In recent decades, data from sports researchers has revealed an encouraging trend: young girls have been participating in sports in greater numbers. But the research also revealed a major missed opportunity. Girls are dropping out of sports at an “alarming rate”, specifically at puberty.

There is one obvious solution that the sports retail giant Nike CEO John Donahoe and many others think it can make a big difference: more female coaches.

In the historically male world of sports, girls and women have always had to fight for their right to compete and be considered competitive athletes. The sexism that prevented girls from competing in sports also prevented women from becoming youth coaches.

“I think league administrators are kind of trained to look for dads to coach, and more often than not, they think dads are going to be the ones to do it. I think sometimes they might not even try to recruit women,” Mary said. Fry, professor and director of the University of Kansas Sport & Exercise Psychology Lab.

Nearly 75% of youth head coaches are male, according to the Aspen Institute’s Project Play. Even when women are offered the opportunity to coach, they fear they are not good enough to take on such a position because of the sexist stereotypes society often promotes.

When Jen Welter, the NFL’s first-ever female coach and two-time Olympic gold medalist, first got the opportunity to coach soccer, she remembers thinking instinctively, “Girls don’t do this.”

“When you can’t see it, it’s really hard to say, ‘You know what, I can do this,'” Welter said.

“Most young people rarely, if ever, get the opportunity to be coached by a woman. This is a miss for everyone,” said Vanessa Garcia-Brito, Nike’s vice president and chief social and community impact officer. “Getting girls active and inviting them into a lifelong sport has to be seen to be believed – and that starts with more female coaches.”

In March, Nike launched the Coaching HER in partnership with the University of Minnesota’s Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sports. The digital coaching resource is designed to help coaches of all genders improve their understanding of gender bias and discrimination in sport.

Coaches aren’t just important for providing young girls with positive role models—they also offer a safe space to discuss and process the difficulties that can come with a young woman’s changing body and mind. Even for girls who grew up loving sports, puberty shifts girls’ relationship to sports and very often results in them disengaging from physical activity.

The data related to this critical period in a girl’s life is clear. According to the Aspen Institute, one in three girls participates in a sport between the ages of 6 and 12. However, according to menstrual product manufacturer Always, almost one in two girls stop playing sports during puberty.

Research from the 2018 report The Tucker Center, a Nike partner, collected data around the world and found that the highest dropout rates for girls from sports often occur between the ages of 11 and 17, “the age range when girls feel most pressured to conform to an identity shaped by their peers and adults—which includes coaches,” his report states, concluding that how girls feel about their coaches is a determining factor in whether they continue in organized sports.

The Women’s Sports Foundation, created by Billie Jean King, found out 40% of teenage girls does not actively participate in a sport.

“For boys, that going through puberty can be a plus in a way, you’ll gain more muscle and be taller and stronger. It’s just not always the same case with girls,” Fry said. “In high school, they’re kind of in survival mode.”

According to Youth Sport Trust chief executive Alison Oliver, the problem has both physical and psychological dimensions, with periods and low self-esteem as barriers to girls continuing in sport. As girls’ bodies change during puberty, they become increasingly insecure and physical activity becomes different. The charity Women in Sport found that 65% of girls don’t like being watched by others when they play sport because it makes them feel self-conscious and vulnerable., and objectified. What’s more, seven out of 10 girls avoid being active during their periods.

According to the Women’s Sports Foundation, coaches are a critical factor influencing a girl’s experience in sport, and if a girl is not properly supported or understood by their coach at a time as daunting as puberty, they will be discouraged from competing. . For example, girls are usually not educated on the right sports bras or are not fitted for them, making it painful to participate in sports.

“If you start to feel uncomfortable as a female athlete … it would be pretty hard to go to a male coach about some of these things,” Welter said.

“These bonds that develop between a coach or mentor and kids are much bigger than just physical activity,” Fry said. “They have women in their lives that they can bounce back from, they can trust.

Fry co-founded the Strong Girls program at the University of Kansas, where young girls are assigned a female college student as their mentor. Half of the program focuses on co-ed sports activities, while the other half focuses on positive youth development. The program typically attracts girls who tend to play less sports and creates a safe environment where they feel encouraged by mentors to participate in sports they might not normally play.

“Girls and women can’t have enough strong women in their lives. We just benefit from that,” said Fry, who is the director of the program.

For Christina Collins, a former youth athlete who later became a coach, female coaches were the foundation of her success and enjoyment of sports. “I had female coaches, of course also male ones, and that [had] such an impact on me that I realized it was an opportunity for me to grow up and do that. And I felt like I definitely connected with them on a deeper level than I might have [with] male coaches I had,” said Collins, who is now a physical education and health teacher in Westchester County and a professor in the master’s program in physical education at Manhattanville College.

Female coaches, she says, can offer a unique perspective based on their personal experiences as women. “[My identity] it has influenced the way I deliver all coaching. It’s primarily to increase a child’s confidence and then their performance,” said Collins, who is also the founder and owner NeverStopMoving365a company that seeks to use sport and physical activity to promote self-confidence and learn life lessons.

She says this approach doesn’t just benefit girls, but applies to young athletes of all genders, as well as female coaches.

Nike Trainers Target 20,000 Women

Nike is one of the few large companies that directly deals with this issue. Corporations from Target to Disney to Bank of America are being targeted for taking a stand on social issues in today’s fractious political climate. Donahoe, who commented on the question of the level of sports participation of girls at the recent CNBC CEO Council Summit in Santa Barbara, Calif., said he believes Disney CEO Bob Iger is handling the dispute with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis correctly, pointing to Nike’s efforts in girls’ youth sports as another example of how the company can focus on social issues that are at the core of its values ​​and an integral part of its brand.

“We’re trying to train 20,000 coaches, moms and other former athletes to become youth support coaches,” Donahoe said. “So it’s not such a controversial topic, but it’s a topic that we care about as a value,” he said.

Nike also aims to achieve 50% participation by girls in the community sports programs it supports by 2025.

As a former athlete herself, Collins says that when young women and girls stay involved in sports and feel supported, it has lifelong benefits.

“I don’t use actual sports as my primary form of fitness, or just athletic skills in general. But I draw from my set of life lessons that athletics has taught me,” she said.

Coaching HER supports all coaches, regardless of gender, to give girls the chance to continue to develop their physique and learn life lessons from sport, offering coaches in-depth training on how to lead girls and young women in sport.

“For women, it’s not just women. It’s women and men working together to uplift girls. That’s one of the key pieces. How can we work better together?” Welter said.