Can you give like a really quick explanation of what Women ’ s Coaching Academy was ?
Yeah , so , well now it ' s We Coach . It ’ s like a conference for female coaches at all levels , so head coaches , assistant coaches , across all sports and across all divisions in the NCAA ( National Collegiate Athletic Association )--so one , two and three . I think they offer it about two or three times a year . A lot of it is about networking , about building your resume , and about making connections , and about some of the challenges you might face as a female coach in a very male dominated field . Their whole goal is to keep women in coaching , attract women to coaching , and keep women in coaching . It was a really powerful experience .
Do you feel as if you ' ve experienced a lack of female coaches in your coaching career or in your athletic career ?
Yes and no . So I , again , like I said , I grew up as an athlete . So like rec basketball and everything that you could possibly do , like soccer , and I do remember having a lot of male coaches at that middle school , grade school level . When I got to high school , my cross country coach was a woman and our track coach was a woman , and I feel really grateful for that . My cross country coach was also my guidance counselor and she was amazing . She was doing things like mindfulness training back way before it became really mainstream . She ' d turn off the lights and she would talk us through the race course . I don ’ t actually think I had any female coaches at the elite level . So yeah , predominantly male-dominated on the coaching front .
Did you have the same level of support , do you think , going through it as your male counterparts have ?
Yeah , I think this is something that I ' ve really started to pay more attention to recently . Recognizing the disparity that still exists even in current athletic administrations and looking at where the resources go and the whole “ squeaky wheel gets the grease ” kind of mentality . There ' s always going to be a lack of resources and everyone ' s going to have to be advocating for what they need for their program . It seems to me , in starting to pay more attention , a lot of times the female coaches concede and things may be taken away from them to go into a different direction . It seems like that idea of standing up for yourself . I think that is definitely something that doesn ' t come naturally to me . And so something I ' ve actively been trying to change in myself is really forcefully standing up for what I think is right and what I think is not right and getting what I think is fair and is equitable and just really paying attention to a lot of those things . I think as a younger coach you don ' t want to rock the boat and you ' re just grateful to be there . I remember even taking the job , I didn ' t even negotiate . Now that I know of it and I ' m a little bit older and a little bit more established , even in this department , just being willing to open my mouth in situations where things are not necessarily as equitable . I think that ' s definitely something that ' s been a little bit of a challenge .
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