Archives

Coaching Association of Canada's WE ARE COACHES Program Celebrates Women Community Coaches
875 women hockey, softball, and soccer coaches trained in 35 communities

Ottawa, March 6, 2008 - Since November 2005 more than 875 Canadian women in 35 different communities from St. John's to Vancouver, have completed their community coach training programs as part of Coaching Association of Canada's (CAC) We are coaches program.

CAC established the We are coaches program on a pilot basis in 2005, with six communities and in cooperation with Hockey Canada, Softball Canada and the Canadian Soccer Association, to recruit, train, and retain women coaches at the community sport level.

"International Women's Day is a perfect time to recognize the women across the country who have taken the community coach training programs," said Sheilagh Croxon, a consultant to the CAC's Women in Coaching program including We are coaches. "As impressive as the numbers are, the influence of each of these women on impressionable young girls and boys is even more significant."

"When children see women in a leadership role in athletics they grow up thinking of it as natural," said Croxon, who is also a two-time Olympic medal winning coach in the sport of Synchronized Swimming. "This is something we want to encourage for their development and for the future of sport."

"Women provide important role models for both girls and boys," she added. This is especially true in mass participation sports like hockey, softball, and soccer where the ratio of female to male coaches has been far less than the ratio of girls to boys who participate in those sports. Croxon said that women coaches also tend to emphasize the fun, teamwork, and basic skills aspects of sports over winning. These aspects create the foundation for lifelong participation in some form of athletics.

Coach education and training, provided by national and provincial/territorial sport organizations in hockey, softball, and soccer, typically involves a mix of classroom instruction, demonstrations, and practices. Classroom instruction deals with communications, ethics, basic nutrition, safety, and rules of the game. The drill demonstrations and practices take place either in a gymnasium, field or on-ice.

CAC provides financial support, data capture and analysis of the program, and advisory support to the communities and overall program coordination with the three sports. The free training offered through the We are coaches program has proven successful in recruiting women who were unsure about whether they would coach. Once they take the training, most follow through on coaching.

Women-only workshops also mean that participants feel more at ease about asking questions and making comments particularly in technical areas of sport. The larger than expected numbers of young women who have taken the workshops while they are still playing competitive sports or who are playing a sport in college has also been gratifying, said Croxon.

Commenting on the Statistics Canada survey released on February 7, 2008, which showed that female coaches slightly outnumbered male coaches (882,000 women and 874,000 men) Croxon added that, "It is great to see this number of women coaches. I'd like to encourage more of them to take the coach training offered through their provincial/territorial and national sport organizations. "

Croxon cited three statistics that highlight the gap that is yet to be crossed. As of the end of February 2008:

• Slightly less than 25 percent (417,744) of the 1.7 million coaches in the country have any coach certification or training.
• Of the 417,744 who are certified or trained slightly more than 30 percent are women.
• Of the total number of coaches at the 2006 Torino Olympics only 14.6% of the coaches were women but women athletes won more than 67% of the medals.