Where are all the female coaches?

[Administrator]

A few days ago, JR Eskilson from TopDrawerSoccer.com wrote two stories about "Where are all the female coaches?"

http://www.topdrawersoccer.com/club-...coaches-Part-1

Here are the first three paragraphs:

Out of the 330 teams in the Elite Clubs National League (ECNL), the exclusive nation-wide league for girls club soccer, only five percent of the teams are coached by women.

It breaks down to just 18 teams.

At other youth levels, the numbers are not that different.

In AYSO, one of the leading recreational soccer organizations in the country, the number is estimated to be in the teens. One famous study by USC professor Michael Messner that focused on teams in California put the number at 13.4 percent.

What are your thoughts on the amount of female coaches in soccer? As part two of the article shows (and the upcoming podcast with Karl O'Shaughnessy talks about in Ireland) the same holds around the world.

[Martin Roberts]

Last season I hired a female coach, good playing experience and was working her way through her coaching licenses. I did this for one simple reason, to appeal to female teams that hire my staff for professional training.
It received mixed results.

I found that u11's and below didn't want a female coach, and u15's and above didn't either, but the middle age groups liked it.
No boys teams wanted a female coach.

Two of my instructors on my NCSAA coaching diploma's were female, and excellent.

To attract more female coaches, I feel the women's professional league and teams need to be promoted more.

[Jeremy Tosaya]

I've been coaching in college soccer for ten years, so relatively a short period, but I started out in women's soccer because there were not many men's graduate assistantships available. After three years of being an assistant for a women's team I got a job in the men's game, but then took a position as a head men's and women's coach at another program.

I've hired several assistant coaches over the last ten years, but I have to say that a lot of it comes down to the applicants. I've had one female assistant coach in my ten years, and I've interviewed maybe five females over the years to fill my positions. Most of the women that have played for me and showed a small interest in coaching went on to get married and start families and coaching kind of fell to the wayside. Out of the six years I coached women's soccer I can think of four that are currently coaching girls soccer, as opposed to the countless number of men who played for me and are coaching at some level now.

I think it really comes down to priorities, and for women staying involved in the sport after their playing career is over is not as important as it is to men. I've even noticed that my former female players were less inclined to keep playing than the men as well in adult leagues, etc.