And to TenUhSee and everyone else, let me be clear. Personally, I’d PREFER the next home-run hire be a woman because I know how strongly Pat fought to see women in leadership roles, and so coaching the Tennessee Lady Vols is kinda (IMO) the ultimate leadership opportunity for a woman. I feel like there are numerous female candidates who could lead Tennessee back to glory.
Would I EVER, if given the task of hiring a coach myself, exclude male candidates? Of course not!!!! That would be sexist and all kinds of wrong.
So yes, I’d hire a male if after considering ALL of the factors that I believe makes a coach best equipped to coach my team. But I will not lie. If ALL factors were somehow miraculously totally equal between two finalists, one male and one female, I’d give the premier opportunity in women’s sports leadership to the woman.
Men have such opportunities in every sport, at every level for both men and women. Women get these opportunities in women’s sports.
I have give all of my 37 years of coaching, exclusively, to girls/young women.
Twice I experimented with coaching males
-I was asked to take on a church league team,,,,10 yr old boys...it was like herding cats
-last year I wanted to put a boy through my girl's beginner's system over a summer: (included in the training: 5 spots on the arc for 3's,,7 direction one-dribble layups with different finishes (traditional layup, scoop, floater, etc) for each of the seven starting points,,7-spot circuit shooting,,2-ball drills,,7-point passing (sending a pass from 7 different release-points for each hand,,etc). ,,,,,,,,,,,,We practiced in a community center and when our 2 hours were near the end, there was always gym rats there ready to get on the court in any way they could.,so I'd line up teenagers, 20 yr olds and sometimes grown men on this 11 year old kid, One on one offense and defensive the kid has to take em on to finish. I'd get there and he'd often already be there, practicing what I told him to work on the session before,,,great kid!
But fully an experiment.
back to subject.
My degree is in sports administration
minor was athletic coaching
It was fully aimed at coaching as a career
life happened
but I stayed with the women's game
I worked two SEC women's tourneys. Met and spoke with CPS a couple of times....was team Liaison for the Australian's Women's Olympic team of 1996 (still have the signed ball) for a pre-Olympic tournament at Chattanooga...in ATL during my busiest years (( I had an 18u, 12u rec, 14u AAU GA Pistols,held 2 clinics and a summer-long 11-week skills school
All for girls
I have dedicated my life to girls/women just as hard as anybody, any sex!
And I did so for the reason that most every girls BB team I saw early on,,had an uncle,brother,dad,friend of a friend...everything but a coach. It made me mad.
I have coached directly about 2000 girls,,,,Indirectly, well, we had about about 450 girls each year that had to have at least one impartial coach charting and notating them. (Jack always had a coach outside of the age group to chart talent scores for each age group), so indirectly thousands.
***
It can't be about gender
it has to be about respect from both coach and player
I just finished working with a prodigy for two years
She wrote: "Thank u for all of the positivity and endless love"
Wow
I think I will coach again next year
