Female Coaches At FIFA Women's World Cup: Do They Have Natural Advantages Over Men?

Submitted by Brooke de Lench on Mon, 06/15/2015 - 16:40. | comments

If you've been watching the FIFA Women's World Cup, you may have noticed that the head coaches of most of the 24 national teams competing in Canada are men. In fact, only seven teams (the USA, Ecuador, Germany, Costa Rica, Switzerland, Sweden, and Ivory Coast) are led by female head coaches.

While that number is five more than when I watched from the stands at Giants Stadium as the U.S. played Mexico in the 1999 Women's World Cup, it is still a distressingly low number.

If you've been watching the FIFA Women's World Cup, you may have noticed that the head coaches of most of the 24 national teams competing in Canada are men, a gender imbalance that persists despite what some believe to be natural advantages women enjoy over men as coaches.

Brooke de Lench

Let's Celebrate Mother's Day By Recognizing Critical Role of Sports Moms

Submitted by Brooke de Lench on Mon, 05/04/2015 - 19:52. | comments

Ask the average person what special day is celebrated in May, and most will say Mother's Day. Ask sports fans who athletes most often thank when they are interviewed on television after a big win, and they are most are likely to say their moms. Now, ask someone in what month does the country celebrate National Sports Moms Month, and I bet you would be met with a lot of quizzical looks.

Fact is that there hasn't been such a month, at least one that I could find. So, in 2012, I decided to declare May to be Sports Moms Month.

Seven years ago, MomsTEAM's founder decided that sports moms should be celebrated, not just on Mother's Day, but for an entire month, so she declared May to be Sports Moms Month. Here's why.

Working To Increase Number of Women Coaches: Why It Matters

Today’s generation of mothers is rich with athletic experience and talent. But all too often they are channeled away from coaching, into non-coaching support roles like “team mom.” Here's why tapping in to this growing talent pool of athletic women will benefit our communities and our kids.

How To Increase The Number of Women Coaches in Youth Sports

Persistent assumptions about men’s “natural” abilities as coaches, along with powerful informal group processes, tend to channel women — even those with interest and athletic experience—away from coaching, toward being “team moms.”

Brooke de Lench

Finding Sports and Family Balance: A Progress Report

Submitted by Brooke de Lench on Thu, 07/22/2010 - 19:23. | comments

An important part of our mission at MomsTeam the past ten years has been to advocate for more balance between sports and family. It is a cause to which I have been deeply committed for many years, so much so that I devoted an entire chapter in my book, Home Team Advantage, to the subject.

Michael Messner

Secrets of Successful Women Coaches

Submitted by Michael Messner on Sat, 02/28/2009 - 23:31. | comments

There are very few women coaches in my community's youth sports leagues: only 13% in AYSO and 6% in Little League Baseball and Softball. While I found very little overt sexism or hostility toward women coaches, their stories told of informal (but very powerful) processes that discouraged them: being informally pushed away from coaching at the entry level; feeling a constant sense of scrutiny from other adults ("is she really qualified to coach my kid?"); being made to feel like an outsider in the midst of an "old boys' network"; having to contend with men's sometimes "intimidating" loud voices on the playing fields.

Michael Messner

Including More Women Coaches in Youth Sports: Why it Matters

Submitted by Michael Messner on Tue, 02/10/2009 - 21:17. | comments

Next month, millions of kids will retrieve their baseball and softball gloves from the bottoms of drawers or from under their beds. After a trip to the store to get some new cleats (after all, their feet have grown since last summer!), they will take the field for another Little League season. This is a Spring rite for kids, shallowly rooted in recent history, but often deeply rooted in family dynamics. Founded 1938 in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Little League Baseball expanded rapidly throughout the United States and Canada. By the mid-1950s, Little League Baseball was fully established as a major institution with 4000 leagues in the United States, and further growth into Mexico and other nations.

Prospective women coaches face barriers — mostly informal and unspoken — that divert them away from coaching. Most of the few women who do coach leave after a year or two, after finding the league to be dominated informally by a less-than-supportive “old boys’ network” of coaches. This as a problem that needs to be fixed.

Women Can Be Coaches

A recent study confirms what most already know: the vast majority of those coaching our children are men. For women - particularly mothers - who want to break into the coaching ranks there are lots of obstacles but becoming a coach is not impossible. Here's some advice from one mother who bucked the system and became a successful soccer coach.

Gender Divide in Youth Sports Persists, Study Says

A new study confirms what many sports parents have long known: the gender divide in youth sports is no different than in the home and the workplace: the vast majority of head coaching slots are men, and nearly all of the team mom positions are held by women, many reluctantly.

Like Mom, LIke Son: The Rewards of Coaching Youth Sports Are A Family Affair

A mom tells how she gained a new appreciation for coaching after becoming a mother; a love for coaching that her son now shares.

Women As Coaches