Glass ceiling: Why women aren't coaching men's D-I hoops

Nicole Auerbach | USA TODAY Sports

Confused, Bernadette Mattox peered down at the note on her desk.

It said Tubby Smith had called from Kentucky. She thought he'd simply gotten her number by mistake; earlier, she had called Kentucky's women's basketball office to confirm some scheduling details on behalf of the Georgia women's basketball program. Somehow, she figured, her message had gone to the wrong staff.

But when she called Smith back later to apologize and clear up the confusion, he surprised her with a question first. Would she be interested in joining Rick Pitino's staff and becoming the first female assistant in Division I men's college basketball?

Mattox went to interview in Lexington, where Pitino outlined her responsibilities. She wouldn't be on the road recruiting, but everything else would be identical to what he asked of his other assistants. "I was very appreciative of the fact that he respected me enough — or a female enough — that he thought I could come in there and do what the guys did," says Mattox.

"You first have to give credit to Rick Pitino for having that type of vision," Smith says. "At that time, no one dreamed of having a female coach on their staff, much less at Kentucky."

Pitino wanted to hire her. His athletic director, C.M. Newton, gave him the green light.

"Frankly," Newton says, "my only thought process was, 'If she's truly a coach and you're going to treat her as a coach, then you're free to hire whoever you want. If you are doing this as a token and she's not going to (have) coaching responsibilities, then don't do it.' "

"That was the only stipulation I put on it."

This was 1990.

Since then, only two other women have become full-time assistants on Division I men's college basketball staffs, according to USA TODAY Sports research: Stephanie Ready at Coppin State and Jennifer Johnston at Oakland University. Both times, like Mattox, the women were sought out for the jobs; they didn't apply. And both Ready and Johnston were out of the men's game by 2002.

Women work in the realm of men's college basketball in various ways — some in administrative roles, some as athletic trainers, for example — but so few as coaches. From 2003 to 2011, the Equity in Athletics Data Analysis database lists six full-time female assistants on Division I men's basketball staffs. But queries to the schools listed as their employers uncover the real number: 0.

There have been no female head coaches in Division I men's basketball, either.

"I remember Bernadette working for Rick, and the incredible fanfare," Big East commissioner Val Ackerman says. "That was thought to be the turning point. Many of us had a great sense of anticipation that it was going to create this new avenue, and it sort of ended. It's like it died on the vine."

It's particularly puzzling to those who coached with Mattox.

"There have been a lot of men who have crossed over into the women's game, but not a lot of women who crossed over into the men's game," says Florida coach Billy Donovan, who coached alongside Mattox at Kentucky. "I really thought when Coach Pitino did that it would really open up a lot of doors and opportunities."

***

So why hasn't it?

The most common answers may sound familiar.

Women don't actively seek coaching jobs in men's sports, so there is no pool of female applicants for men to hire from. Then, because there are no women coaching men's teams, there are no female role models encouraging others to cross gender lines. The cycle perpetuates itself.

Even Pitino, who received plenty of attention for hiring Mattox, says he's never received an application or call from a female coach.

"The pool is still relatively small," says Atlantic 10 commissioner Bernadette McGlade. "(Women) are not only not in the men's game, but their numbers are dwindling in the women's side of the game. … It's not like there's this great demand and they're just not getting hired."

When Title IX was passed in 1972, more than 90 percent of women's collegiate sports teams were coached by women, according to a study from Brooklyn College professors emerita R. Vivian Acosta and Linda Jean Carpenter. Acosta and Carpenter found that in 2012, only 42% of women's teams were coached by female coaches. Women's basketball fared a bit better; 62% of its head coaches were women last year.

Much of these statistics can be tied back to Title IX itself. In the decade following its implementation, many schools merged their men's and women's athletic programs. Most of the time, they made the man who ran the men's side the new athletic director overseeing the new athletic department. Women who had run the women's physical education or athletic departments were either demoted or moved out of administration altogether.

With fewer high-level female administrators, it became more difficult for women to get head-coaching jobs, a trend that has continued to this day. A 2012 survey by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports at Central Florida revealed only 8.2% of Division I athletic directors were female.

