Youth Sports Should No Longer Be A
"No-Mom's Land"

Youth sports are a "No-Mom's Land." To be sure, mothers chauffeur their kids to and from practices and games, support their kids from the stands, and run concession stands at the local youth baseball fields. But, far more often than not, it is fathers who are coaching our children, and men who sit on the boards of local and national youth sports organizations. It's time for women to help balance this backward situation.

Even if youth sports organizations pay lip service to the idea that they want more women coaches and directors, less than one fifth of the estimated 4.1 million youth sport coaches are women. The imbalance is even greater at the administrative level: Of 496 seats on boards of 20 leading national youth sports organizations, only 54 are held by women, nearly one-quarter of those (13) on the board of single organization, US Lacrosse. This imbalance has been termed by one expert "one of the most backward traditions in sports today."

Even if women take time to get coaching licenses and want to coach, they are often denied coaching positions, which continue to go mostly to men. In particular, as I know from personal experience, men see women coaching boys as raising in the words of a leading feminist scholar "profound questions about male supremacy and directly challenges the patriarchal notion that maleness is a key prerequisite for coaching and for leadership."

But why am I making such a stink about who is coaching our kids and running our youth sports programs?

Well, for one thing, the dearth of female coaches at the youth and college level (where only four in ten women's teams are now coached by women, down from nine in ten three decades ago) translates into fewer role models and mentors for millions of female athletes and fewer future coaches.

But more importantly, I believe that it is time to challenge the status quo in a new and different way: if women, particularly mothers, were allowed to come down from the bleachers and out from behind the concession counters and into coaches' boxes and on to boards of directors in far greater numbers, we would see a shift in the culture of American youth sports.

If more mothers were coaches and administrators, I am convinced that just their mere presence would make youth sports less about winning games and sorting out the best from the rest, which not only turn off kids to sports but lead to so much of the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse in youth sports we see or hear about every day in the media, and more about having fun.

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As natural communicators and nurturers, as the natural guardians of children at play, mothers can inspire coaches, other parents, athletic directors, school boards and local and national youth sports organizations to do more to keep our children safe, to balance competition with cooperation, and to think about sports not just as a place to showcase the gifted and talented but as a place where all children can begin a love affair with sports and physical exercise lasting a lifetime, instead of ending, as too often is the case, in early adolescence. The time has come to tap that resource.

Many forward thinking men get this idea and have been applauding me and the message in my new book: Home Team Advantage: The Critical Role of Mothers in Youth Sports. It is not about excluding men but about balancing the youth sports culture

May I make a holiday gift suggestion? If you, like me, are passionate about youth sports and want to make a difference; perhaps the gift of my new book will help start a real movement in this country towards a Safer, Sane, Less Stressful and More Inclusive youth sports experience for the entire community.

Together we can All make a difference in the lives of children.

All the best for a peaceful winter sports season,

Brooke de Lench

December 6, 2006

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