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Football

More Female Coaches Than Ever Before; FIFA Women’s World Cup – FCN

written by Hugh

There are more female Head Coaches at this years FIFA Women’s World Cup than ever before.

Out of the 32 teams, 12 are headed up by women

The teams include:

  • New Zealand – Jitka Klimova
  • Norway – Hege Riise
  • Switzerland – Inka Grings
  • Canada – Bev Priestman
  • Republic of Ireland – Vera Pauw
  • Costa Rica – Amelia Valverde Villalobus
  • China – Shui Qingxia
  • England – Sarina Wiegman
  • Brazil – Pia Sundhage
  • Italy – Milena Bertolini
  • South Africa – Desiree Ellis
  • Germany – Martina Voss-Tecklenberg

Details supplied by Female Coaching Network – https://femalecoachingnetwork.com/

18th July 2023 0 comment
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TSF News

An Essay: Why We Aren’t Seeing An Increase of Female High Performance Coaches (Part 1)

written by Hugh

With the ever increasing attention on women’s sports globally, you’d be forgiven in thinking that sportswomen are in a good place.  An increase of investment in women’s sport has resulted in the professionalisation of women’s leagues, equal prize money for grand slams and championships, shoe companies providing paid maternity leave, and as of 2012, women competing in every single sport at the Olympic Games.[1]

In addition to improvements in participation, it seems more women than ever before are coaching and leading at the highest levels of sport.  Sports news websites are awash with trailblazing stories of female leaders who have broken the glass ceiling; Lori Locust, the first female coach to win a Super Bowl (2021)[2], Becky Hammon, the first female coach to act as Head Coach during a regular season NBA (2020)[3] , and Kim Ng, the first woman to become a general manager for an MLB team (2020)[4].  US pro sports in particular continue to celebrate the influx of women leaders and coaches entering their billion dollar franchises and other sports leagues around the globe are following suit.

Graph 1: The Number of Female Coaches in the MLB from 2011 – 2022 [5]

On the surface, sportswomen appear to have conquered the sporting landscape, but dig a little deeper, and the cracks begin to show.

According to sports lawyers Farrer & Co, only 3% of professional sports clubs in England have 30% or more women on boards, and only 5% have a woman in a leadership role.[6] Across the global sporting landscape, this narrative continues; there are now half as less female head coaches in the NCAA than in 1971.[7]  In the Women’s Super League in England (as of the date of this article), only 5 teams out of 12 have a female head coach. On the professional women’s tennis tour the WTA the percentage of players in the top 100 with a female coach has dropped to 4%.[8]  In the top championships of Track and Field, less than 1% of the athletes competing in the World Championships and the Olympic Games are coached by a women, and only 10% of coaching accreditations at the Olympic games across all sports, are given to women. [9]

But why?

Source – Female Coaching Network

13th July 2023 0 comment
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TSF News

Professor Leanne Norman is our next Guest – FCN

written by Hugh

We are incredible honoured and excited to announce our guest for the next FCN | European Sports Leadership & Network event will be the World renowned Professor of Sport and Sociocultural Studies Professor Leanne Norman.

Leanne is based at Leeds Beckett University and is also the Director of the Research Centre for Social Justice in Sport and Society within the Carnegie School of Sport. Her research utilises a critical sociological lens to examine sport organisational and coaching cultures to address gender equity and diversity within sport coaching workforces.

Leanne is an internationally recognised researcher for her research and writing within the area of gender equality and issues of diversity related to sports coaching, sports leadership, and organisations. Her work is driven towards improving the participation, performance, and leadership pathways for diverse social groups, principally, different groups of women

Leanne has been a huge support to the FCN over the years, and most recently has partnered with us to deliver a groundbreaking research project aimed at mapping the current landscape for female track & field coaches in the U.K. A huge thanks to Leanne for joining us for our event!

As always, everyone from every sport and country is welcome to join us! See you then!

Register here – https://femalecoachingnetwork.com/2021/01/15/sixth-event-1st-february-2021-with-special-guest-professor-leanne-norman/

18th January 2021 0 comment
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TSF News

Meet the Forgotten First Female Coach in the NFL

written by Hugh

The NFL has made waves over the last few years bringing in a number of female coaches across the league. 

