Studies show women have a different mindset, different physical make-up and different emotions. Men spend less time thinking and more time doing. Yet men largely coach women’s sports. The question then becomes: can men coach women effectively?
According to softball coach Lisa Navas, the answer is simple.
“Obviously,” she said. “A coach is a coach.”
Men and women evoke different qualities within their teams. It takes a certain type of person to coach women, just as it takes a certain type of person to become a schoolteacher and yet another type to be a mechanical engineer.
At N.C. State the only women’s sports coached by females are basketball, softball, track and field and golf, compared to tennis, soccer, gymnastics, swimming and diving, rifle and volleyball, which have male head coaches.
According to Athletic Director Lee Fowler, there are no regulations stating that there needs to be a woman on the coaching staff of a women’s sports team, yet he recommends it.
“If you have a male coach on a women’s sports team, we encourage bringing on a female assistant,” Fowler said. “I don’t think we have any sports that haven’t done that. I would prefer for there to be diversity on staff unless there is a really good reason [to have it be] otherwise.”
Associate Athletics Director for Compliance and Senior Woman Administrator Michelle Lee echoes Fowler’s recommendation. She said it is important for female athletes to have a positive role model.
“Having someone who you feel comfortable talking to is important,” Lee said. “There are women’s issues that you might not feel conformable talking to a man about. The athletes want to have the feeling that they want to play for their coach — have that bond, that relationship — and sometimes you find that in a male coach, sometimes a female coach. It’s important to just have that diversity.”
Before any new coach is hired, the Athletic Department talks to the team and figures out what specifically it wants in a coach.
Soccer coach Steve Springthorpe completed his inaugural season with the Wolfpack after taking over for Laura Kerrigan, who coached the team for 11 years. Springthorpe finished the season with a 8-9-2 overall record, which was the best season for the program in four years.
According to Lee, hiring a male coach and switching genders was important to the soccer team.
“They expressed to us that they wanted a male head coach,” Lee said. “Sometimes student athletes are looking for something different.”
In the soccer world, men coach most of the club and youth teams, and many players get used to a male mentality. Sophomore forward Paige Dugal said she has played for both men and women coaches and prefers a man’s perspective.
“It was nice to have a women’s coach with Kerrigan because she understands us a little better, but girls didn’t respect her as much after a while,” Dugal said. “I only had one female coach growing up and that was for a year. The rest were male, so that’s what I’m used to and I like it.”
The decision to hire a male or a female isn’t a main concern, Lee said. The decision to hire a coach depends largely on how effective he or she is with coaching women.
“It comes down to less about gender and more about personality, ” Lee said. “I think sometimes the disadvantage is perception. Maybe females aren’t ‘good enough’ to coach. But I know when we go through the hiring process it’s about the best qualified coach.”
Hans Olsen, the women’s tennis head coach, has experience coaching both genders. He said his personality is better suited for coaching women.
“I think my expertises fit well with coaching women,” Olsen said. “It was the different layers and colors and personalities that I liked. The guys were black and white.”
Gymnastics coach Mark Stevenson started his coaching career with men and happened to fall into the women’s coaching world. Stevenson began coaching at State as the men’s gymnastic assistant coach 30 years ago. In his second year, he was brought on as head coach with the condition that he create a women’s gymnastics team.
Stevenson said there’s a special approach when it comes to coaching women.
“There is a little more fear involved in coaching women,” Stevenson said. “The girls you have to drill and work through skills more. It’s overcoming the fear with confidence by number more than anything. Males have the attitude of let’s just get it done.”
Stevenson said the most important thing to remember in any sport is realizing women are athletes first.
“The big part about men coaching women’s sports is the male coach can’t look at them as women,” Stevenson said. “You have to look at them as athletes. As long as you look at them as athletes, you’ll treat them as athletes. I think that is extremely important. If you pamper them and don’t push them, then they are not going to get the level they want to be.”
Stevenson, Springthorpe and Olsen all stated they would never coach the men after working with women so long.
“I wouldn’t trade coaching the girls for the guys,” Stevenson said. “They are hardworking, great students and have set goals they are working towards.”
In many sports, women coaches are scarce. But that doesn’t mean women don’t make great coaches. Before joining the Wolfpack family, Springthorpe worked as the assistant coach at the University of Florida under Becky Burleigh, who is the only women’s head soccer coach with national championship under her belt.
“There are some great female coaches out there,” Springthrope said. “There just aren’t that many of them. It all revolves around your success and if you are respected from your players.”
According to Lee, there are several advantages to having females as head coaches.
“Any time you can set an example of a female in a position of power or accomplishing things, that sets a positive role model,” Lee said.
It all boils down to whether a person has what it takes to coach and coach well, new volleyball coach Bryan Bunn said.
“Some players perform better for female coaches, some for males,” Bunn said. “I don’t believe it’s a gender thing — it’s how you run your program. If you’re male or female, it doesn’t matter if you run a good program.”