Patrick Nero, athletics director at George Washington and a former chairman for the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics, attributed some of the decline in women coaching women — and the stagnant, low number of women coaching men (less than 3% of all sports, usually individual sports like track or swimming) — to increasing demands on time.

"The pressures of coaching any sport, male or female, has changed at the collegiate level over the last 30, 40 years," Nero says. "There were issues that were looked at in regards to work-life balance. In regards to moving. Moving families, moving spouses. It seemed to be more of a challenge on the women's side."

Ackerman outlined some of what she called "extraordinary demands."

"Coaching is 24/7," she says. "You're never off. If you're out of practice or traveling, you're on the phone with recruits. If you're a parent and have family obligations, men and women — though women tend to get harder hit — that's, as a result, created a fallout."

The flipside, however, is that male coaches seemingly have had no problem entering women's sports and finding success. The most prominent example is Geno Auriemma, who has won eight NCAA women's basketball championships at UConn.

Even male coaches without prior experience in the women's game have entered it in recent years. In 2005, Providence plucked Phil Seymore from his men's assistant role to become the women's basketball coach. In 2011, Virginia Tech hired Dennis Wolff, who had been the men's basketball director of operations and assistant to then-head coach Seth Greenberg, to run its women's program. During this influx of male coaches into the women's game, more female coaches have felt pressure to stay in the women's game.

"The men's ranks are primarily a male-dominated workplace, while the women's coaching ranks have been integrated for several decades now," says Ellen Staurowsky, a professor in Drexel's school of sport management who focuses on issues of gender equity. "We continue to have an entrenched sex-stereotypical way of viewing coaches in general that favors male coaches in general. I think there are so many assumptions around whether women have the capacity to coach men, whether women can lead men — all in contradiction of the 21st century worldview where we have women leaders in all manners of industry. In this particular sector, we've yet to make those kind of inroads."

***

In truth, there's no way to explain away this phenomenon without examining the stereotypes that lie beneath it.

Male players won't want to play for women. They won't respect them. They won't take orders from them. Women are too soft, too emotional, too fragile. Even if they played the sport, they can't possibly understand it as well as their male counterparts do. And, of course, women don't belong in the men's locker room.

Mattox, Ready and Johnston debunk all of those claims.

All three report having overwhelmingly positive experiences with players. They say their backgrounds helped (Mattox was Georgia's first All-American; Ready and Johnston both played college ball, too), and they built relationships with players during offseason individual workouts. Still, it took time to earn respect.

Oakland coach Greg Kampe says Johnston "did a heck of a job" for him, and if he'd had to do it all over, he'd hire her again.

"I thought our players – after it took a little while to get used to it – I think they really appreciated that she was on the staff," Kampe says. "She brought a different perspective, especially with off-court situations. They would go to her with social issues, from girlfriends to everything."

At both Kentucky and Coppin State, players fell into line quickly.

"You've got to understand something about Coach Pitino — whatever he said, we believed," says John Pelphrey, who played at Kentucky for Pitino. "He could have told us the sky is pink today, and it'll be pink for the rest of time, and we're like, 'OK.'

"So, the way he delivered it to us was: 'Bringing (Mattox) on board, this was only going to make us better. She was a tremendous player. She not only can coach and game plan, but she's going to be tremendous for you guys off the floor. She had a completely different perspective than anybody else on our coaching staff.' That was it."

Coppin State coach Fang Mitchell simply walked into a team meeting, introduced the players to Ready and asked if they had any questions.

"They said no, and we went on from that point," Mitchell says. "It's still my program, and they're trying to get on the floor." He laughs.

Quickly, players discovered these women were quite knowledgeable about the game. They were sharp and could adjust to handle different personalities. They were tough. They were effective recruiters, hitting if off particularly well with parents of recruits.

Concerns about locker room access were overblown, Mattox says. "Why should I be in there?" she says. "A head coach of women's team who is male wouldn't be in there." Pitino himself wouldn't go in until it was time to speak to the team, she says.

