(PHILADELPHIA – Oct. 18, 2011)—Sport Management Assistant Teaching Professor Dr. Amy Giddings has started a long-term research program to understand how sport administrators can best recruit and retain women coaches through effective programs. To coincide with her research, she has launched the “Women in Coaching” blog.
As more women have participated in sports since the passing of Title IX in the 1970s, the number of female head coaches has been drastically reduced (as established by prior research). Dr. Giddings's research will analyze the current state of coaching and provide concrete methods for administrators to recruit and retain women in coaching positions at every level from youth sport to professional sport.
Dr. Giddings hopes Women in Coaching will serve as a source of information for women interested in coaching, currently coaching, or retiring from coaching. It is a chance for women to learn more about the issues they face, and how they may be more universal than they think. The blog’s contributors can hopefully address these issues with solutions that are applicable in the world of sport.
And the blog is not just for women in sport. It also aims to serve as a resource for sport administrators who want to better understand how to recruit and retain women coaches at all levels of play.
Although the blog complements Dr. Giddings’s research, other Sport Management professors and women in sport have already contributed to the blog, and more are planned for future posts.
Follow Dr. Giddings on Twitter @ProfGiddings for more commentary on sport and coaching.