No heyday for the payday

Low salaries discourage women from going into coaching.

By Dave Benson of The News-Sentinel

News-Sentinel photo A coach in the makingKara Moore will spend one season as a student assistant coach at the University of Saint Francis before she embarks on her own coaching career. Moore could be in for a struggle if coaching follows its current path.

Even though she has used up all her eligibility, Kara Moore's love of the game will not allow her to give up basketball completely.

Moore, a graduate of Woodlan High School, completed four years of eligibility this winter at the University of Saint Francis. She still has a few more credit hours left before she graduates, so Moore has agreed to work as a student coach for Cougars head coach Gary Andrews.

"I always wanted to get into coaching," Moore said. "I knew if I wasn't playing I would want to be in the sport somehow. Last summer I coached an (Amateur Athletic Union) team. It was my first actual coaching experience. I loved coaching and interacting with the kids. I knew it would be something I would succeed in."

But Moore, 22, faces an uncertain future as a women's coach. Not because she isn't qualified, but because men compete for -- and currently dominate -- head coaching positions in women's athletics.

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Title IX's toll on coaches

While Title IX, which celebrates its 30th aniversary Sunday, has created opportunities for female athletes, it may have taken away opportunities from female coaches.

According to a 1997-98 gender equity study by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, 45.1 percent of head coaches of women's teams at the Division I level were women. At the Division II level it was 38.9 percent, and at the Division III level, 45.6. Those numbers were tilted dramatically in favor of female coaches before Title IX.

According to a study performed by Brooklyn College in 1998, 90 percent of women's teams were coached by women before Title IX's passage in 1972. It dipped to 79 percent by 1979 and has been steadily decreasing since.

"When Title IX was passed, women's athletics was governed by the phys-ed department," said Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation. "They had separate women's phys-ed departments, and the instructors were the coaches. These were volunteer coaches. When money filtered in, simultaneously, women's programs were brought under the aegis of male athletics directors. Employers usually hire someone who is similar to them. There is a lot of sex discrimination in the process. It is subtle, but it's there."

Some think that the lack of women in coaching is something that can be taken care of in time.

"That's strictly a function of women not being involved long enough in high-profile programs," said Sandy Barbour, senior associate athletic director at the University of Notre Dame. "More and more schools every day want to make sure they hire the best qualified person. They are making sure their searches are finding, identifying and trying to attract all the best candidates for the job. When you do that, you yield a far greater number of women. If you just do a cursory search, the pool will be predominated by men."

Some, like Indiana University women's basketball coach Kathi Bennett, think that the lack of women in coaching may be a matter of personal choice.

"I don't know what more can be done," she said. "It's such a great opportunity. As more players get the opportunity to get into coaching, you would think that number would go up. I hope to see continued growth not only for women but for men."

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The salary gap

Others think the biggest reason for the lack of women in coaching is inequality in terms of salaries. They earn less than their male peers.

According to data compiled by The News-Sentinel:

* The average salary for a head coach of a men's team at Big Ten schools was $133,495 during the 2000-01 school year. For women's teams, head coaches' salaries averaged less than half that amount: $60,695.

* At Indiana's other Division-I schools, the average salary for a head coach of a men's team during the 2000-2001 school year was $53,497. For women's teams, head coach's salaries averaged $37,302.

* Locally, head coaches of men's college teams earned an average of $16,567. Head coaches of women's teams averaged $13,325.

Such numbers do not bode well for women in coaching because most women are more likely to coach women's teams and most men are more likely to coach men's teams. Yet men are willing to deal with the lower salaries coaching women's teams, just to have a job, and when they compete for those positions, they're more likely to get the job because they have more experience.

"It's frustrating in that we both do the same job," Manchester College women's basketball coach Michele Gill said. "It would be nice to be paid the same, but I don't know if that will ever happen.

"You have (University of Tennessee women's basketball coach) Pat Summit, who makes as much as a man, and then you have somebody at Long Beach State. They don't make as much. Administrators should adequately compensate coaches. It's something everybody is working at."

There are signs that the gap is closing. The University of Tennessee pays Summit an average salary of $1 million per year for coaching one of the nation's more successful women's programs.

Female coaches are making more money "at those schools that are drawing great attendance and revenue," Bennett said. "The gap is closing. I think there is work to do. The gap is still there at other schools, and it's still really big."

Lopiano would like to see the greatest changes in salary structure for women at the assistant coaching level.

Many women quit coaching because their salaries did not meet the demands on their time. Every assistant coach lost means once less potential head coach.

The average salary for an assistant coach on a men's team at a Big Ten university was $61,507 during the 2000-01 school year. Assistant coaches of women's teams averaged $31,125.

"When you consistently low-ball females who come into coaching at the assistant level, why stay in the business?" Lopiano said. "There is no dearth of women who are qualified to coach. Think of all the good players recently. It's just not happening. They're getting a lot of lip service."

The lack of women in coaching has become such a hot issue that some schools have taken an affirmative action stance in their hiring practices.

Some say the result has been discrimination against men.

"Especially at the Division I level, there is a big bias against men," said Gary Andrews, the University of Saint Francis women's basketball coach. "If two candidates are equal, they hire the woman every time. It's getting worse and worse. The more people I talk to and the women in coaching I know, they'd rather see the best candidate hired."

With all of the controversy surrounding gender equity and coaching, Moore is beginning her coaching career in less-than-ideal circumstances.

