In class Thursday, we talked about the different
variations of apologetic responses to the lesbian bogeywoman image. There were
eight different variations; silence, denial, promotion of feminine heterosexual
image, promotions of heterosexy image, search for heterosexual-only space, attacks
on lesbians and acknowledgement and disassociation from lesbians. The variation
that I mostly found interesting was the preference for male coaches. When asked
do you think focusing on not hiring lesbian coaches is actually safer for the
team or the team’s image, I really did not know how to answer the question. I
think that it all depends on how good the team actually is. I know of head a
coach personally that is gay, not lesbian and still gets a hundred percent support
from family, friends and fans and have no problems with people downgrading him
or his team, but his team is also very high ranked. I think it varies on the
situation. I think that with him being a male he kind of has more leeway. I
think that it would different if it were a lesbian being the head coach of a women’s
team, because your players are women, so that may cause some problems. I do
believe that men have more experience playing sports, just because a lot of the
sports started out with just men and not women, for example sports like
volleyball. Plus, you don’t see many women that are head coaches of football
teams or wrestling teams, because women just don’t play those types of sports,
so therefore men do have that advantage of being more experienced. I know for me, I never had a female coach for
track and field. I don’t know how that would go for me personally, but I know
most of my teammates do not like female coaches, just because of the different
emotions that women go through, that it would cause too much trouble.
Personally I prefer a male coach, just because that is what I have been use to,
so why change.
Alicia Jefferson
Alicia
ReplyDeleteI agree with you when i was in high school the only coaches i ever had were male coaches and so i am with you if i had a female coach im not real sure how it would affect me. I personally think that atheletes prefer male coaches over female coaches because we see male coaches at more dominant and will be more discipline than female coaches, but that is just my opinion. So i dont really know what to think about gay and lesbian and gay coaches though i thought this is a tough topic.
Tyler Clifton
Alicia,
ReplyDeleteI think you're right on about male vs. female coaches in male vs. female sports. I don't think you will see a female coach on Division 1 or NFL team ever honestly. I mean, look how long it took the a female to officiate an NFL game when it happened earlier this year as part of the replacement ref debacle. I think American males tend to still treat the NFL as if it were a "man's sanctuary."
Back to coaching though, there is one sport that I am always surprised to see a male coach. Softball is primarily a female sport. I can't really ever remember seeing a competitive male softball league or team in my life. Somehow though, males become coaches. I will never understand that. The skills in softball seem so unique. Slap-hitting is something unique to softball that you do not see in baseball. Also the ball is huge compared to a baseball. I'm not sure how a male could beat a female for a job coaching a softball team unless this idea of preference for male coaches actually exists.
Geoff Roberts
I agree with you to an extent. I do agree that women coaches are hard to have because of their different emotions. In high school I had male coach for basketball and female coach for softball, and I personally preferred my female coach over the male coach. To me, it doesn't matter whether they're male or female, as long as they know what they're talking about. I think these days, athletes were respect anyone who proves they know what they are talking about, and can coach the team and be successful.
ReplyDelete-Paxin Stern
I agree with you. Men for the most part do have more sport experience because of the more opportunities. I think that as far as the gay and lesbian coaches goes, as long as you're winning then people don't care whether your gay or not. There have been some second chances for either players or coaches who have done pretty awful things, but because those people are winning, society seems to not care as much. I don't think there is any right answer as far as who has the potential to be a better coach. Every situation is so individualized that I think people get in trouble when they say generalizations about who a better coach would be. It deals with the sport, the person, and the type of team that there is each and every time.
ReplyDeleteMatt Pitzulo
Through my personal experience in sports in particular with softball, I have had male coaches and I have had female coaches. Their intensity and their approach to players have been different. For example, in high school the head varsity softball was also the offensive coordinator for the varsity football team. He was often criticized mostly from parents of not knowing how to differentiate the intensity and the approach of players from sport to sport. He would yell, swear and grab the cage on the front of the helmet of the softball players much like the football players helmets when he was fired up. Geoff, to kind of explain how male coaches become a head coach in softball as I feel in any sport that are just as knowledgeable as a female can be. My best coaches in softball were male despite not having the experience of playing the actual sport, I saw that male coaches in softball brought a different level of energy to the team and weren’t afraid to speak their mind to players. Mike Candrea, has won several championships with the Arizona Wildcats and has lead the USA softball team to countless championship games including leading the team to a gold medal while coaching the games’ biggest names like Jennie Finch. This just proves not only in the sport of softball but in all of sports, gender does not define success, it truly it up to the individual to how far they will succeed with a team.
ReplyDelete-Chelsea VanAssche
The ideal coach should not be based on male or female. However, even in women's sports you tend to see great male coaches. There are exceptions like Pat Summit, one of the greatest women's college basketball coaches ever, but you more often see coaches like Geno Auriemma show up in a discussion like this. I do feel that in male sports it is better to have a male coach only because of the connection to the male athletes and understanding the male gender. Which also brings up the point that I would believe female coaches logically should coach female sports for the same reasons. I believe either sex coach can be successful given the right circumstances, and I do expect to see many great female coaches to come along in the future.
ReplyDeleteJoey Durant