What It Takes To Keep Them in Sports

There’s no arguing that it’s an exciting time for ladies’s sports.

Earlier this yr, the FIFA Women’s World Cup saw record-breaking attendance numbers—and a record-breaking variety of goals scored. The recognition of each the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) appear to be reaching a fever pitch. Ultrarunner Courtney Dauwalter had even non-runners watching in awe via social media as she won three iconic 100-plus mile races in only 10 weeks this summer. And just a number of weeks ago, the University of Nebraska volleyball team played a match in a football stadium and filled it to the brim, setting the world record for attendance at a women’s sporting event.

But to be someone who cares about women’s sports is to be consistently celebrating these victories while lamenting how far we still need to go. WNBA and NWSL players, as an example, still make a fraction of the salaries their NBA and MLS counterparts bring home, and women’s sports stories make up only 4 percent of media coverage. But what’s perhaps most alarming is that girls still drop out of sports at double the speed of boys by age 14, in line with the Women’s Sports Foundation (WSF). Those girls aren’t just missing out on the fun of sport, or the possibility for faculty scholarships or a profession as an athlete; playing sports can be related to raised body image and self-confidence, higher levels of family satisfaction, higher health outcomes and life skills like teamwork and leadership, WSF reports.

A number of the most typical barriers to sports for women are obvious: The shortage of opportunities, social stigma, fewer role models. But one which it’s possible you’ll not guess? The dearth of excellent coaches—and specifically coaches who’ve been specifically trained to maintain girls in the sport.

“A coach could make or break you, especially for ladies,” says Mariana Lopa, the managing director of Girls Got Game, a Filipino nonprofit that goals to empower young women through sport by surrounding them with powerful female coaches and role models. I met Lopa on a recent visit to Manila with Nike, as a part of their work to extend girls’ access to sports—each by providing them with more spaces to play, and higher coaches to facilitate that play.

The Philippines has a fervor for basketball, to say the least, and yet, there isn’t a skilled women’s league, and at neighborhood courts where local stars are born, women and girls are sometimes either implicitly or explicitly unwelcome, or forced out.

“There are such a lot of courts within the Philippines—problem is, everyone likes to play basketball,” says Lopa. “So to get time on the court, my experience was that I needed to be there right after lunch, or else the boys would arrive after school, and also you get eased out.” Other players I spoke to said it’s common for women and girls to reach on the courts on the break of day simply to get some playing time in.

Nike’s answer to this problem? The Courtyard, an epic, colourful space in certainly one of Manila’s most vibrant neighborhoods featuring two and a half courts made from recycled Nike sneakers. The Courtyard is home to a program called Her Hoops, dedicated time where only women and girls are allowed on the court. “For Nike to create The Courtyard and have specific hours for women is big, because no person can interrupt our playing time,” says Lopa. Nike can be working with Girls Got Game to run free basketball camps for women of all ages on the Courtyard, because you’ll be able to give girls free reign of the court, but without supportive coaches to foster their skills and love of the sport, they’ll still be left at an obstacle.

After all, it isn’t just within the Philippines that girls deserve more from their coaches: Nike’s recently-published Coaching Girls Guide, created in partnership with the Center for Healing and Justice Through Sport, lays out guidelines intended to maintain girls playing sports, and has already been used to coach greater than 17,000 coaches worldwide. Here’s what I learned about coaching girls from the guide and from my time at The Courtyard.

It’s key to grasp *why* girls need what they need from their coaches

Once we say that girls need something different from their coaches, we run the chance of perpetuating dangerous stereotypes about girls and sport, like that they aren’t as naturally gifted as boys, so that they need more help, or that they’re by some means delicate or overly-sensitive, and should be coddled.

These stereotypes usually are not true. But, the incontrovertible fact that they still exist speaks to why so many ladies drop out of sports in the primary place. Even coaches with the perfect intentions may unintentionally send the unsuitable message. What girls actually need are coaches who actively resist these ideas by specializing in girls’ talents and skills, and showing them how physically and mentally strong they really are.

When coaches are intentional about modeling that girls belong in sport just as much as boys, they’ll make a robust impact, especially on young players who haven’t yet digested as much stigma. “With these girls, it’s fresh—they don’t have any preconceived notions of what basketball is,” says L.A. Mumar, coach of certainly one of the Philippines’ top women’s college basketball programs at Ateneo de Manila University. “They think, that is normal, I can play ball.”

Girls bring their full selves to sport

Because girls aren’t all the time supported of their love of sports in the way in which that boys are, personal connections between coaches and players are all-the-more essential, Nike points out in its guide. Lopa says that, in her experience, this looks like understanding that girls often bring their whole selves to practice. “When you will have a coach that has a superb enough relationship to the player, they’ll say, Hey, I do know you’re going through this, but can I even have your attention for 40 minutes?” she says. “After which after 40 minutes, let’s discuss it.”

Language matters

“Without intending to, we’re all liable for perpetuating a culture of masculinity in sport through language,” reads Nike’s Coaching Girls Guide. It could appear obvious or unimportant, but even referring to women as “guys” can feel unwelcoming. (One study cited by Nike found that in a classroom where teachers called all the scholars “guys,” girls were significantly less more likely to raise their hands because they thought the teacher wasn’t talking to them.) Name-dropping women’s skilled teams and role models across the gender spectrum can be key, in line with Nike.

“It makes girls feel more comfortable,” says Lopa, who recurrently uses Nike’s guide to coach Girls Got Game coaches. “It makes them feel like, oh, this program is specifically for me. And I’m gonna keep wanting to return.”

The stakes are different for women

In the USA, girls who love sports can dream of a profession in a professional league just like the WNBA or the NWSL. Yet even then, they’re unlikely to make enough money for it to be their full-time job. In lots of countries just like the Philippines, even that’s not an option. “It’s really easy for women to quit because there’s nothing to look ahead to,” says Lopa. “It’s really easy to say—I’m done, I’m just going to check.”

With athletes who cannot dream of becoming the following Lebron James in the way in which that boys can, girls’ coaches must work twice as hard to maintain girls playing—and to reveal the numerous advantages of staying in sports that don’t have anything to do with someday making it as a professional.