There are obvious differences between male and female basketball coaches. When people first start discussing these differences, they usually bring up the fact that male coaches get paid considerably more than female coaches. Although this difference is significant in its own way, along with the pay gap, people must not forget about other important issues. These issues can, in return, greatly impact the student-athletes.
In recent decades, the numbers of female coaches have steadily declined. This is important because, there are actual opportunities for females to coach, but they do not feel as though they would get the job going against a male. For example, in 1972, about 90% of intercollegiate head coaches of women's teams were in fact female. This dramatically changed in 1978 when Title IX came into effect in all schools, which dropped this number down to only 58%. Today, this number is falling more and is close to 45%.1
Some believe that this number comes from female coaches being discriminated against during the hiring process. While others believe that the decline is due to their lack of experience. As for myself, I strongly believe that being a young female basketball coach has many advantages for female student athletes. But we live in a society and industry where athletic directors believe women are less qualified than men, that are competing for the same exact job. But why? This question is important because in my personal experience, women actually have better training and experience in the delivery of the sport of basketball. Once female athletes graduate, they usually go straight into their field and occupation. Some would believe that although they had played the sport in college, it does not directly prepare them academically to enter the field right away. Whereas men seem to serve longer as graduate assistants and part-time assistants.1 This piece of evidence may be one reason why athletic directors have certain beliefs but there must be other factors that account for the significant and constant drop in female coaches.
I feel very strongly that there should be more females in coaching. Female coaches can closely relate to their players because they have been in the same situations before and can simply be great role models for their players. Although there is nothing wrong with having a male coach, sometimes they may not fully understand situations that a female may undergo. Being able to talk to your coach is very important, and I strongly believe that it is important that the line of communication is open. Some females may find it difficult to talk to their male coaches so it is important that we preserve this and make it easy to communicate to our players.
After examining the numbers of female coaches in college basketball, we must open the discussion of pay gap as both pay gap and the decline of female coaches seems to be correlated. In women’s college basketball, female coaches seem to make more money compared to men coaching females. On the other hand, according to the graph provided, there is a dramatic difference between men’s basketball coaches and females basketball coaches. This difference can be amounted to 0.57 and 0.52, where men basketball coaches are ahead. Overall, women’s head basketball coaches only earn about half the salary of men’s head basketball coaches.2 I believe this can be closely related to attendance of games. There are more attendees to men’s game than there are for women’s.
Along with the drop in female coaches and the correlation between the pay gap between men and women’s basketball coaches, I believe this can also affect the recruiting process for women’s basketball in general. If the women’s teams are not funded the same as their men counterparts, this can show up in the recruiting process. If teams are not able to receive the same amount of funds, they will not have the resources available to be able to recruit the same ways. Some coaches rely on prospective players to send their film in and through email. But, if programs do not have the resources to make visits and attend big tournaments that are held to showcase the best players, this can help their chances of improving their programs as a whole. Less money coming into programs can overall hurt the culture that a coach may be trying to build on.
I believe that we should try to look closely to fill this gap, and help bring more money for the women’s game as well. More women’s games being played on television can help boost the numbers as well. This can be very vital to the game as a whole. If more games are played on television, more young female children will be exposed to basketball and in turn will strive to make it to the college level. Simply put, we need more female coaches. I believe this would help bridge gaps between coaches and players. There are solutions out there, it is upon us to find them and actually use them to our advantages.
“You can’t always be the strongest or most talented or most gifted person in the room, but you can be the most competitive.” - Pat Summitt
References
2Humphreys, B. R. (2000). Equal Pay on the Hardwood: The Earnings Gap Between Male and Female NCAA Division I Basketball Coaches. Journal of Sports Economics, 1(3), 299-307. Retrieved October 26, 2017, from http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/152700250000100306
Photo credits: NBC News
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