Rant#1-Women Should Be Coaching Men's Teams

RANT#1:
Women Should Be Coaching Men’s Teams – I feel compelled to preface this with a clarification. (Great, I’m at sentence two and already unclear). My motivation for this assertion has nothing to do with promoting women’s rights or even women’s hoops. In fact, I am very much opposed to the increase in televised women’s basketball games on any network prefaced with the letters ESPN. Couldn’t those games be broadcast on one of the many women’s channels like Oxygen, WE, Lifetime, or MSNBC? Truly, every time I see a woman’s game on TV the blatant illogic of that telecast causes one thought to pound over and over in my head - there has to be a men’s game taking place somewhere that should be on instead.

I'll begrudgingly admit that I have watched the Women’s Final 4. I will also tune in any time Canisius is on becasue my old buddy Terry Zeh is the head coach. And, I will on a very rare occasion, flick over to Pat Summitt’s Tennessee Lady Volunteers during the regular season if they’re playing oh, say, I don’t know, maybe the Playboy Centerfold All-Stars. Otherwise, I have absolutely no interest.

Moreover, ESPN needs to cease its compulsion to include women’s hoops scores in its stream of info on the bottom of my screen. At least once a week I see something like Stanford 65, UCLA 44. I then think “Holy crap” until I realize that that was a women’s score. Then the more appropriate thought develops - “Who gives a crap?”

If ESPN absolutely has to run these scores, it should make it much clearer that they are not men’s. Simply putting up a little NCAAW before the stream is wholly insufficient for my little brain. I suggest running the women’s scores in a distinctive color like fuchsia, mauve, taupe or some other word for a color that only women can recognize. Better yet, there could be a special sound or tone that signals the commencement of non-men’s info. The opening few bars of Dancing Queen by ABBA would work quite well.

Now that I’ve established that I’m not a candidate for the Gloria Steinem Award, let me explain my seemingly feminist pontification concerning the travesty that no woman is currently coaching a Div I men’s team. The reason for this contention is based on simple logic. There are 347 men’s teams. There’s no way that all 347 of those coaches are better than the best women’s coach.

Think about it this way: Odds are that on many occasions you’ve been watching some hoop and thought that you could do a better job than the dufus who just burned his last time out with 8 minutes to go. My buddy Gary can’t even make it through an entire Syracuse game without calling to let me know how awful Jim Boeheim is. Though Boeheim has won a National Championship, Gary is not alone in his critique of SU’s head coach. (For the record, I’m actually a fan of Jim Boeheim. Not so much for his coaching, but because his wife is drop dead gorgeous and he, well, he’s a cross between Mr. Clean, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Eeyore. You’ve got to respect that.)

So let’s say that Jim Boeheim and Pat Summitt are to go head to head in a best of 5 series with equally talented men. How many games does Summitt win? If you said less than 2 you are lying.

Now think about how Summitt or C. Vivian Stringer of Rutgers or any of the women who have gone to the Final 4 would do against Willis Wilson. Willis who? He’s the basketball genius who helmed the Rice Owls to a 3-27 record last year.

Some of you might be thinking that a woman wouldn’t be tough enough to handle the hassles of recruiting or the discipline problems that come with a men’s team. Well let me tell you a little story about woman named Brenda Frese – also known as Coach B to the girls who she coaches at Maryland. Last year she was pregnant with twins and continued to coach all the way up until shortly before her delivery. Compare that with the esteemed Duke men’s head coach Mike Krzyzewski who once dropped to the floor in the middle of a game simply because he felt a little light headed. He wasn’t even in his third trimester at the time.

But the story of Frese continues. On February 17 she goes into labor – a somewhat uncomfortable experience. (I do have a vague recollection of my wife grunting once or twice during the delivery of our daughters.) Just weeks later Coach B was back on the sideline and took her squad all the way to the Elite 8. The aforementioned Coach K once had back pain and took an entire year off. So yeah, I think these women are tough enough.

The question then becomes: Why isn’t a woman coaching a men’s team? I have three theories.

Theory #1 – The fraternity of men’s coaches doesn’t want women coaches. Not because of sexist views, but because of fear. They’re afraid that if one woman is allowed to coach and succeeds it’s just a matter of time before the tidal wave of women starts knocking men out of jobs.

This theory, however, requires organized collusion and these guys are simply not intellectually capable of that. Come on, we’re taking about a bunch of men who are seemingly unable to look at a clock and figure out how much time is left. Picturing Boeheim, Roy Williams, Rick Majerus and any of the other coaches with a history of less than stellar coaching displays collaborating to concoct a successful game plan to ice out women coaches when they can’t even come up with a successful inbounds play is truly laughable. Especially since there’s a decent chance that Majerus would be naked. Although, if they wanted to have such a meeting via conference call it could easily be set up by Kelvin Sampson.

Theory #2 – The athletic directors who hire the coaches are wuss balls. They just don’t want to take the risk of blowing possibly the only important task they have by hiring woman who is a bust. (Pun unintended, but it sadly made me chuckle. I really miss Beavis and Butthead). We can only hope that someday one of these ADs grows a pair of cajones – preferably Branch Rickey size.

Theory #3 – Women don’t want the job. That’s right, the real wuss balls here are the women. There’s no doubt that the main reason that no women is currently coaching Div I men’s hoop is a total lack of desire on the part of those women. Truly, when was the last time any woman wanted something, didn’t get it, and then didn’t complain about it? It doesn’t happen. Or have we forgotten Hillary’s less than gracious concession? Heck, if I pick up the wrong type of paper towels I hear about it from my wife for a week. Imagine if there were women pining to coach men’s hoop and they were being turned down en masse. That would be huge news. Oprah would be dedicating entire shows to the plight. There would be picketing in front of Pauley Pavilion and there’d be sports bras burning.

Come to think of it, burning the sport bras might be a good idea regardless. The invention of those things was a terrible marketing move for women’s hoops. At least that’s this boob’s opinion.

There you have it – Dave Barend’s College Hoops Humor Blog #1. You’ve got to admit you are a little impressed with the fact that I was able to be chauvinistic and advocate for the advancement of women’s coaches simultaneously. If you found my rantings even marginally entertaining please feel free to let me know at davebarend@yahoo.com. If not, feel free to send an email to SaraBarend@yahoo.com That’s my wife’s account. She enjoys noting my faults.

Finally, a special thanks to John Cusanno for contributing to this blog. If you’d like to contribute as well, all you have to do is let me know. It is important for you to realize though that I list my contributors not only to show appreciation, but to let the readers know where the real blame lies should the blog stink.

Take it easy,
Dave Barend

Postscript - I would like it noted that as of November 14th I had an extremely impressive 6 comments to this blog. They still exist, but they somehow got moved to "Intro" posting. This blogging thing is quite confusing. They say it's for anybody, but I may prove that wrong.