Welcome to SPORTY GIRL BOOKS. At SPORTY GIRL, we want to give all girls the chance to love, watch, play, read, and write about any sport that interests them. We look forward to the day when the words, "You play like a girl," is the biggest compliment anyone can receive.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Fulfilling the Need for Role Models

I didn't grow up a sporty girl. I never played baseball or basketball or soccer, not on an organized team.

Yet this past season I coached my daughter's soccer team.

Why would a women who has no experience playing sports sign up for such a thing? 

Because someone had to. Until this season, every coach in the Girl's Division has been male. When I told my own two children that I wanted to coach they both said in unison, "You can't coach, Mommy. You're a girl." Not, you can't because you've never played soccer or because you've never coached before, but "You can't coach because you're a girl." 

If our girls and boys don't see women coaching, how can they know it's a possibility? 

I'm very excited next month to interview Justine Siegal, the only women who has pitched in batting practice to major league players and the who has coached a professional male baseball team. She is a true inspiration. 

My coaching inspiration and advisor was Pam Vaughan, the Varsity Soccer Coach at Nashoba Regional High School. She is also a fellow writer. 

But each one of us, no matter what our experience, has the power to be inspiring. Even if it is by doing something as small as coaching our own child's team.

Be a role model. Our girls need them.








6 comments:

  1. About 8% of of my YA fiction is about girls' soccer (upper high school division) so I feel connection to your current post. Their coach is a woman. If you can and willing, please expand about your girls' soccer coaching. What age group are the girls? What soccer skills do you focus on teaching them? With no soccer experience, playing and coaching, from where do you pick up the knowledge to coach them? TIA and best wishes for you and all the girls playing soccer.

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    1. My girls were 7 and 8. As I mentioned, I got some great advice from Pam who told me to make it fun and to teach one skill at a time. She also suggested a few games I could play. Then I did a ton of research and downloaded every free soccer app I could find. The apps had videos embedded where I could see the skill. I also bought a large dry erase board so I could draw out field positioning. Overall, I approached soccer coaching the same way I approach teaching my third graders. I did research, wrote lesson plans, and tried to make it fun. And it worked. We even came in third place in the league.

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    2. And I've been a soccer mom for years.

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  2. Just wondering if any of the soccer girls that you coached made comments about liking having a female coach. I guess that your girls, who were skeptical at first, were proud at the end of the season to have their mom coaching the team. "That's my Mom" ..:)

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  3. Cheers to you Stacy for stepping up to coach. We are often in the situation where teams won't get fielded if someone doesn't volunteer to coach. One of my sons had a female coach for soccer one year and she was amazing. He's never had a female coach for baseball though. Can't wait to hear more from Justine Siegal!

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  4. Thanks for the shout out Stacy. I am sure you are amazing! No matter what we try we have to put some hard work and passion into it and always always continue to learn! Even after 25 years on coaching, I spend endless time asking questions, reading, going to soccer clinics and conferences. In any endeavor there is always room to get better!
    Way to go!!

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