Back in November of 2020 I attended a virtual series titled ‘girls and women in sport,’ hosted by Canadian Sport centre Manitoba and Fit women and Girls. While attending the event I learned that coaching girls requires a different approach in comparison to coaching boys.
Last blog post I wanted to explore this further and see what tips were out there in regard to coaching the female athlete. While doing my research my focus shifted away from coaching the female athlete and more towards female coaches themselves.
This week I decided to redirect back towards the discussion of coaching females successfully and how the methods compare with coaching males. I decided to gather this weeks topic from personal opinions of coaches, whom I know have coached both males and females separately and compare their experiences with research.
What I gathered from discussing this topic with a past coach of mine, in short, was that the biggest difference between coaching females in comparison to males was the emotional attachment to the game. Our conversation was as follows;
Me: "I understand you have over 40 years of coaching experience with both females and males, would you say different coaching tactics are required in order to lead the different sexes?"
Coach: "You know I didn't think so, you see I had only coached young men for the first 30 years of my coaching career and so when I was first asked to coach my first all female team I just assumed i'd be able to use the same methods that i'd used in the past. It wasn't until I actually began coaching the young woman that I realized I needed to restructure my communication methods in order to achieve successful results from the girls."
Me: "Would you mind providing me with an example?"
Coach: "Not to say that all women and men are the same, because they are not, but typically females are known to be biologically more nurturing than men and therefore require an emotional attachment to the game or else their motivation and or efforts are just not there. For instance, with boys, if they are slacking on the ice or on the field, court, whatever the sport may be, as their coach all I have to do is tell them as it is and to go getter done. Whereas with girls if they do not want to be there they are simply just not going to try very hard and or care. Luckily, I have two daughters of my own and was able to pick up on this quite quickly, what I learned was I needed to establish a relationship with the girls and enable them to form a bond with each other off ice and during practice first before I'd be able to really work with the girls on their skills and team performance."
Me: "How did you establish this?"
Coach: "I began with ice breaker activities in order for everyone to get to know each other and included questions that also gave everyone including myself a better sense of why the girls were there, why playing the sport and being on the team was important to them, what their individual, team, short and long term goals were for the sport, etc. This again, helped the girls not only establish a relationship with each other but also was a way for them to establish that emotional attachment to the game, and it was also a great way for me to get to know the girls a bit better as well individually which assisted me in better understanding how to coach them."
Me: "Would you say then that coaching girls is more complex than coaching boys?"
Coach: "The word i'd use is dynamic, not complex. With males its trickier to teach teamwork as men typically want to each be individual stars, so the focus is teamwork type drills during practice, as they all (for the most part) have the individual skills needed in order to succeed. With women I found they are quick to work together, even if they are capable of scoring on their own they almost always look for a teammate that may be open or in a better position than them to score. The area of focus for the girls is almost always their individual skills. I use the word dynamic because each individual girl requires their own focus on a specific skill, whether that be shooting, skating backwards, crossovers, etc (if we are discussing hockey that is). Therefore during practice i'd mix it up and have the ice and the team split up with my assistant coaches and myself each running separate drills that each focus on specific drills, all that the same time. Then after a few minutes i'd have the girls switch groups so they can work on a new skill. Then, depending on how long our practice times are i'd use the last hour or 30 minutes to focus on team building or team working drills as it's still important to practice this area regularly.
Me: "Would you say your methods are successful?"
Coach: "The first year I coached females the young women won the championship that year and I've lead many other female teams following that first year to countless championships, so I'd say my coaching tactics are quite effective."
Based off of this conversation and the information I learned from attending the 'girls and women in sport' virtual series last year, it was quite obvious to me that leading and or coaching females in comparison to males requires different teaching methods. I wanted to compare this information though with research in order to determine if this is in fact true.
The research I came across to compare with the findings above has been pulled from three different sources, all of which are online articles. Article one is titled 'Coaching Girls: A Content Analysis of Best-Selling Popular Press Coaching Books.' The second article is 'Considerations in Coaching Girls and Women in Sport and Physical Activity Settings' and lastly we have 'Creative Coaching: An Experiment with Adolescent Girls in Kerala.'
What I discovered from reading the first source (aka article one), in short, was that the biggest issue that is known to arise in coaching girls revolves around stereotyping and improper communication. When it comes to stereotypes the article explains that the characteristics given to men are considered positive in regard to their athletic ability(being strong, having a competitive nature, etc), whereas the stereotypes associated around being a woman are considered negative aspects (being emotional, caring, etc) in regard to their athletic ability and or coachability (LaVoi, 2007, para. 26). Interestingly enough, the information pulled into this article by actual coaches discusses these so called "negative characteristics" as desirable attributes in regard to being a successful athlete and team player, explaining that their natural ability to be more emotional than men actually allows the girls to establish an emotional connection to each other ultimately forming strong chemistry throughout the team which is key for any team sport (LaVoi, 2007, paras. 27-30). The concluding statements from this article can be summarized by a quote from a female athlete named Mia Hamm in paragraph ten. Mia says "coach us like men, treat us like women" (LaVoi, 2007).
The second article focuses more around discussing the specific differences between coaching men and women. Something that the article talks about that immediately caught my attention says that "men use more assertive speech whereas women use affiliative speech" meaning that men use communication to problem solve and women use communication to develop relationships (Etnier, 2011, para. 3). I found this information interesting because if we go back to the discussion I had with a coach of mine he found using communication as a way to form relationships was particularly successful in terms of coaching females. Article one also displays this theme of communication by addressing that improper communication is one of the main issues in regard to coaching girls and understanding how to properly communicate with them is key for obtaining successful results. I was curious to know if I could find another reliable source that also carried on this theme and that's when I came across 'Creativity Coaching: An Experiment with Adolescent Girls in Kerala.'
The third and final article I read in regard to this topic focuses on coaching for more than sports but to help adolescents develop fundamental life skills as well (Antony, 2016, para. 2). To summarize, the article explains that it's extremely important to teach young adolescents, especially girls to be creative thinkers, and their own independent beings as these developments are essential and useful in order to develop an empowering genderation of good workers/ communicators (Antony, 2016, para. 35).
To conclude, coaching females in comparison to males is found to require different coaching tactics with a main focus on the use of proper communication. As children girls and boys are seen to be very similar in their athletic and learning abilities, it is not until they have each hit puberty that they begin to separate into their own unique beings. Therefore, when coaching young children "a focus on the similarities between boys and girls may be more productive. A commonalities focus would help coaches be more effective in meeting the needs of the individual child--regardless of gender--and may increase the likelihood that positive youth development through sports will occur" (LaVoi, 2007, para. 40). However, once puberty occurs a more direct focus on their individual differences is required to better earn the attention and respect from the women and to achieve greater athletic and individual growth results.
References
Antony, J. (2016). Creativity Coaching: An Experiment with Adolescent Girls in Kerala. Journal of Social Work Education and Practice, 1(2), 1–18. Retrieved from https://www.jswep.in/uploads/3/1/7/2/31729069/01_dr_jose_antony.pdf
Etnier, J. L. (2011). Considerations in Coaching Girls and Women in Sport and Physical Activity Settings. Women in Sport & Physical Activity Journal, 20(1), 98–100. https://doi.org/10.1123/wspaj.20.1.98
LaVoi, N. M., Becker, E., & Maxwell, H. D. (2007). “Coaching Girls”: A Content Analysis of Best-Selling Popular Press Coaching Books. Women in Sport & Physical Activity Journal, 16(2), 7–20. https://doi.org/10.1123/wspaj.16.2.7
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