Feminist Looking Glass

According to a national high school coaches directory, last season there were 15,675 high school football coaches (public and private) and all of them were males.  That is about to change.  On Friday, Natalie Randolph will be named the head football coach at Coolidge High School in Washington, DC.  This is great news!

Randolph has good credentials.  She graduated from the University of Virginia, played five seasons as a wide receiver for the D.C. Divas in the women’s professional league, and spent two years as an assistant football coach at D.C.’s H.D. Woodson High School.

Many consider football the most “macho” U.S. sport and, therefore, there will undoubtedly be much derision (and many many jokes) about Randolph’s hiring.  As one (anonymous) coach said about her hiring, “All I know is, I don’t want to be the first one to lose to her. That’s going to be wild.” Yes, football coaches have very fragile egos.  (And, by the way, I would imagine that rugby players might consider their sport more “macho” than football.  And, so, it was big news when a star professional player announced in December that he was gay and, apparently, most of his peers didn’t think it was a big deal.)

This is not the first time that the D.C. public school system has hired a woman as a head football coach.  In 1985, Wanda Oates was named head football coach at Ballou High School. She lasted one day in the position, before opposing coaches pressured the deputy schools superintendent to remove her from the job because they didn’t want to coach against a woman.  Oates still teaches in the school system and is happy for Randolph.  When told that Randolph had been hired at Coolidge, Oates smiled and shook her head that it took 25 years for the next woman to take this step.  She said, “It’s a tremendous opportunity for that young lady,  Football is the macho of all macho sports, and once we break that glass ceiling, there’s no limit to what we can accomplish.”

Randolph will have a lot of battles to fight in addition to getting her team ready for its games.  The comments from the misogynist “macho” football fans will be unrelenting.  For example, here are some of the comments to the Washington Post article:

Having a female football coach is like having a male lamaze coach… Neither know enough to be effective.

Some of these kids see HS sports as a way out the slime to college. What college scout in their right mind would ever recommend to take a kid from this program.

That ain’t right.

The boys on this team will be so embarrased they will not want to paly for her.  There’s absolutely no way anyone can tell me the school could not have found a man who was better qualified for that position.  Football is one of the few areas where young men in need of strong postive male role models can be found. They don’t need a woman usurping this area of authority because it will only backfire.  I’m not hating but it seems to me like all the hoopla is more about this woman and not about what is best for those boys she will be trying to lead.  This will be an abysmal failure and I feel sorry that those boys will be subjected to such a stupid experiment.

This is a gimmick.  The boys on this team will be so embarrased they will not want to paly for her.  There’s absolutely no way anyone can tell me the school could not have found a man who was better qualified for that position.

I applaud the school for hiring Randolph and hope for the best for her.  Once the school is winning, of course, the criticism from other coaches and the macho football fans will ease.  But it usually takes time for any coach to put together a winning team.  And many coaches never have a winning team.  Coolidge High School will have to continue to support her through thick and thin.

Filed under: Sports, Stereotyping Tagged: | D.C. Divas, Female Football Coach, Natalie Randloph