Can you imagine if every MLS head coach was a woman except for one.
You can't, can you?
When the Women's United Soccer Association kicked off in 2001, every head coach was a man but for one. Remember the uproar? You don't, do you?
Somehow it remains acceptable to hire males for jobs that, if you used the logic that keeps men's soccer in the hands of men, should be going to women.
Two-thirds of the almost 300 NCAA Division I women's programs have male head coaches. That's a greater female presence than in the past, but it still implies that coaching is a man's domain even when women are playing.
Those who hire, whether in the WUSA or college, will say, ''Hold on a minute! It's because the females don't have the experience. That's why we're hiring men.''
Besides the Catch-22 nature of the lack-of-experience argument – how do they get experience if they're not getting jobs because they don't have experience? – it has other weaknesses.
Often the male coaches hired gained their experience playing and coaching males. It's difficult to prove that their success rate is greater than that of the women who have been given opportunities. Plenty of male coaches fail, and the number of women hired has been too few to make adequate comparisons. When a woman coach wins a championship, such as Becky Burleigh taking Florida to the 1998 NCAA Division I title, she has done so against the odds.
Ten years ago, one may have been able to point to the relatively short history of women's soccer and claim a need to hire men. That case weakens with each passing year.
This summer, Marcia McDermott, the only female WUSA coach during the first two seasons, guided Carolina to the championship. Eight days later, Tracey Leone became the first female head coach to win a world title – the U-19 Women's World Championship crown for the United States.
Whether or not it should have taken the McDermott and Leone victories to accelerate the hiring of women, it will.
by Soccer America Executive Editor Mike Woitalla