Mary Jo Kane, PhD, director emerita of the Tucker Center and professor in the School of Kinesiology, spoke with MPR News host Kerri Miller and Danielle O’Banion, assistant coach for the Gopher women’s basketball team, on the high number of female collegiate athletes, yet the discrepancy of female coaches.
Mary Jo Kane, left, and Danielle O’Banion stand for a portrait at MPR on Thursday, June 6, 2019. Evan Frost | MPR News
“Before Title IX, in the early 1970s, women had 90 percent of the top coaching jobs in women’s athletics. Today, due to the increase in resources and coaching salaries, among other factors, female athletic directors and coaches have been pushed to the sidelines and replaced by their male counterparts. The highest representation of female coaches works as graduate and volunteer assistants — entry-level roles for college athletics.”
Kane speaks to why there are so few female coaches in the industry and emphasizes the importance of male allies. After Title IX, female coaches and athletic directors now have access to the same training and are just as qualified as their male peers, yet “people hire people that look like them,” said Kane and Muffet McGraw, University of Notre Dame women’s basketball coach.
