living coaching women in college basketball (not to mention the WNBA, which is a story unto itself), not one woman takes home a paycheck for coaching men at any of the more than 300 Division I programs or the 30 NBA teams. That's simply embarrassing. Someday soon, a rising star such as Dawn Staley or Joanne P. McCallie will be the first, and hopefully it will be a position that gives her every opportunity to succeed. But it could have been Summitt. It should have been Summitt. And I can't help but imagine there are times when she thinks exactly the same thing."

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[gpark33]

[pilight]

[umbeta1455]

Pat Summit could easily get the respect.

[jimmyk]

And now, a statement heard all over Big Orange Country hundreds of times this fall...

Pat Summitt should coach the Tennessee football team.

[bballjunkee212]

Who knows what Pat Summitt might do after she records career victory 1000- a mark which may not be attained by any other coach? Say she hits that mark four seasons from now, at age 56 (?) Might she not be receptive to a chance to meet a new challenge and break new ground? Just a thought.

The problem I have with this subject is the suggestion that a head coaching position should be determined on the basis of gender. A head coach should be selected on the basis of skill, experience and the potential to achieve the goals of the program. That said, any person, man or woman, should be able to be a head coach.

The problem, however, is not necessarily a matter of inherent bias. It may be a matter of how relationships get formed. For example, Quinn Snyder and Tommy Amaker were players and assistants at Duke under Coach K- who himself was an assistant under Bob Knight. It would be nearly impossible not to consider pedigree when selecting a coach- Was it accident that Matt Doherty and Roy Williams were UNC alums and pupils of Dean Smith?

So I don't think it's a matter of someone thinking that they will hire a man to be a head coach because a man is "better" than a woman. But I do think familiarity has much to do with it. For example, say a couple of year from now a school is looking for a head coach for the men's basketball team. Assuming these applicants are available, do they hire Kami Ethridge, who has done well at KSU under Deb Patterson and has been mentioned as a possible head coach already and was a great player in her own right? Do they hire Nikki Caldwell, who is a great assistant under Pat Summitt? Or do they hire Chris Collins, who comes from a playing/coaching family, played at Duke and coaches at Duke, under Coach K? And what if the school really just wants a good young coach and doesn't want any big controversy over the move? Think Collins gets the job? I'd bet on it.

So I think the key to women coaching men is not simply a numbers game, where somebody pressures schools/NCAA to have a certain quota of women coaches. I think the key is to make sure that women who want to be coaches apply to both the men's and the women's programs. Again, maybe Coach K. would hire Chris Collins ahead of Tamika Williams, because Chris is way ahead of Tamika in knowing the Duke system and expectations. But all else being equal, why wouldn't a head coach hire Tamika- or any number of women who seek careers in coaching?

I have never seen any statistics at all about the number of female applicants for grad assistant and assistant coaching jobs in men's programs. But I think that is the key to women head coaches in the men's programs.

_________________
~Bill

[Gaucho Don]

I don't think it matters whether a coach is a woman or a man (except for a few brief moments in the locker room after a game). To cover this brief time period there must be at least one coach that is the same gender as the players. Doesn't matter if it's an assistant or a head coach.

But there may be something to the move up through the ranks/establish relations thing...

Are there any female assistant coaches in D1 Men's basketball?

I would think starting there would be the easiest way to break the barrier and get past the whole women can't coach men thing.

[pilight]

[Gaucho Don]

[beknighted]

As to bill's question, you don't apply for jobs you know you can't get, so there are essentially zero women applying for men's program jobs. This is a factor in the concerns about men coaching women. While I agree in principle that discrimination on one side of the coin does not create a free pass for discrimination on the other, it makes the views of some female coaches more understandable.

On a broader point, the old boy network is part of the problem, not a justification. Someone who played for Dean Smith or was one of his assistants is not objectively a better coach than someone who didn't based on that one datapoint alone. Unfortunately, a lot of people get hired that way, even at the lower-level D-I programs. "He worked for Coach K" is a lot safer thing for an AD to say than "I interviewed a bunch of candidates and watched tapes of games and so-and-so was the best candidate." By borrowing Coach K's judgment, the AD insulates himself from criticism; if he depends entirely on his own, there's no safety net.

[Carol Anne]

Rather than have a token woman coach for a men's basketball team, I'd prefer all women's teams be coached by women.

Yes, Geno would be out of a job!

[ari20dal7]

Well, as for the respect thing, I can see there being a credibility problem with recruiting and the like. This wouldn't necessarily be the case if a high profile women's coach (such as Summitt) took over at a lower-tier men's program. Now, that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. But equally qualified male and female candidates for a men's job will always result in a man getting the job. And that's probably the right decision for an AD. I can really see a lot of high school players avoiding playing for a woman unless the program that she's coaching is far and away the first choice.

I think that if we do see a breakthrough here, it would be with someone like Summitt going to coach at a lesser program or taking over a moribund men's program at the same school.

[PUmatty]

I don't really remember those days, but I would imagine some of the arguments against female coaches were the same ones made against black coaches. They seem to recruit white players perfectly well.

[beknighted]

[blkkirk]

do you think that men teachers should only teach men and women teachers only teach women? or is basketball different than academics?

[ari20dal7]

Just to clarify, I totally think that women are as capable as men of coaching men (and that men can coach women as well as women can). I do think, though, that there might be a credibility problem for the first few that break through. Black coaches can recruit white kids now, but that might have been a big problem fifty years ago.

In the sporting world, prejudice still abounds enough to make this an issue. That's why I stated that a situation like a Summitt-type woman making the move to a lesser men's program would be ideal. While there might be some gender issues that would affect recruiting, her superior reputation and resume at UT would more than balance that out in a world where she's not competing with Duke, UConn, and Michigan State for recruits. Put another way, Summitt's gender won't be as big an issue when she's competing against men that are midgets compared to her.