WE need more female coaches~

I‘m a female and I coach. I’ve coached from 9U up through 18U. Currently am a recruiting coordinator for an 18U team. Still fill the roll as an assistant with practices.

While I love being an assistant coach, I disliked being a head coach. As a full-time working parent, being a head coach was almost like having another full-time job, plus being an accountant. I also payed my DD’s full fees, and coached for free. What I absolutely disliked about being a head coach was the parent drama. I always hated the Monday’s after tourneys - that’s when the emails would come. Same two parents. One complained about their DD’s playing time after she constantly missed practices for travel soccer; the other would whine to me about the other parents, coaches, and felt like they needed to be “in the know” with everything. Very manipulative. That nonsense just wasn’t worth the headaches to me. Not sure if they felt it was easier to try and complain to me being a female, but it just got old very quickly, and I wasn’t having it.

If parents weren’t involved I’d love to be a head coach again. I loved the girls, and several who I coached are and will be playing in college. I like to think I played a small part in that journey. Some I still KIT with via social media.

My role now is nice because I don’t have to handle the parent drama and the girls (18U) and I enjoy chatting on the bench in between games. Honestly, I don’t think parents realize how frustrating they can be at times, and it’s a shame because they can definitely hinder their DD’s growth and love for the game when they are overbearing to a coach. Trust me - they see it.

Another thing I should add is that I often felt like my dd had to take a backseat for fear of the whole “parent-coach” stigma that you see posted about on here and IRL. When I stopped coaching for 2 years and was “just a parent on the sidelines,” she fully owned her game and played to the next level. It was awesome to see.

@Vertigo, great read, thank you! Anna had a 16U male coach who was a D1 coach, she played for him for a year and a half. When she played for our 18U national team, it was a female coach who assisted on a big D1 program. I was asked and got to help with both of those teams. Both coaches were incredible!

I could care less whether it was a male or female who coached my DD as long as they were fair and competent, a great communicator, knew the game and made my daughter want to be a better player!

Makes me feel terrible for players & parents who’ve never experienced that great coach to play for!

@Vertigo My head coaching experience was very similar. I feel like you were writing on my behalf.

I only had one parent that felt the need to send the Monday email. His daughter is a pitcher. A freshman at a P5 school this year, it was too late to change him or I would have cut him loose no matter the consequences of losing a good pitcher.

The true problem was a local hitting coach. He would stir up this parent and others with all kinds of foolishness that I would then have to deal with. He did that with every local team my daughters were ever involved with, it’s one of the reasons we eventually played on out of town teams.

People like this don’t do our local softball scene any good. They run competent coaches away. When I go back to coaching, if it is a young local team I will deal with this hitting coaches influence up front.

Westwind said:

@Vertigo My head coaching experience was very similar. I feel like you were writing on my behalf.

I only had one parent that felt the need to send the Monday email. His daughter is a pitcher. A freshman at a P5 school this year, it was too late to change him or I would have cut him loose no matter the consequences of losing a good pitcher.

The true problem was a local hitting coach. He would stir up this parent and others with all kinds of foolishness that I would then have to deal with. He did that with every local team my daughters were ever involved with, it’s one of the reasons we eventually played on out of town teams.

People like this don’t do our local softball scene any good. They run competent coaches away. When I go back to coaching, if it is a young local team I will deal with this hitting coaches influence up front.

Click to expand...

There must be a type of nest somewhere,... Like trermites,..
infiltrating the landscape... menacing parents flutter into town, breeding. Those seem to be everywhere.

My opinion is that many girls are scared off from coaching (and officiating) by witnessing the behavior of team parents (and in some cases tematws. They see how coaches are treated by many and they hear how they are talked about behind their backs.

Girls see that and say, that’s not something I want to deal with. I don’t think boys pay attention to that as much, as a rule they don’t associate that behavior to how it affects someone’s feelings. While I think girls are more empathetic and can easily see how coaches (and officials) are treated and how it must feel.

Just my opinion, I could be wrong.

chinamigarden said:

My opinion is that many girls are scared off from coaching (and officiating) by witnessing the behavior of team parents (and in some cases tematws. They see how coaches are treated by many and they hear how they are talked about behind their backs.

Girls see that and say, that’s not something I want to deal with. I don’t think boys pay attention to that as much, as a rule they don’t associate that behavior to how it affects someone’s feelings. While I think girls are more empathetic and can easily see how coaches (and officials) are treated and how it must feel.

Just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Click to expand...

Have to say I like the thinking process in your post.

Hmmm? Thought well maybe that could be... it's a perhaps!

Thens there both men and women who seem to always have their hand stirring the pot...and seem to like too

chinamigarden said:

My opinion is that many girls are scared off from coaching (and officiating) by witnessing the behavior of team parents (and in some cases tematws. They see how coaches are treated by many and they hear how they are talked about behind their backs.

Girls see that and say, that’s not something I want to deal with. I don’t think boys pay attention to that as much, as a rule they don’t associate that behavior to how it affects someone’s feelings. While I think girls are more empathetic and can easily see how coaches (and officials) are treated and how it must feel.

Just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Click to expand...

IME, boys’ parents can be a lot worse for that reason - boys seem to brush off seeing their parent act like a complete a** easier than girls do.

The few TB games of my son’s that I get to see drive me crazy. There are at least three parents who I need to move away from because of how they trash talk the coaches. They are brutal, and sadly their kids will never be the type of players they “view” them to be.

I think baseball has crazier parents because of the hopeful MLB factor.

Getting back to the original point of this thread "We NEED more Female Coaches" - I absolutely believe based on my observations that it is happening. Not happening overnite or as quickly as some may like but it's happening, these societal issues and inequalities tend to act like a pendulum, going too far in either direction before settling down to a balance. Regulation can be helpful if applied correctly (often NOT the case) but is also often the cause of new, unforseen problems that have to be worked out. Balance is the key. Flush out the bad actors, the negative, toxic coaches quickly and don't let them grow like cancer spreading a negative vibe in the sport we love. Reward the good and incentivize those positive role models (male/female, young/old) who each can bring something of value to the table. Exposing our kids to different types of people and personalities is good training. Model that good behavior ourselves for our kids to see, even if it means making the difficult and unpopular, short term decision.

There's been a lot of good examples, thoughts and scenarios brought up in this thread....keep it going!

I'm not a coach, I'm just the father of a daughter. And I think we need more female coaches. I think that women should be given first priority on any opening for girls'/women's teams.

And it's not because of sexism, and it's not because of reparation. It's because a female coach better knows what female athletes go through than a male coach would. And because we need every single role model we can get for young girls in this world. Truth be told, they need to see that women can be assholes and still be rewarded for it. They need to see that the same standards that exist for men exist for women, both for good and bad. It's not a secret that I dislike my daughter's HS coach immensely. I think she's a bad person and a bad coach. But I'd rather see her in the position than have a man replace her. Because all the girls on that team need to see a woman in a position of authority. And, with all due respect to all the men here who have spent countless hours putting in countless efforts to coach this game, once they get old enough to think about these things, girls don't need to see their game and their teams run by men. Even men with the very best of intentions.