SoccerToday’s Women In Soccer Series
Lauren Meehan is a youth soccer coach with Rush Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She is the President/CEO of Female Coaches Advocacy, which promotes greater participation by women as soccer coaches in the United States. Learn more about Meehan and her thoughts on women soccer coaches.
Diane Scavuzzo: What are the challenges being a woman in the soccer world?
Lauren Meehan: The challenge that makes the biggest impact on me is being a minority in so many coaching settings – in the club office at monthly coaches meetings, on the sidelines at Saturday games, and at coaching courses. When one thinks of ‘coach’, more people will see an image of a man before they will see a woman. Even if someone is not outright discriminatory, a pervasive bias exists against what women can do as coaches. For example, I am considered for half of the number of teams as my male colleagues because I am not thought of when coaching assignments for boys teams are happening. My name enters into the discussion only when assignments for girls teams are brought up. It is not the case that I was explicitly advocated against, but it did not consciously occur to any of the directors to assign a female to a boys team. Outside of my day to day experiences, I think it’s a challenge just to hear people’s opinions of women in soccer and know that we aren’t valued much. The Women’s World Cup turf debate, FIFA’s constant ‘foot in mouth’ comments about the women’s game, and frequent comments from armchair experts about the poor quality of women’s soccer all feed into a system that can make us feel quite small.
Diane Scavuzzo: Do you watch women’s soccer? Do you tell your players to watch?
Lauren Meehan: YES! And I have since about 1995. I still remember being distraught when Notre Dame beat UNC for the NCAA Division 1 title that year. My game day ritual used to be eating a plate of scrambled eggs and a bowl of frosted flakes and, dating myself here, watching a VHS of a US Women’s National Team game. I encourage my players to watch and will send out emails with when upcoming games are on TV. One of my favorite things to do is ask trivia questions about soccer to determine who gets to start with the ball during small-sided games at training. I’ll ask questions about men’s soccer but I try to emphasize the women’s game and increase the players’ familiarity with it.
Diane Scavuzzo: Do you find most coaches evaluate performance differently based upon gender?
Lauren Meehan: In terms of player performance, I think they evaluate based on the other players around. A U16 ECNL player isn’t getting evaluated based on what a U16 DA player can do, just what other U16 ECNL players can do. In terms of coach performance, I think it depends on the evaluator. Overall, my experience has been that I get compared more to male coaches than other female coaches. This could be due in part to the low number of female coaches to compare me against but I have had conversations with evaluators about how my smaller size and quieter voice makes me less effective than larger, louder male coaches.
Diane Scavuzzo: What would make more women coach? Why do you think so few women?
Lauren Meehan: I think more women would be involved if more women were convinced by another coach to get into coaching. Coaching is a profession where you often bring in who you know so existing coaches have a lot of influence over who enters into coaching. I don’t think coaching is commonly thought of by women as something to do after one’s playing days are over. My college coaches never brought up coaching as an option to my team during any of my five seasons and it wasn’t something I ever discussed with teammates. The efforts to bring women into the game need to be more intentional and widespread so that women don’t drift away from the game when they are done playing. Once they’re in, mentoring women through the ups and downs can help keep them involved. I think traditional family demands can also hinder a woman’s ability to coach if she is expected to be home/taking care of kids during practice times.
Diane Scavuzzo: What are specific virtues or benefits of being a woman coach?
Lauren Meehan: This is a tough one because I don’t want to get into stereotypes about women or men since there can be big differences between coaches of the same gender. I do think female coaches can bring a healthier respect for the female game to its players. Women can also have greater insights into how girls are socialized (since they went through it themselves) and are able to understand more about what their female players may be experiencing. Female coaches can also set a strong leadership example, inspiring girls to value their voices and be confident as leaders and showing boys that leadership is not gender-dependent.
Diane Scavuzzo: Is this gender gap dealt with in coaching education? Are there materials on gender equality?
Lauren Meehan: The only discussion of gender I have encountered in coaching courses is with regard to players and that discussion has been an unsatisfying expounding of platitudes such as “girls are sensitive” and “boys compete”. I think the gender disparity at the coaching level goes unaddressed in part because the coaching schools reflect that same disparity at the instructor and participant levels. I have never discussed sexual discrimination with anyone except for a small circle of fellow coaches (mostly women).
Diane Scavuzzo: Do you think there is an old boy’s network of coaches? Why do you think it still exists?
Lauren Meehan: Absolutely! Like I said earlier, coaching is a profession where you often hire who you know. Trust and familiarity can play huge roles in making coaching hires. If you’re a male coach just starting out, you may look to work with a man you played with or were coached by because you know them and trust them. Coaches were overwhelmingly men as this game took off in the States and the cycle of men hiring men perpetuates. I think the English influence on American coaching is important here too. The UK sends coaches over here in camp programs, they decide to stay and find permanent coaching work, and they often hire the people (i.e. men) they know from the camp programs. Even without the camp structure, the power of the accented coach is still strong and the countries from which those accents come have greater gender disparities in the game than the US does.
Diane Scavuzzo: What needs to change for women in soccer?
Lauren Meehan: Current coaches need to make a conscious effort to get women involved in coaching, players need to be presented with coaching options before they leave the game, and soccer organizations need to become safer environments for women to work in. A more robust mentoring network can help female coaches feel more supported and give them a safe place to discuss challenges they face.
Diane Scavuzzo: What would you like to accomplish in the next five years?
Lauren Meehan: In the next five years, I would like to be a part of a steady growth in the percentage of coaches who are women in this country. I would like to see my work with Female Coaches Advocacy influence soccer organizations to be more accommodating to female coaches, openly combat the sexism faced by women in the game, help women enter the coaching ranks, and support the women who are already in the field. I would also like this work to carry overseas, in places where women are even less respected as leaders and less involved in the game. Sport can be a huge tool for social change, especially with regard to a woman’s role in society. In my own coaching, I would love to be in a full-time director role in the next five years or move into a full-time college coaching role.
Diane Scavuzzo: Do you think being a woman and being a coach makes having a family difficult?
Lauren Meehan: I am unmarried and childless but I can see how the coaching schedule can interfere with having a family. There is the obvious difficulty of being in an active occupation while pregnant, especially if you have any complications. Coaches can travel a lot and spend a significant amount of time on the field, which makes caring for young children difficult. Practice times, especially at the youth level, conflict directly with kids’ after school activities. The difficulties can be compounded if a woman is trying to coach in addition to a full time career and family. Some people don’t want to choose between spending time with their kids and coaching, which I understand.
Diane Scavuzzo: Do you think women in soccer support each other? Do you think this needs to improve?
Lauren Meehan: I think we do but are limited by the number of women involved in the game and the small amount of free time we have away from the field. I have never felt anything but support from fellow female coaches; my discussions with them influenced me to start Female Coaches Advocacy and pursue a bigger role in changing the landscape for women in the game. I think it needs to improve in terms of setting up mentor relationships and letting our fellow female coaches know we are here to support them.
Diane Scavuzzo: Do you think a person’s sexual preference is an issue in women’s soccer?
Lauren Meehan: I think it is less of an issue in women’s soccer than in men’s soccer. I think the women’s game has a lot of strong, out female role models and is more accepting of different sexual preferences than the men’s game. I had lesbian, bisexual, and straight teammates and female coaches and I now have lesbian, bisexual, and straight female coaching peers but their status as my teammate, coach, or colleague has always been a million times more important in a team and work setting. If I had to think about an area where it might be an issue is with players’ parents but I haven’t really come across that. It could be a bigger issue in more socially conservative places, but again, I have no experience with that so I can’t really speak to it.