Whether through projects such as the Women’s Careers in Football Forum led by NFL Director of Football Development Sam Rapoport, the Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship or through the many internships clubs provide, the league now has a number of women hired full time coaching across it’s franchises. 

This season names include Chelsea Romero (S&C) at the LA Rams, Jennifer King (Offensive Assistant Coach) at Washington, Lori Locust (Asst D Line Coach) and Maral Javadifarat (S&C) at Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Emily Zaler (S&C) at Denver Broncos, Callie Brownson (Chief of Staff) at Cleveland Browns, and Katie Sowers (Offensive Asst. Coach) at the 49ers.

Over the last few years other hired coaches include Phoebe Schecter, Kathryn Smith, Jennifer Welter and Kelsey Martinez.

There have also been many women in intern roles since 2015, with Jen Welter being the first, followed by Odessa Jenkins, Collette Smith, Stephanie Balachko, Elena Grigelevich, Erica Vinson-Ondecko, Shaakira Hasslell, Mickey Grace and many more since!

However, there is one name left off that list – Lee Brandon.

Lee Brandon, CSCS, RSCC*E, NSPT is an internationally recognized Strength and Conditioning Expert and is the first female coach in NFL history and was hired by the New York Jets in 1990 as an Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach. 

Lee’s journey through the World of elite sport and strength and conditioning is fascinating; from a near death experience and nearly losing her arm in 1979, becoming the first female coach in the NFL in 1990, working with a number of Olympic athletes from 1984 – 2016 and now being a two time World Long Drive Champion.

We wanted to hear Lee’s story in her own words and connected with her via Zoom to hear her insights, her stories and why she feels she has been left out of the conversation of being the first female coach in the NFL.

Exclusively for the FCN – please see our full interview with the forgotten first female coach in NFL, Lee Brandon.

3rd November 2020 0 comment
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Athletics

A Grassroots Perspective on the Impact of Covid-19

written by Hugh

Hannah Lees – an England Athletics Coach in Running Fitness (CiRF – and her team of eight Leaders in Running Fitness (LiRF) have almost 650 grassroots runners on their database with 98% of those being female.

With a focus on road and trail running from 5k to full marathons, all of Hannah’s athletes are grassroots amateurs who train and compete around their daily commitments. With so many of her clients having hectic lifestyles, Hannah is keen that enjoyment is at the top of the list for her training sessions.

“I wanted to create the least intimidating running group I could possibly create. I’ve grown my coaching team by carefully selecting people who have started running recently; who don’t look like a ‘stereotypical runner’; or who have struggled with their mental health and are open about it”. 

Whilst many of the country’s elite athletes have struggled to keep up their intense training programmes during lockdown, grassroots runners like those in Hannah’s group have also suffered with all face-to-face coaching and group training banned for eight weeks from March to May.

“At the beginning of lockdown I couldn’t do anything. I thought about online coaching, but I felt that there was so much uncertainty over how catastrophic the pandemic was going to be and I was worried about encouraging people to run (both because they might spread the virus or that they hurt themselves) when we didn’t know how badly the NHS would be impacted”. 

Full story & Images – https://femalecoachingnetwork.com/2020/09/08/a-grassroots-perspective-on-the-impact-of-covid-19/

20th September 2020 0 comment
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TSF News

FCN Launch European Sports Leadership & Coaching Network

written by Hugh

The FCN | European Sports Leadership & Coaching Network aims to provide an interactive and supportive platform for women to connect, share and develop. 

The project will encourage discussion on a variety of topics including; how to navigate through a male dominated arena, negotiating salaries and insights into the workings of the high performance sports industry in Europe.

Starting in September 2020, on the first Monday of each month, the FCN will host an online webinar with a special guest who has a leadership / coaching role, or leadership / coaching experience within sport.

Limited places available.

MEET OUR FIRST GUEST!

Tracey Archer –  Sponsorship Coordination Manager for SPAR International

Tracey’s job is to manage the sponsorship between SPAR International and all of the European Athletics Events. This includes delivering all SPAR sponsorship and organisation of corporate events at the European  Athletics Championships, European Indoor Championships, European Team Championships, European Cross-Country Championships and European Junior Athletics events.

Tracey works directly with the European Athletics team along with the Athletics Federations, Local European Organising Committees and local SPAR partners to the particular country where each event is taking place. 

