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Subject: Women-in-Hockey Digest V1 #239
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Women-in-Hockey Digest Wednesday, July 1 1998 Volume 01 : Number 239
In this issue:
Costs, was Re: Coaching: Men vs Women
Re: Costs, was Re: Coaching: Men vs Women
Coaching
Yzerman on Letterman
Re: Coaching
reverse discrimination, realism
Re: Coaching
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Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 10:20:54 -0700
From: Anne Paulson
Subject: Costs, was Re: Coaching: Men vs Women
> In a message dated 98-06-30 01:49:38 EDT, email@hidden writes:
> The football programs
> at Colleges rake in an enormous amount of money and that money helps the
> ENTIRE student body. No, it's not fair that the public is more interested
in
> watching men play football than women, but it's still the way it is and I
> don't think that is ever gonna change.
I just want to correct one misconception here. At some few colleges,
the football programs make money, but at the majority of colleges, the
football programs are hugely expensive and *lose money*. It's a common
complaint from professors that colleges and universities subsidize
football at the expense of academics.
- -- Anne Paulson
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Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 16:25:28 EDT
From: email@hidden
Subject: Re: Costs, was Re: Coaching: Men vs Women
email@hidden writes:
<< I just want to correct one misconception here. At some few colleges,
the football programs make money, but at the majority of colleges, the
football programs are hugely expensive and *lose money*. It's a common
complaint from professors that colleges and universities subsidize
football at the expense of academics. >>
True. Boston University just lost its Division 2 Football team. But their
hockey program is one of the best ;o)
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Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 14:38:00 -0600
From: "Hunter, Bill 464-8643"
Subject: Coaching
I'm going to ramble on a bit.....
First off, I too resent the comments of "You can't understand because
you're not a (insert minority group here)" Personally, I was cut from
the high school football team, I've been picked last when making up
teams for fun games, I've sat on the bench because I wasn't perceived to
be good enough, I didn't play because I was an outsider in the community
and all the rest of the guys had gone to school together and the coach
was one of their teachers, I wasn't skinny as a kid.
Family wise, my daughter played ringette for a number of years. Her
first year there were enough girls for a team and a half so the coach
only played those girls who were good. The new players sat and maybe
played a shift a period. Same thing happened to my son when playing on
a top level Novice team. The coach had his favorites who played
powerplays, penalty killing and the last 5 minutes of a close game.
I eventually blackmailed my daughter into playing hockey by threatening
to accept a job offer in the boonies of Northern Alberta. She didn't
want to give up ringette so she played both. The coach of the ringette
zone rep team lost a player. Needing another player, he pirated the
goalie away from my daughter's team to play out for him since he had
coached her before. Her parents were pushing for it as well because my
daughter's team was weak. The team was stranded. No one wanted to play
goal. My wife was an assistant coach and she asked the goalie off my
older son's team to play for them when he wasn't playing hockey. He was
the right age and his sister also played ringette. The team was in the
qualifying rounds for provincials and were told that he couldn't play
with the team if they made provincials. Ringette was happy to accept
his money but wouldn't let him compete. There was a story in the
Edmonton paper about a male Novice (8/9 yr olds) ringette player who was
also not allowed to accompany his team to the Alberta provincials. The
experience made her drop ringette completely for hockey. (For which I am
glad.)
The point to all of the above is that males, as individuals and parents
can also experience discrimination in one form or another. I believe I
understand quite well thank you very much.
Now, as for changing things, the first thing you do is make noise, like
on this list for example. I've seen requests and comments about Title
IX suits here, what's wrong with complaints about coaching
discrimination? Instead of support, there are messages like >>It's
about time you guys get a taste of your own medicine!! << , >>.... it
certainly cannot do any harm to walk a mile in someone
else's shoes.<< and >>Secondly, women 18 and older that have been
playing for some time, need and should have opportunities to coach. And
if that means some men need to step aside, so be it<< If I'm the
incumbent and I think I'm a better candidate, I'm not going to step
aside. I've been an assistant to a bad coach and it's not fun. You
take all the heat from the parents and can't make any changes. If you
do manage to get things done in spite of the coach, they get another
team and you stay as an assistant.
My kids have had bad coaches at times. (That's one of the reasons I
started coaching.) Those years they learn very little and any
improvement by the players is more a matter of luck and individual
perseverance. Athletes who are badly coached tend to drop out.
Appointing coaches for political reasons, especially at higher levels
will be detrimental to the sport overall. New coaches should pay their
dues, start as an assistant, take the courses and go from there, the
same way I did.
