Coach like no one’s watching

My two kids play a lot of sports, and only a few of their parent coaches have been moms. The vast majority have been fathers.
I was reminded of this today while reading a March 2017 article in the New York Times about the decline in women coaches in college sports.
I was a parent coach, once: a barely qualified coach for my daughter’s parks & rec soccer team, at the age where the objective is primarily to make sure the kids kick the ball into the other team’s goal and not their own. I signed up reluctantly after the department director sent out multiple pleading emails to the parents, asking for someone to please, please, please step up.
Knowing very little about soccer, I tried to lean on my husband’s English-bred expertise. But he resisted, keen for me to own my status. He took to calling me “Coach”, which irritated me as an unearned sobriquet.
The experience was a physical and mental ordeal, like hosting a kids birthday party twice a week for two months. The players were energetic and fun, in constant motion. Remembering their names was torturous as they all came from different schools. I tried name tags, mnemonic devices, flashcards. Nailed them all by the second-to-last game.
More worrying to me was my lack of expertise. The other parents were supportive and encouraging, but that did not ease my anxiety about being observed, judged, and (at least in my mind) found wanting.
No one was paying any attention to me at all, of course, only watching their own kid. But my lack of soccer knowledge felt hideously exposed. What damage could I be doing these 6-year-old future Olympians with my well-intentioned ineptitude? Would any of these girls, harboring potential to be the next Alex Morgan or Mia Hamm, reflect on their first-grade team and say, “That’s when it all went wrong for me and soccer. That’s when I lost my passion for the game”.
It was a relief to see most of the team return for the next season, with a new coach and fresh enthusiasm, as well as burgeoning skills (that they didn’t get from me).
I don’t know why the parent coaches around here tend to be male, but anyone who doesn’t have a track record in a particular sport might harbor the same worries I had. For the younger kids, though, lack of skills or experience just doesn’t matter. It’s downright heroic to wade in and coach like no one is watching. As Woody Allen said, “Eighty percent of success is showing up”.
But I know there are many women — unlike me — who played sports for real in school and college, and continue to do so. Women, moms who do have the skills and experience to coach with empathy and authority. I hope to see more of them coaching more of my daughter’s teams, and my son’s.
