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Women should coach Women!

There are eight male head coaches in this years Men’s and Women’s final four.

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1 of 4 male head coaches in the Women’s Final Four, Geno Auriemma, head coach of the UCONN Huskies, the most successful college basketball program men or women, over the last 20 years. He surpassed Pat Summit two years ago for second most championships with 10. He is most likely going to pass John Wooden for first place on the list this year.

This year’s NCAA Women’s Basketball Final Four features four male head coaches. How ridiculous is that? Yes, all teams feature female assistant coaches, but it is wrong that there is not one female head coach on the biggest stage of the year. I’ll be watching the next season of games to see if there are any differences in terms of the coaches. Women deserve the same chances as men do, especially when it comes to sports. The NCCA tournament is always an exciting time for us sports fans and to make it even more enjoyable, myself a a couple of friends will be taking part in making predictions about each game. We do this by printing off our own charts through a site like https://www.interbasket.net/brackets/ncaa-tournament/. This is something we have always done, so we might as well stick to tradition. Plus, it’s all fun at the end of the day. I hope as time goes on, we notice a change in the amount of females in sports and maybe soon enough, they will become household names, just like Michael Jordan and Stephen Curry. It is possible.

Are male coaches better at coaching the game of basketball?

Of course not.

The late great Pat Summit, University of Tennessee’s Head Coach from 1975-2011, is arguably the greatest basketball coach of all time at any level–man or woman. At one point in time, Summit only trailed UCLA’s John Wooden’s 10 NCAA titles, with 8 NCAA championships herself. Since her retirement, there has actually been a decline in the amount of women Head Coaches at the division I level.

Last season, 58% of women’s basketball head coaches at the division I level were female, down from 66% in 2009. Although, some see 58% as a decent number, compared to a sport like volleyball where women are alarmingly underrepresented, there’s no way this number should be less than 80-85%. Four male head coaches in the Women’s Final Four is the result of the lack of opportunity for women in both women’s and men’s athletics, at the collegiate level. The disparity in the numbers is undeniable.

Sixty percent of all coaches in women’s sports at the division I level are male. By contrast, only 3% of all coaches in all men’s sports at the division I level are female. The traditional mechanisms within a patriarchal society take course. The majority of athletic directors are white males, and most are unable to see the problem with hiring male coaches over female coaches in both men’s and especially women’s collegiate sports. As a result, women miss out on the most lucrative jobs, and also miss out on opportunities to coach programs with the players and resources required to achieve and maintain excellence. Men are not needed in women’s basketball or any other women’s sport, in order for legitimacy.

As of right now, men are taking opportunities that should be available for women. Men should only be allowed to be assistant coaches in women’s sports. There is no way that anyone can justify the fact that men have a better chance of getting hired as Head Coaches in most women’s collegiate sports, and are just as likely to be hired in women’s basketball as a head coaches. The lack of opportunity is getting worse. Title IX, a law passed in 1972, sought to bring equality to collegiate sports. Initially the groundbreaking law, brought progress, seeing 90% of all women’s division I collegiate teams coached by women that year. Unfortunately, the impact of Title IX was impermanent, and the NCAA has regressed back into a sexually discriminative organization.

As of last year, the number of all women’s division I collegiate teams coached by women is down to 40%. No disrespect to Geno Auriemma UCONN’s head coach, or any other male head coach at the collegiate level coaching a women’s team, but women should coach women at the collegiate level, as well as in the pros.

 


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