Alliance of Women Coaches

In 1972 90% of women's collegiate teams were coached by women, currently (in 2011) only 42% are coached by women. An unintended impact of Title IX has been the decrease of women coaches on the college and university level.

Pioneers of women athletics are working to reverse this trend. The Alliance of Women Coaches was created this past October to help mentor, advocate, educate, and increase women in the coaching field. For the first time in the history of women's athletics, there is an organization dedicated to coaching and gender-equity regardless of sport or level.

Grinnell is sensitive to equity in athletics and I am proud of how many women coaches we have on staff. All but two of our women's teams have female head coaches and our staff is almost 50:50 male/female. Unlike many of our peer institutions we have women coaching not only women, but men as well. Our swimming and diving, and track and field teams all have women coaching male student-athletes.

The success of our teams and the diversity of our staff challenges many assumptions regarding coaching and gender, and rightly aligns our department with the college's core value of social equality.

I am excited to report that as a department, we have purchased an institutional membership to the Alliance.

Click here to learn more about the Alliance!