Women's Hoops Blog

Inane commentary on a game that deserves far better


Thursday, August 25, 2005

More on coaching and gender, this time from Fran Blinebury at the Houston Chronicle.

Van Chancellor says it's unfair that experienced assistants like Kevin Cook and Karleen Thompson get passed over for the likes of Muggsy. Ann Meyers gives another reason:
The top women who are coaching are in the colleges, and for them to make decisions to leave very, very secure situations, where they've built a lot of tenure, is very difficult and maybe unrealistic. If you're a coach at a top program in college, are you going to leave what you've got? Is Pat Summitt going to leave Tennessee? Is Kim Mulkey-Robertson going to leave Baylor? Why? They'd make less money in the WNBA and have less security.
In a companion article, Blinebury examines whether women will be coaching men anytime soon. The answer is no.

Former Rockets great Hakeem Olajuwon:
The WNBA, where you have women playing for men, that's different. I think the men there can be more like authority figures. If a woman wants to show me something on the court, I can listen. But she cannot execute what she is trying to tell me at that level. She can do theory. But I could block her shot.