"I have heard the pay is a little bit less for women in coaching. But it would be a little bit selfish of me to say I deserve as much as an established male coach. On the other hand, it should depend on the ability of the coach, not the sex of the coach."

Women coaches who make a difference

Roberta Widmann-Foust
The Trailblazer

Name a sport or a grade level, and chances are Roberta Widmann-Foust has coached a team in it. This 1960 graduate of Huntertown High School blazed trails for female athletes and coaches over three decades.

She played high school sports before state athletic associations officially sanctioned them. When Widmann-Foust graduated from Purdue University in 1965, she came back to the Fort Wayne area to teach and coach, and later became an official.

Widmann-Foust's first job was at Weisser Park Junior High School, where she was in charge of cheerleading and organized a city track meet for junior high school students. She became the first female athletic director at the University of Saint Francis in 1975-76.

But Widmann-Foust's most ambitious work came at South Side High School in 1977. She was hired to teach physical education and help get the girls athletics program off the ground. Widmann-Foust was the driving force behind the Archers' girls teams. She coached volleyball, cross country, basketball, gymnastics and track.

"To those of us that were in on the beginning of Title IX, it was unbelievable," she said. "When it came, the door opened so wide that there was no excuse for female athletes not to take the opportunity.

"One thing that has happened is that the ones who were first in on it have gotten old and retired. Some of the later athletes have taken it for granted."

Michele Gill
Leader of Change

Manchester College women's basketball coach Michele Gill has never thought of herself as the pioneering or activist type. But at the second coaching stop of her career at the University of Virginia's College at Wise, she found herself the center of attention.

"At my first job in Nebraska, everything was fairly equal at the school between the men's and women's teams," said Gill, who began coaching at Manchester in the 2000-01 season. "At my stop in Virginia, there was a big difference. Not necessarily in salaries, but in budgets, locker rooms and facilities.

"I never had to play the Title IX card, but it was leverage. Before one game, some (women) went up front to change in the bathroom facility. I saw a locker room marked 'women' and asked, 'Why don't you just change in there?' They said, 'Coach, we always have to share a locker room with the men's team on game day.' "

The school's administration was willing to work with Gill and her team eventually received its own locker room.

"For $12,000 we had a facility we could call our own," she said. "It was time for them to get into the 20th century. I'm proud of the fact that we went from changing in a bathroom up front to having our own facility."

Lori Culler
The Voice of Experience

Lori Culler is at home at Huntington College. She attended school there and has been coaching the Foresters' women's basketball program for 16 years.

Culler ended her playing career as one of the school's all-time leading scorers in 1985, but she still had a semester of class work to go before she got her degree.

"I think I just happened to be in the right place at the right time," she said. "I served as a student assistant while I completed my classwork. At the end of the year, the women's coach took over the men's program, and I applied for and got the women's job. It just happened to be good timing."

Culler has seen a lot of

women come and go as coaches during her time at Huntington. Balancing a coaching career with other duties is tough for women, she says.

"In my limited experience, there are a lot of women who have other jobs and have families that require a lot of attention," she said. "Coaching any sport, but basketball in particular, takes time. Women have more responsibilities at home to be able to put in the kind of time and effort that it would take to coach."

Angela Goodman
The Fighter

When 1984 South Side High School graduate Angela Goodman was at Purdue University from 1985 to 1988, she didn't understand why her track and field coach, Fred Wilt, was always going to battle on behalf of his team. Now that she's the head coach of Michigan State's women's track and field program, she has a better understanding of what Wilt went through.

Goodman is now in the same position as Wilt, except she's fighting to keep her administration happy.

"I see it completely different now," Goodman said. "Here at Michigan State, we're going through a lot of Title IX and gender equity issues. For me, roster management is the key and keeping participation in line with the enrollment at Michigan State. My program has been unique in that when I took over the program four years ago, the roster was only 25. I've had to work the past four years to get it up to 48.

"We had some NCAA violations before I got here. That affected my ability to recruit. I'd never spent all of my scholarship dollars. Now, the university is concerned about me spending all of my money. This is the first year we've been able to recruit without any penalties."

Teri Rosinski
The History Maker

Teri Rosinski has certainly made her mark on girls' basketball in Indiana. She won the second ever Miss Basketball award in 1977 as a senior at Norwell High School and helped the Knights to the state's Final Four that year. She also coached Bishop Luers' High School girls team to a state title in Class 3A last season.

Rosinski was among the first groups of athletes to receive the benefits of Title IX. As a coach, she sees what Title IX is doing for today's female athletes.

"Girls today expect to have access to Amateur Athletic Union, camps and summer leagues," she said. "Some maximize their opportunities and some just dibble dabble. Kids today have access to excellent facilities and excellent instruction. Some of us had to find our own way."

Kara Moore
The Emerging Trailblazer

Woodlan High School graduate Kara Moore is just beginning her coaching career. She completed four years of eligibility with Saint Francis' basketball program this winter, but still has a few credit hours to go before she graduates. While she completes her degree work, she will help out the Cougars program as a student assistant before embarking on a career as a head coach at the middle school or high school level.

Moore was born into the trade. Her mother, Pam, was a junior varsity coach at Woodlan. Pam Moore was Kara Moore's first coach, but every coach Kara Moore played for has influenced her.

"Every coach I've had has taught me something," she said. "Each coach has taught me a lot about being a better coach.

"I don't think there is a difference between a male and a female coach. It's all about your ability to understand the game and ability to coach that age group."