Bill
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Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 16:38:29 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Wendy R. Painter"
Subject: Yzerman on Letterman
Sigh. This is what I get for not paying attention to late-night TV. I
missed the Yzerman appearance on Letterman. Might I be able to convince
someone who taped the segment to send me a copy? I'm in Austin, Texas and
would be willing to ship you a videotape or pay you for one you send me...
Wendy
#27 Central Texas Furies
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Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 23:51:16 -0800
From: "Lyle R. Anderson"
Subject: Re: Coaching
Hunter, Bill 464-8643 wrote:
>
> I'm going to ramble on a bit.....
> Athletes who are badly coached tend to drop out.
> Appointing coaches for political reasons, especially at higher levels
> will be detrimental to the sport overall. New coaches should pay their
> dues, start as an assistant, take the courses and go from there, the
> same way I did.
>
> Bill
Excellent points. It was my understanding that equal opportunity meant
just that. Opportunity. I.e. A fair chance to simply start at the
beginning. Not simply a free trip to the elite level without the
requisite credentials. Regardless of how good it may feel to say "now
you know how it feels," reverse discrimination won't be an asset to the
sport.
I feel badly for the teams that have had their coaches appointed based
soley on gender as opposed to qualifications. Particularly in U15 and
U19 where it won't take the players more than a heart beat to recognize
they know more about hockey than their coaches do. The same is apt to
be true of Senior A and B.
We talked about the difficulty in attracting former college players into
the sport as coaches a few months back. That would seem to be a fairly
large group of individuals with a lot of hockey experience that would be
an asset to any program, male or female. I recall the reason it was
difficult to get these women to sign on as being directly related to bad
politics.
Lyle
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Date: Wed, 01 Jul 1998 09:31:37 -0400
From: Donald Wright
Subject: reverse discrimination, realism
At 02:38 PM 6/30/98 -0600, you wrote:
>I'm going to ramble on a bit.....
>The point to all of the above is that males, as individuals and parents
>can also experience discrimination in one form or another. I believe I
>understand quite well thank you very much.
Pardon me, but no, I don't think you do. For every story of some male
being discriminated against, there are thousands upon thousands of cases of
females getting short changed. There are so many, they just aren't even
"news" anymore. Case in point. Two years ago, my daugther's all-female
squirt team finished 7-2 in the state league, and for the first time, were
"technically" qualified for the playoffs. But when playoffs rolled around,
it was "Sorry, no girls teams allowed in the playoffs, local rule, too
bad". But USA Hockey says..." no girls teams allowed, sorry". Sixteen
females discriminated against. And that's just a drop in the bucket. Make
that a 50 gallon drum.
So please, no more sad little stories about isolated cases of male
discrimination. We're talking numbers here, let's get real.
Back to men vs. women coaches. Women who have a.) played hockey, b.) have
some understanding of the game, and c.) have a desire to coach, deserve to
get first priority when it comes to filling these positons. Where did men
start out coaching. Formers players, mostly. You start out just like any
other job, making mistakes and learning along the way. But the first step
is opportunity. How are you supposed to be qualified if you never get the
opportunity to learn? We're not talking about the NHL here. Nobody is
missing the Stanley Cup if a new coach makes a mistake. Without
opportunity, there is no next step. Until we get by this first hump, we're
never going to get down the road of equal opportunity.
Maybe someday when everything is "even", there won't be anymore
discrimination stories by either side. Wouldn't that be nice.
Don Wright
RI Panthers
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Date: Wed, 1 Jul 1998 10:56:05 -0700
From: Anne Paulson
Subject: Re: Coaching
Bill Hunter writes:
> We talked about the difficulty in attracting former college players into
> the sport as coaches a few months back. That would seem to be a fairly
> large group of individuals with a lot of hockey experience that would be
> an asset to any program, male or female. I recall the reason it was
> difficult to get these women to sign on as being directly related to bad
> politics.
I wonder whether there might be another reason. I remember looking at
the backgrounds of the US women's team vs. the US men's team at
the Olympics. The men tended to have spent their youth playing hockey
and going through the hockey ranks. The women had college degrees,
or were attending college, at top colleges like Brown (go Bruno!) and
Harvard. They were, mostly, very accomplished young women. If you have an
Ivy League degree, there are a lot of careers open to you that are more
lucrative and easier to enter than coaching hockey. Hockey coaching
might be more attractive to a young man who had spent his collegiate
career concentrating on playing hockey on a hockey scholarship.
- -- Anne Paulson
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End of Women-in-Hockey Digest V1 #239
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