Women make the team, but less often coach it

When Pete Gaudet switched from coaching men's basketball to women's at Vanderbilt University, he wasn't quite sure what he was getting into.

But after coaching males for almost 30 years, he figured, why not? After all, he says, he'd have the chance to "coach a young team with nationally recognized players in the Southeast Conference, the best in the country for women's basketball."

The decision placed Mr. Gaudet in a relatively new league: male coaches of women's college teams.

Thirty years ago, women dominated as coaches of women's teams. But as these teams have grown in number and prestige, the percentage of women coaching them has plummeted to an all-time low. The percentage of women coaching men's teams, meanwhile, remains negligible.

Expanded job opportunities for young women may in part explain the shift. Sexism is another concern: Some say that male athletic directors, who outnumber females 5 to 1, often simply prefer to hire men.

But despite growing concern over the situation, little is being done to change it. "There's a lot of outcry now over the serious lack of female coaches, but not enough being done to solve the problem," says Linda Carpenter, a former physical-education professor at Brooklyn College in New York and co-author of the "Women in Intercollegiate Sport" survey.

According to the study, women coached more than 90 percent of women's teams in 1972, the year the federal government enacted Title IX to ban gender discrimination in academics and school sports. But while the number of women's teams has grown because of enforcement of the law, only 44 percent are currently coached by women. And since 2000, 90 percent of new head-coaching jobs in women's athletics have gone to men.

But experts say these numbers don't simply depict discrimination against women in athletics. That is just one factor that's been at work as the coaching profession has evolved.

Jenepher Shillingford, the former athletic director at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, looks back at the old days and laughs. More than 40 years ago, when she started out as a field hockey coach, "women could be either a secretary, a teacher, or a nurse." Now, the horizons for young women are much wider than even a decade ago. "Women just aren't thinking about coaching, because they are seeing so much opportunity in law, business, and medicine," she says.

Not to mention the fact that coaching is a grueling, low-pay, high-stress job with little time off.

Karen Borbee, the head field hockey and lacrosse coach at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, knows what burnout feels like. She has seen the recruiting of star athletes take on much more importance in the past decade.

"Before, you were just expected to coach. You spent long hours with your players, who practically became your surrogate family." Now, she says, "you're also required to spend all your free time calling up potential players, trying to get them to join your team."

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