Fellow coaches on staff soon admired their female colleagues both for their coaching competence and their temperament in difficult situations. Donovan remembers Mattox's grace when dealing with all the media attention. Kampe recalls a game against IUPUI where a man heckled Johnston, screaming sexually-charged commentary, to the point where Kampe felt he had to do something.

"I stopped the game, went to the referees and asked for the guy to be removed, and told them what he was saying," Kampe says. "I've never done anything like that in my life. It was really bad, and those are the things that are out there. It's different. It's hard.

"I don't want to compare it to Jackie Robinson, but the things that were said and yelled at him are going to be said and yelled at a female. They were. I experienced it."

***

"Did you play basketball?"

All these years later, Ready still bristles at the question and its underlying insult.

She'd been milling around a Las Vegas gym, watching AAU teams and recruiting players to Coppin State, where she was the first female assistant with off-campus recruiting responsibilities. It seemed everyone who was anyone was there; if you have any ties to men's college basketball, you go to Vegas in July.

Most of the coaches she met there accepted her as one of them. But not all.

"There were some people who were really rude and very obnoxious," Ready says. "I could tell you some stories, but they were the minority. Generally, those coaches that acted that way were the ones who were insecure about their own abilities. They felt threatened."

One male coach approached her and asked her if she had played the sport. After her initial shock wore off — she asked him to repeat the question — she said, 'Of course I played.' Still stinging, she turned the question back on him. Had he played? No. Had that been a problem for him in a male-dominated field like men's college basketball? No.

Ready's experience is typical of women who work in sports. Last month, Condoleeza Rice's selection to the College Football Playoff selection committee resulted in a wildly outdated backlash, highlighted by former Auburn football coach Pat Dye's comments: "To understand football, you've got to play with your hand in the dirt."

Time and time again, coaches who did not play their sport at the collegiate or professional level have found success coaching it. This past summer, Erik Spoelstra led the Miami Heat past the Gregg Popovich-coached San Antonio Spurs in the NBA finals. Neither coach played in the NBA — yet both coaches have combined for six NBA championships.

"What players respond to, more than anything else, are people who know their craft," says Arizona State coach Herb Sendek, who coached with Mattox at Kentucky. "In the NBA, I think sometimes a lot of thought is given to guys who played in the NBA, but I think ultimately, that is trumped by guys who really know their craft. For example, you have in the Finals, Pop and Spoelstra. Neither guy played in the NBA, but both guys command tremendous respect because they're prepared and they know their craft and they help guys get better.

"That's what players want. They want people who know their craft and who can help them get better. If it's Bernadette, great. If it's Gregg Popovich, who was never an NBA player, fantastic."

Women have served as men's head coaches at lower college divisions, as well as in high school and AAU. Some currently serve as directors of basketball operations at the Division I level, including on Kampe's staff. Others work in academic roles, assisting players with off-court responsibilities. That's not unique; former Georgetown coach John Thompson Jr. hired a woman, Mary Fenlon, as his academic advisor back in 1972, and she was around the Hoyas program until 1999.

There are obvious benefits to having a woman on a men's staff — for the players, their families and the school brand. Ready remembers coaches and spectators approaching her at AAU tournaments, asking what team she represented. Players, like Pelphrey, found value having a new voice and a different perspective on their coaching staff.

A number of coaches said it would be smart to hire women to work in men's college basketball, considering how many elite players come from single parent homes.

"There are a lot of single moms out there, grandmothers raising kids. That's just the truth of the matter," Ready says. "Of course they're going to be more comfortable talking to another woman. Also, I was like their big sister or aunt. I was the one that they came to with problems and issues. Their moms trusted me to handle them."

***

Many of the male coaches and athletic officials interviewed for this story believe a female coach could win Division I men's basketball games.

"If you took any of the women's coaches and you put them on the court in between the lines, they would be very, very competent," Donovan says.

Hall of Famer Pat Summitt, who won eight women's basketball national championships at Tennessee, is a name that's often been brought up over the years as someone who could have broken barriers on the men's side. C.M. Newton, the Kentucky athletic director who hired Pitino in 1989, admits that he thought about hiring Summitt instead.

