The recent game between two college teams on a small, unobtrusive soccer field in New York City marked a pivotal moment in American sports history.
The game itself between Chicago and New York didn’t matter because of the great feat accomplished by the players, but instead two coaches (both women) scored shots from the sidelines.
The close game, which ended 0-0, is believed to be the first time two female head coaches have faced off head-to-head in a men’s college game.
One of them, Julian Sich, is a former Melbourne Victory player.
She said that while she was focused on preparing her team, the historical nature of the match had not been lost.
“I feel very honored and humbled just to be a part of it,” she told ABC.
2022 will be Sitch’s first season coaching the University of Chicago men’s team. A role she assumed in April since she led her team to a 14-game winning streak.
“It’s not about whether I’m coaching men or coaching women, we’re going to have the same culture and create the same environment for them to play,” Sitch said.
The American defender’s tenure playing in Australia may have been brief, but at the end of her only season in 2009, Sitch was named Melbourne Victory’s Most Valuable Player.
“I loved my time in Australia and I still talk and keep in touch with some really good friends,” she added.
Sitch turned from a professional athlete to a women’s coach when he retired after six years of his season at Victory.
“The team has been phenomenal. The previous coaches and staff have done a really good job of creating a very good culture,” she said.
How long will it be before this is no longer a “breakthrough” encounter?
Sitch’s opponent in the game, described as a “landmark” by the American press, was New York University (NYU) men’s coach Kim Wyant.
“I tend to try to be very optimistic. But of course I wonder how long it will take to see more and more of this happen,” Wyant told ABC.
Wyant may be a rival now, but Wyant is also Julian Sich’s best friend, encouraging her to take on a role on the Chicago men’s team this season.
“she [Sitch] Maybe I wanted to alleviate my fears and anxieties as a woman in that line of work,” she said.
“I never really experienced any friction or resistance.”
The data is ‘pretty depressing’
Despite coaching men since 2015, Kim Wyant admits the recent numbers just show. 5% of all men’s college teams in America are coached by women “Quite depressing.”
She said sexism has never been an issue in her role at NYU, but wants more research into why more women aren’t following her lead.
“I read a lot about how women have so many barriers,” she said.
“When it comes to caring for children, we are also generally the heads of the household, which may be a burden as well.”
Since 2003, the gender representation of head coaches in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has practically not changed.
Only about 45% of women coach women’s teams, but only 5% of men’s head coaches are women.
“There’s no big pool of female coaches to begin with,” Wyant said.
“Then you start wondering how to scale this and how to standardize it.”
Sitch hopes that both she and Wyatt can inspire other people to make a breakthrough.
Breaking the glass ceiling with coaching
That’s what Australian Liz Mills, who became the first women’s basketball head coach to lead a men’s national team to a continental championship at the International Basketball Association (FIBA), is hoping to do.
Mills was also the first female head coach of the Basketball Africa League (BAL) and the first female head coach of a Moroccan men’s club team.
She told ABC that her goal is to “continue to break the glass ceiling and use my platform as a vehicle to continue discussing gender equality from a coaching perspective.”
Mills credits his success in a male-dominated industry with being hired by forward-thinking institutions like Sitch and Wyant.
“Challenge to [sporting] Clubs, associations and federations are changing their selection processes when it comes to hiring, looking at qualifications, experience and skill sets rather than gender,” said Mills.
“Any sport, like soccer or basketball, is a boys’ club. It’s really about breaking that narrative, including women in the decision-making process, being in the decision-making table, and adding diversity.”
Mills said much more needs to be done to boost the confidence of female coaches, as well as further research.
“In Australia, I really felt that I would never have the opportunity to coach men. I never thought about it…because we impose our own restrictions,” she said. rice field.
Networking with fellow female coaches
Liz Mills recently launched the Global Women’s Basketball Coaching Network. The network, which she founded less than two months ago, now has about 500 members worldwide.
“As female coaches, we often operate in silos and very strange worlds,” she said.
“We all work in male-dominated industries and often cannot work with each other and do not interact in the same way as our male colleagues.”
Her personal goal is to become the team’s first female coach at the FIBA Men’s World Cup, but Mills also hopes to create a platform for other women to coach professionally.
“Eventually, clubs, federations and associations will come to us and ask about coaches they might hire.”
