People of a certain age who grew up following college sports won’t have trouble recalling the sense of panic and dread that fell upon the country 42 years ago when an existential threat to athletics was unleashed upon the land.
People of a certain age who grew up following college sports won’t have trouble recalling the sense of panic and dread that fell upon the country 42 years ago when an existential threat to athletics was unleashed upon the land.
The earth was about to shake, the alarmists told us, fearing the whole thing might come apart under the oppressive new federal policy that surrounded and then became an integral part of the NCAA.
It was called Title IX, a law designed to end gender discrimination, which had continued even after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The simple point of the new law was quite clear, explaining, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”
Notice, it doesn’t mention athletes or coaches, but both, and much more was included in Title IX legislation in 1972. Athletics was actually a small slice of the law, but easily the most well-publicized.
According to the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education survey, in 1971, “… fewer than 295,000 girls participated in high school varsity athletics, accounting for just 7 percent of all varsity athletes; in 2001, that number leaped to 2.8 million, or 41.5 percent of all varsity athletes.”
The dire warnings in our culture founded on the basis of white male privilege was cause for almost daily stories of concern. Critics said it would have a corrosive effect on men’s sports, that it would drain athletic departments of the few financial resources they have and only the most prosperous programs would survive. The end of college athletics was staring the nation right in the face.
None of that happened. Girls and young women had their opportunities to play, just like the guys in school.
For the first time in many of their lives, these women had people who looked like them, who coached and trained them. They had role models, coaches, assistant coaches, mentors, new opportunities that their older sisters never had.
The whole point was to get women on the courts, on the fields and tracks, to let them push the limits of their athleticism in a suddenly socially acceptable manner, with role models as coaches, trainers and other associated occupations that had previously been channeled toward men.
It happened almost overnight, or more accurately in the span between one season and the next. Girls’ teams popped up everywhere, the turnout rate kept increasing.
At the inception, 90 percent of women’s teams in the nation’s schools were coached by women and many supporters of Title IX hoped that number would climb, but nothing like that ever happened.
But gender discrimination is rampant today in high schools and colleges, despite the law. It has shifted from the court to the sideline where research by the Women’s Sports Foundation, the most prominent advocacy group for women’s sports, found that as of 2016 the number of women coaches for women’s athletic teams has dropped to just 43 percent.
“It was an unintended consequence of (Title IX), said Deborah Slaner Larkin, CEO of WSF in a telephone interview last week. “It wasn’t something predicted, but as women’s sports grew, as more money came in, more opportunities were seen, men started coaching and more and more came in.
“In the time since it started, not one school has lost federal funding for the discrepancy,” she said. “Schools that abused Title IX have lost cases, they’ve had to settle some lawsuits but nobody has lost federal funding as we have turned our attention to the takeover of male coaches in women’s sports.
“Usually, these decisions rest at the President or Chancellor levels at the schools. Most athletic directors are men, their circle of friends in the business are made up of men and they often rely on recommendations of men coaches.”
Locally, the coaching profile at the University of Hawaii at Hilo is instructive in illustrating the issue, but athletic director Pat Guillen doesn’t perceive a problem. To the point, he doesn’t think there is an issue in a department with 12 sports and 10 male head coaches, the only female head coach being Tina McDermott, in tennis.
“In my 15 months, I’ve hired two coaches,” Guillen said last week, “one woman (McDermott) and one man (Callen Perreira, softball), and I have no problem with that.
“I wasn’t here before so I can’t feel responsible for the good coaches we have, what would you do, have me fire male coaches to hire a female?”
Guillen was reminded the question was about the 10 head coaches who are male and whether he was okay with that.
“I’m proud of our coaches,” he said, “so yes.”
Comments from Libby Bailey, the UHH Title IX coordinator were sought for this column with multiple interview requests daily from last Tuesday through Friday. Requests were left on her office phone and with a receptionist. No calls were returned.
Coaching openings exist in soccer where Gene Okamura and his three male assistants coach both teams but the search is on a for a new coach, to split the duties and end a double standard in the athletic department that separates soccer from the other “team” sports, with only one coach. If that opening is filled with a woman to coach women’s soccer, it would double the number of female head coaches in the department.
Another opening exists in women’s volleyball where Tino Reyes was recently terminated after a seven-year run at the school. A woman’s volleyball coach for the women’s team would raise the total to four in the department.
Including Reyes and his assistants in their recently concluded season, Hawaii Hilo listed a total of 43 coaches for the 12 teams it fielded at the start of the 2016-17 school year, with 36 of those coaches — 83.7 percent — men.
Further, of the 12 head coaches, all but tennis coach Tina McDermott, who coaches both men and women, are men. Assistant coaches, some of which are volunteers, include 26 males and 5 females, or 83.8 percent.
In all, while 43 percent of girls and women’s team nationally is a long fall from the 90 perecent of women coaches in these sports 42 years ago, the rate of 16.3 percent of the coaches listed on the university website (7 of 43), jumps out as extreme.
That 16 percent number hangs on the Hawaii Hilo athletic department. It reflects the total number of women coaches, volunteer, paid and head coaches, listed by the school, and 16.7 percent would also reflect the head coaches (2 of 12), at the school.
If Guillen feel’s comfortable hiring two more women head coaches, the Vulcans would be represented in intercollegiate athletics by four women head coaches on the seven women’s teams in the 12-team department.
If that happens, UHH would have 43 percent of its women’s teams actually coached by women, essentially matching the declining and disappointing total nationwide in women’s sports.
Two more women’s head coaches would seem to be the least the school could do.
Contact Bart at barttribuneherald@gmail.com