During our first FCN| European Sports Leadership and Coaching Network meeting, Tracey will be sharing her own leadership journey and will be open for questions from the audience as to the challenges she has faced, her advice on overcoming adversity and sharing insights into the world of sports sponsorship. 

Tracey, is originally from Zimbabwe and absolutely loves living in Amsterdam, which she has done for the past 12 years. She has also lived and worked in London in the UK. 

Tracey has been a huge influence in the development of the FCN and has been a mentor to our founder Vicky for a number of years. We are super excited that Tracey will be our first guest!

Register here – https://femalecoachingnetwork.com/2020/08/14/register-for-our-first-event-on-7th-september/

22nd August 2020 0 comment
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Athletics

Why Are There So Few Women Coaching Elite Track & Field? (Vicky Huyton)

written by Hugh

In our series “Why Are There So Few Women Coaching Elite Track & Field?” so far, we have asked the fastest woman alive Carmelita Jeter and Assistant Track & Field Coach (Jumps and Multi Events) at Murray State University Kelsey Riggins.

This time around, we ask the question to our founder Vicky, who has been involved with athletics in the U.K. for almost 20 years, as a coach and development officer.

Why Are There So Few Women Coaching Elite Track & Field?

In my opinion which is formed from my own experience, through the many hundreds of conversations I have had with fellow female T&F coaches, as well as from the research findings from our FCN Track & Field Project, I think the number one reason is the lack of opportunities.

The number one thing stopping women coaching at the elite level in the U.K is simply that the governing bodies do not provide opportunities for women to be coaches part of senior teams, there are very few opportunities for women coaches to present at workshops and conferences and those women who do coach atheltes in the Top 100, receive very little support.

There has never been a female coach on senior GB international teams, less than 5-10% of all workshops and conferences put on by UKA and or the Home Countries have women presenting and only 10% of the athletes on the Futures Programme have a female coach.

Women coaches in the UK do not feel valued (I’m sure this is also the case for many male coaches too!), they do not see a career path in front of them and if they do produce an athlete that is showing talent to perform at an elite level, this athlete is often coaxed away from them.

Full story – https://femalecoachingnetwork.com/2020/06/08/why-are-there-so-few-women-coaching-elite-track-field/

8th June 2020 0 comment
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Pick Your SportTSF News

Keep your athletes on track with the help of our FCN Sports Therapist

written by Hugh

During the Covid-19 lockdown, our athletes daily habits are changing. Some may find it difficult to remain motivated to train at home, some may be sitting down for longer periods of time, and some may just feel a little lost without their coach by their side.

To help with this, we have brought Sports Therapist Aimée Knight on board to create a series of videos to provide athletes (and coaches) with some basic, but much needed exercises to keep their bodies in check throughout this period of being stuck at home and away from the gym.

________________________________________


Meet our FCN Sports Therapist Aimée Knight

Aimée completed her studies in Sports Therapy graduating with a BSc Hons degree in 2016 and now works in several varying areas of her field including men’s professional football, corporate health & well-being and private physiotherapy practice.

Aimée is one of a very small handful of women employed in men’s professional football in the U.K and is currently involved with Blackpool Football Club where she has been supporting the first team professionals since 2013. Aimée is part of the clubs medical team both during training and home and away fixtures.

Aimée has extensive knowledge and experience across a variety of diverse settings and with patients with a variety of needs ranging from injury rehab, general posture correction and specific sport support. She comprehensively structures well facilitated rehabilitation plans which are individually composed and carried out with patients from early stages right through to return of play.

Aimée has a passion for helping people to achieve their goals, which is the biggest driver of her work.
 

How Aimee can help you and your athletes

As well as our mini-series of videos, Aimée is also offering direct support to you and your athletes. Below is a list of what she can offer:
 Injury advice and guidanceSport Specific Exercise PrescriptionPostural Correction ExercisesSport Specific Mobility ProgrammesGuidance on Creating Specific Home Workout Plans

For the first 10 people who get in touch, Aimée is offering a special discount of £15 off your first consultation – with a costs of only £20 ($25 USD | $35 CAD | $39 AUD)

If you would like to speak further with Aimée or book an online session with her, please email her at info@femalecoachingnetwork.comand include your name, sport and nationality.

5th May 2020 0 comment
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