By Staff
Coaching Management, 13.1, January 2005, http://www.momentummedia.com/articles/cm/cm1301/bbfemalecoaches.htm
This winter, women who coach will have a new resource for developing their careers: advice from other women who coach. And not just any women, but women whose names appear in halls of fame and on national championship trophies.
In her new book, She Can Coach!, Cecile Reynaud, retired Head Volleyball Coach at Florida State University, creates a window into the lives, philosophies, and strategies of highly successful female coaches. The book’s 20 chapters, each written by a different coach, address an array of topics from a female perspective, from coaching ethics and motivating student-athletes to managing assistant coaches and developing a coaching philosophy.
The idea of writing a book for women who coach occurred to Reynaud several years ago. When she retired in 2001 after 26 years at Florida State, she decided to make the idea a reality. "As a coach, I was always looking for material to read," says Reynaud, whose career victories placed her among the top nine NCAA Division I volleyball coaches before her retirement. "But almost everything I read was written by male coaches. I saw a need for a book by women coaches for women coaches."
"This book is a resource for women coaches to see how their peers have responded to particular issues," adds Terry Crawford, Head Men’s and Women’s Track and Field Coach at California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, who wrote a chapter on recruiting. "One of the challenges that women coaches face is that we’re a minority in the coaching ranks, and that’s one of the reasons that the book came about."
"I wanted to give young coaches a resource that says, ‘This is how some of the top women have done it,’" says Reynaud. "I’m hoping this book will give women the information they need to achieve more success and more sanity in their coaching."
Reynaud began by identifying topics to cover in the book. "They’re drawn from questions I’ve heard consistently over the years," she says. "How do you get kids motivated? How do you stay disciplined and teach your athletes discipline? How do you manage your time, deal with parents, and approach recruiting? At every clinic I’ve ever done, these are the things women talk about."
She wanted readers to hear directly from successful female coaches in their own voices, so the next step was finding coaches willing to write each chapter. She found them at high schools and colleges both small and large.
While the book’s authors coach sports from field hockey to rowing, Reynaud believes the content is easily transferable from hardwood to grass to the track. As an example, she points to a chapter on team cohesion by Sharon Pfluger, Head Women’s Lacrosse Coach at the NCAA Division III College of New Jersey. "Her team has won six consecutive national championships, and the key to those successes is her understanding of how to treat a group of young women as a team," Reynaud says. "The principles she discusses are valuable for coaches of any sport."
The coaches who wrote were extremely candid about their experiences, Reynaud adds. For example, University of Texas Head Swimming Coach Jill Sterkel writes about stress management, and she doesn’t sugarcoat her own struggle with the issue. "Sterkel basically says, ‘I lived this. I had to get medication because I was so stressed out. Let me tell you what I did to lighten up,’" Reynaud says. "It’s amazing to learn from someone at that level sharing that kind of experience."
Although women are the book’s primary audience, Reynaud believes it also offers insight for male coaches. "There is no doubt that this is a different kind of coaching book, and there are things in here you’d never find in a book for men," she says. "But particularly for men who work with female student-athletes, I think there is a lot of wisdom here."
"No matter how long you’ve been in coaching, or whether you’re male or female, you are never too old, too successful, or too experienced to learn from others," says Crawford. "And that’s what this book offers: a chance to learn from others, which is an important part of growing in this profession."
The book will be available can be ordered on the publisher’s Web site at: www.humankinetics.com.