"Pat Summitt was one of the seven people that I wrote down when I took the athletic director job at Kentucky that could do the Kentucky job," Newton says. "I'd known Pat, and I've never felt that women can't coach men."

On Feb. 13, 2003, Tennessee State athletic director and former women's coach Teresa Phillips became the first woman to coach a men's Division I basketball team, filling in for her coach who had to serve a one-game suspension. The Phillips-led Tigers lost, 71-56, at Austin Peay. At the time, Phillips downplayed the significance of what she did, telling reporters that women won't truly make history until one is hired to run a men's team. She called herself a pinch-hitter.

If the question is not, Can women do it?, it must be, Why aren't they doing it?

Start with the so-called "good ol' boys" club, Newton says, an explanation echoed by many others. Male coaches know and work with other male coaches. When they become head coaches and hire assistant coaches, they hire who they're familiar with. The same goes for male athletic directors.

"People just don't like to take that gamble," Mitchell says. "Men are men. A lot of times, they feel comfortable around men. It's the same (thought) I've had where there aren't a lot of African-American coaches. People feel comfortable with certain types of people."

Mitchell, who doubled as Coppin State's athletic director at the time, was willing to gamble on Ready because she'd played at the school and he'd seen her coach the women's volleyball team. Kampe gambled on Johnston because he was familiar with her as a player, knew her college coach and had to fill an introductory level, low-paying job as Oakland moved from Division II to Division I. Despite blowback from his administration, Kampe hired Johnston. In addition to her knowledge of the game, he gained some positive publicity from the hire (just as Pitino did, which was sorely needed while Kentucky was recovering from a scandal under former coach Eddie Sutton that kept the Wildcats off TV and out of the postseason).

Other forms of networking matter in coaching, too. Mainly, in recruiting. Though men have jumped into the women's game from scratch, some coaches think that would be too risky to hire a female assistant who had no prior experience recruiting men.

"If I were to go and take a women's head coaching job, I wouldn't know the AAU coaches, the high school coaches," Donovan says. "When you talk about bringing a woman over onto the men's side, a lot of times it has nothing to do with their knowledge or their ability to coach and teach and do those things.

"It's relationship-based, and it takes a long time to build those relationships."

Two of the women featured here — Mattox and Johnston — ended up coaching women's basketball after they left the men's game, illustrating what Kampe calls a "glass ceiling. There is no upward mobility for female assistants in the men's game; they have no shot at being hired as a head coach unless they coach women, he and other administrators feel.

After four seasons spent on Pitino's staff, Mattox stepped away from coaching to start a family. She became an assistant athletics director for one year, then accepted a head coaching job — with the Kentucky women's basketball program, a position she held until 2003. She spent the next decade as an assistant coach with the WNBA's Connecticut Sun.

Ready left Coppin State in 2001 and took an assistant coaching gig with the Greenville Groove, an NBA Developmental League team that would fold two years later after giving her the distinction of being the first female to coach in men's professional sports in the United States. Ready now works as a TV host and sideline reporter for the Charlotte Bobcats.

Johnston left Oakland in 2002 to take a job on the women's staff at the University of Toledo, a big pay increase. Four years later, she helped found Rauner College Prep, a charter school in Chicago, and launch its athletic department. These days, she remains its athletic director and physical education teacher. But Johnston still says her dream job was the one she got when she was 23.

The reminders are subtle near her desk at Rauner – a couple of photos from her Oakland days, a copy of an article from her hometown newspaper. When her students first noticed them a couple of years ago, they couldn't believe what their teacher had done a decade before.

"I tell them, but you know teenagers don't listen so well," Johnston says, laughing. "They really are interested in it. My students who are really into basketball will pick my brain, make me play with them, stuff like that."

She pauses.

"I don't think they realize how unique of a situation I was in."

Nicole Auerbach, a national college basketball reporter for USA TODAY Sports, is on Twitter @NicoleAuerbach.