A key component of success in sports is a great coach, and both men and women have had influential and impressive coaching careers. However, the path for female coaches isn’t easy: male coaches typically earn more than female coaches, and there is research that suggests that female coaches have been losing ground since Title IX was passed.
Even though there have been, and continue to be barriers in place, the following 3 women have been trailblazers, as coaches, for women in sport.
Nancy Lieberman
Currently an assistant coach with the NBA’s Sacramento Kings, Lieberman has had a varied and impressive career within the sport of basketball. She was the second woman to join the coaching staff of an NBA team.
As the bio on her website states, “Her extensive resume includes NBA Coach, WNBA player and coach, general manager, sports broadcaster for ABC, NBC, ESPN, and FOX Sports Southwest, motivational speaker, and author. In addition, Nancy Lieberman is a Basketball Hall of Famer, two-time Olympian, three-time All American, two-time collegiate national champion and a two-time National Player of the Year at Old Dominion University.”
Among her accolades as a basketball player, she was named to the US Women’s National Basketball Team, and as part of the team Lieberman won a silver medal at the World Championships; a gold medal at the Panamerican Games; and a silver medal at the 1976 Olympics.
Carol Hutchins
Now in her 32nd season as the Head Coach of the University of Michigan’s softball team, Hutchins is the winning-est coach in NCAA softball history with 1,458 wins. She is also the University of Michigan coach with the most wins, male of female. According to the university, “A 2006 National Fastpitch Coaches Association Hall of Fame inductee, Hutchins has guided the Wolverines to an NCAA title and 18 Big Ten Conference titles and solidified Michigan among the top softball programs in the country.”
She has won numerous awards during her time at UMich, which includes being named NFCA National coach of the year twice, and NFCA Regional Coach of the Year eight times.
In 1983, she joined the softball staff as Assistant Coach, and became Head Coach in 1985. Hutchins has also been involved with the US National Softball Team and Elite teams, her profile states.
More than 50 of her players have earned All-American honors, and many have gone on to international sporting success.
Pat Summitt
A Hall of Famer, for 38 years, Summitt was at the helm of the University of Tennessee’s Lady Volunteers (Lady Vols) basketball team. She is now Head Coach Emeritus after retiring in April 0f 2012 because of early-onset dementia, with a remarkable career record of 1,098 wins and 208 losses.
Summitt received many awards throughout her career, which includes the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the ESPY’s Arthur Ashe Courage Award, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, Sports & Nutrition in 2012.
In 2011, Summitt was awarded the Maggie Dixon Courage Award by the U.S. Sports Federation, named a Game Changer by The Huffington Post, and selected as Communication of the Year by the Tennessee Communication Association.
Bio: Mariela Santos-Muniz has an M.A. in International Relations and International Communications from Boston University, and a B.A. in Humanities from the Universidad del Turabo. A sports fan, she blogs at WMN Sports World, about women in sports. You can follow on Twitter @WMNSportsWorld.
