Women far behind men in ranks of HS coaches

Win or lose, don't count on Rincon/University High School boys soccer coach Roxanne Taylor shedding any tears at the end of Saturday's state championship match in Tempe.

It isn't that emotions won't be running high, its just something Taylor hasn't done in front of her team once in 22 years of coaching.

"And if she did, it'd be viewed as a sign of weakness," said Sheila Baize, longtime interscholastics director of Tucson Unified School District and a former coach.

Weakness isn't an option for women such as Taylor and Catalina Foothills' Julie Walters, Arizona's only two female coaches of 4A/5A boys soccer teams.

That both are coaching Saturday for state titles - Taylor and Rincon in the Class 5A Division II tournament at Arizona State University and Walters and Foothills in the 4A-I tournament at Tucson High - is as much a testament to their coaching ability as it is to their perseverance in a male-dominated profession.

"Both are very strong women, or they wouldn't be where they are," Baize said. "I think anytime you take a female and put them in a nontraditional role, they have be successful fairly quick or they won't be given the same opportunity to catch up. I don't think a female can survive in a role like (head coach), if the program is struggling, the way a man might be able to."

In Taylor's 22 years of coaching boys soccer, she has accumulated 290 wins and three state championships, including last year's 4A-I title.

Walters, aside from being named the Tucson Citizen's southern Arizona boys golf coach of the year last fall, is the only coach Foothills' boys soccer program has had since the school opened in 1992. She's led the team to two state championships.

But they are the exception in high school sports, not the rule.

Since the U.S. government enacted Title IX in 1972, there's been major growth in girls sports. The law essentially has mandated, and arguably achieved, equal participation in sports at the elementary, middle school, high school and collegiate levels. But the same can't be said of equality in coaching, especially when it comes to women coaching boys team sports.

There are nine sanctioned team sports played by Arizona high schools - baseball, boys and girls basketball, football, boys and girls soccer, softball and boys and girls volleyball. Of the 26 high schools making up the five 4A and 5A regions in southern Arizona, only one sport - boys volleyball - has more female than male coaches.

"When it comes to volleyball, it was a girls-only sport for so long in Arizona (it became a boys sport in spring 1997), I think it naturally lent itself to having more women coach," said Rincon/University boys and girls volleyball coach Juanita Kingston.

But crossing that gender line hasn't stopped men from dominating the coaching ranks of girls team sports. In softball, girls basketball and girls soccer, there are 57 men coaching at 4A/5A schools in southern Arizona and just 21 women (11 basketball, five soccer and five softball). And, not so unexpectedly, no woman coaches a football, baseball or boys basketball team in the state 4A/5A ranks.

"There is still that mentality by some people that men are stronger in the coaching profession," said Catalina Foothills athletics director Jody Brase, whose school employs more females coaching team sports (four) than any other 4A/5A school in southern Arizona. "But I think it's perfectly reasonable to have a woman coach, whether it be a boys or a girls sport. A talented coach is a talented coach and that translates regardless of gender."

Brase should know coaching. In addition to being an AD and former coach of various boys and girls teams at Orange Grove Middle School, she is also the daughter of University of Arizona men's basketball coach Lute Olson, one of the sport's all-time winningest coaches.

Catalina Foothills senior soccer player Ashton Kent, a multisport athlete who has accepted a scholarship to play baseball at the University of Southern California next year, said he has as much respect for Walters as he's had for any of his male baseball coaches through the years.

Still, he knows women have a long road ahead before they start landing more jobs coaching the boys.

"It's going to be pretty hard for a female to break through for football or even baseball because it helps to have played it," Kent said. "But really, if they could get a chance to prove they know what you're doing, none of that really matters."

Aided by the success of their programs, Walters and Taylor stopped having to prove themselves long ago. Some men are even starting to take coaching cues from them.

Cody Cassidy, a 2004 Rincon graduate who played for Taylor, is now an aspiring head coach who is learning all he can from Taylor as an assistant coach.

"I try to find attributes of hers that I can apply to myself," Cassidy said. "She's essentially my mentor."

While there may be reverence shown Walters and Taylor now, it wasn't always that way.

"It was never an issue with the kids, actually, but early on with other coaches it was kind of rough with some of them, without a doubt," Walters said. "There were comments made and sometimes other coaches were less than respectful."

Among those who looked past the gender barrier early in her career, according to Walters, were former Flowing Wells coach Wes Ground and current Salpointe Catholic coach Wolfgang Weber.

"Julie and Roxanne have proven they are very qualified in what they are doing," said Weber, who has taken Salpointe to seven state championship games and won four titles. "What they are doing isn't all that common, even at the club level. But we have had such an emergence of the game on the girls side in the United States compared to other countries."

Rangers star senior Luke Teece, who scored the game-winning goal in Thursday 5A-II semifinal victory, says Taylor's résumé erases any doubts a player might have about playing for a woman.

"She's established herself," Teece said. "Hopefully, this year she gets her fourth title. And if that happens, well, you can't really question coaches that win."

All agree the pool of women applicants for coaching jobs is far smaller than the pool of men. Baize said it is incumbent upon schools, districts and athletics directors to find ways to encourage more women to apply for coaching jobs.

"We need more females to coach, period," Baize said. "Both boys and girls sports."

And if Rincon/University and Catalina Foothills should capture a couple of more state championship trophies Saturday, it would only strengthen Baize's argument and further validate Walters' and Taylor's abilities as coaches.

Just don't expect them to cry about it.