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Women and men who coach men's sports in college fare better than
their counterparts coaching the women's teams, according to Melissa
Scopilliti, a 2002 CWRU Bachelor of Arts graduate in sociology
and psychology.
She reported on gender inequities in the college coaching in
her paper, "I Think Gender Equity Has Gone Too Far: Gender and
the Collegiate Coaching Experience." The paper earned first place
in the Alpha Kappa Delta Undergraduate Student Paper Competition.
Scopilliti, a nationally ranked athlete, received her award during
the American Sociological Association's meeting in Chicago. Her
paper also is under consideration for publication in the journal,
Sociological Inquiry.
Title IX has banned gender discrimination in sports since 1972.
As a result, the number of female athletes has increased while
the number of female coaches has declined, according to the federal
government. Scopilliti found that basically most women continue
to coach female teams and thus experience lower pay, higher job
stress and less job satisfaction. Men who coach women's teams
also experience similar problems, indicating that female athletics
is still devalued.
The title of her paper, taken from one respondent's interview,
highlights the irony: People think that women have all the advantages,
but data does not support the sentiment.
"Even with Title IX, men have the advantages, although the
advantages accrue largely because they coach men's sports," CWRU
sociologist Susan Hinze, Scopilliti's mentor, wrote. "This study
acknowledges that women are underrepresented in the coaching profession."
Information was gathered from a 49-question, e-mail survey sent
to 1,761 collegiate athletic coaches in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio
and Pennsylvania to examine current coaching conditions for college
athletics. It included open- and closed-ended questions about
their coaching experiences.
Scopilliti, a native of Streetsboro, Ohio, undertook the study
as part of a senior honors project and worked for three semesters
obtaining data and analyzing it.
While at CWRU, Scopilliti lettered four times in softball. She
was a two-time All-UAA Academic selection, a mutli-UAA Athlete
of the Week honoree and was named to the All-Central Region Team
once.
"She is a great example of a student-athlete," said Hinze, assistant
professor of sociology.
Scopilliti won the Emily Russell Andrews Award, given to one
senior woman from the physical education department for scholarship,
leadership, participation and service. She also received two awards
in sociology—the Mark Lefton Award for excellence in sociological
studies and the Robert C. Davis Award for demonstrated commitment
to sociology.
In her paper, Scopilliti writes: "I hypothesize that women and
coaches of women's teams will be younger, have lower salaries,
more likely to say they have experienced discrimination but plan
to stay in the coaching profession for a longer period of time
because of their youth."
She analyzed information from 643 respondents, of which 435 came
from men and 208 were women. The majority of respondents were
full-time workers and the median age ranged from 36-45 years old.
Half of the respondents came from NCAA Division III schools, with
23 percent from NCAA Division I, 15 percent from NCAA Division
II schools, 10 percent from NAIA school and the remaining 2 percent
from NJCAA junior colleges. Salaries for the coaches ranged from
under $20,000 to more than $60,000.
In her survey, she looked at three factors that might impact
the under-representation of women in coaching: lack of female
applicants, inequity and a higher rate of burnout.
Scopilliti's findings were:
- Female coaches and coaches of women's sports
reported lower job satisfaction, access to practice facilities
and higher job stress levels.
- The coaches of women's teams reported more
discrimination than coaches of men's teams.
- When controlling for age, the women's teams
coaches planned to stay on the job for less time than those
of men's teams.
- Gender of sport was a major predictor of disadvantage,
independent of the gender of the coach.
Scopilliti is currently attending graduate school for her doctorate
in sociology at the University of Maryland in College Park.
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