Boston University made NCAA history last week with the addition of Brittany Miller, the first woman to hold a full-time staff position on the men’s hockey Division I level.
Miller, who was named director of hockey operations for the BU men’s hockey team, joins a slew of other women across the collegiate and professional levels that have made a name for themselves on a predominantly male staff. In fact, the past three years in particular have seen female presence increase in each of the four major sports.
The NBA was the first to make the leap, with the San Antonio Spurs signing Becky Hammon as an assistant before the 2014 season. By 2015, the Sacramento Kings jumped on the bandwagon with the hiring of Nancy Lieberman.
The Buffalo Bills hired Kathryn Smith before the 2016 season as a special teams quality control coach. For the 2015 preseason, the Arizona Cardinals hired Jen Welter as a coaching intern to work with inside linebackers, a temporary position. Welter also made headlines when she signed as a running back with the Indoor Football League; she became the first female non-kicker on a professional football roster.
The NHL finally got on board in August when the Arizona Coyotes hired Dawn Braid as the team’s skating coach, the first ever woman on an NHL coaching staff. But the list seems far too small.
MLB is the lone holdover of the core four to have a woman join a permanent coaching staff. The closest baseball has come to having a full-time female coach was when the Brockton Rox hired Justine Siegal as a first base coach. That being said, the independent leagues are hardly the majors. Siegal did have a stint as a guest coach for the instructional league with the Oakland Athletics, but she was never full-time.
The Bridgeport Bluefish also pulled a stunt where softball Olympic gold-medalist and national champion Jennie Finch coached for a single day. The one-day event hardly does Finch, softball players or female baseball players any justice.
Historically, baseball has been the stingiest of all the major sports in regard to associating with women. There is no college baseball for women, and more often than not, women have to switch to softball by high school.
The NHL is the one league to have a woman on a team’s roster, albeit during the preseason. Several smaller professional hockey leagues have played women, including Hayley Wickenheiser, who joined Kirkkonummen Salamat, a Division II team in Finland.
The NBA supports its female league counterpart, the WNBA, and this relationship is at least something the other leagues have not appeared to have. The NHL has attempted to associate with the NWHL, but at a distance. For a short period of time, the MLB was streaming games from National Pro Fastpitch, the only surviving professional softball league. However, the NFL has not been involved in the various women’s football league startups.
Baseball has been widely speculated as possibly becoming the first major sport to have a female player on a regular season roster because of its non-contact nature. Often times, the discussion has been around female pitchers, specifically knuckleball pitchers, but the first woman to become eligible to sign with a big league club was actually a position player.
In June 2015, French shortstop Melissa Mayeux became the first woman added to the international registration list of the MLB. The then-16-year-old shortstop was a member of the U-18 junior national team in France. Mayeux made headlines last year, but she ultimately did not sign with a Major League club.
The men’s sports world still has a long way to go toward integrating a female presence that is waiting in the wings. There is more female talent in basketball and hockey than ever before, and their respective leagues are getting more mainstream coverage than ever before.
However, while some strides have been made, football and especially baseball need to do more to include women. Whether they like it or not, that’s nearly half their audience.
Marisa Ingemi covers field hockey for the Daily Free Press. She is also a sports radio host on WTBU and involved in BU Athletics social media department. An avid sports fan, Marisa is also the manager of the acclaimed lacrosse website InLacrosseWeTrust.com and the Boston Bruins beat writer for InsideHockey.com.
Thank you for writing this article and continuing to shed like on the disproportion of women coaching men versus men coaching women. There are many women, like myself, who are seeking an opportunity to prove that we can successfully coach men. The governing bodies should be more mindful of this and make necessary changes. Thank you again..