From the end zone to the locker room, he pushes you to be your best. Be perfect. It’s not about that scoreboard out there. He shows you how to dig deep and beat the odds. We shut them down because we can. He’s a leader who takes his team to the limit and to victory. Hey, women coach, too. Here we go. They call me Hutch. They don’t call me Coach Hutch, they just call me Hutch I’m Meredith. I was a Division I soccer player, and I have 20 years of coaching experience across all different levels. I’m Coach Eddy, and I’m the only woman coaching Division I men’s basketball. College sports is a $14 billion industry with only a handful of female head coaches, who are basically like C.E.O.‘s running their teams. In men’s sports, only 3% of head coaches are women. But even in women’s sports, we only coach 42% of the teams. Across all the Division I sports, only one in four head coaches are women. It’s time for change. I was a young kid in the ‘60s and early ‘70s. We didn’t have varsity sports for women. I was a cheerleader. All I ever wanted to do was get to play. And Title IX brought out the fact, if it’s good for young men, why wouldn’t it be good for young women? It was a 1972 amendment that guaranteed that there could be no discrimination based on gender by any federally funded institution. I went to Michigan State University and I played basketball and softball there. We didn’t have a good space to play — we had a leaky roof and warped floors. We didn’t have a locker room. At some point, it really hit us in the face that we deserve to be treated just as well as the boys, not better. And we filed a lawsuit. And we won in an hour. In this late ‘70s, which is when I went to college, well over 90% of all women’s sports teams were coached by women. Now it’s somewhere closer to 40%. So you could say the decline is drastic. Title IX did exactly what it was supposed to do. It got more girls playing. Title IX asked for participation. It didn’t ask for coaching. We’re moving backward in gender equity in coaching. In other fields, they’re making advancements. where have all the women gone? And why are the opportunities going to men? As the opportunities improved, we saw a lot more of the other gender going into our coaching pools. Notre Dame head coach Muffet McGraw is coaching in her ninth Final Four today. When you look at men’s basketball and 99% of the jobs go to men, why shouldn’t 100% or 99% of the jobs in women’s basketball go to women? I’m a big fan — I just got to meet her recently — of Muffet McGraw. Men have the power. Men make the decisions. And when these girls are coming out, who are they looking up to to tell them that that’s not the way it has to be? And where better to do that than in sports? I think there is a place for men in our game. All I’m suggesting is that we should have a pretty strong representation of women in leadership positions in everything. Go team! You’re not going to dream it unless you can see it. I started playing professional basketball. I played in the WNBA for the L.A. Sparks and the Phoenix Mercury. And then after that, I decided that I wanted to coach. [INAUDIBLE], are you with me? I heard a lot of no’s. I got 10 years of no’s, actually. Good, you got pep, you got pep, you got pep. I really want to be a collegiate head coach. I hope that there’s an athletic director that has the courage to not see me as a woman, but just see me as a qualified coach. Years ago, when we were looking for a men’s basketball coach, and it was mentioned to me by of course one of our administrators — and the comment was we’re going to get the best one out there. And at the time, Pat Summitt was alive and well. The winningest coach in all of college basketball — men or women’s. Coached, I believe, eight national championships at Tennessee. And I said, are we going to interview Pat Summitt? And of course, I got a big laugh. Like, that’s funny. And I was dead serious. To all the people that think that women can’t coach as well as men — try me. Go, go, go, go. What we’re doing here at the University of Maine, which is really, really special, is empowering these young men to have the confidence to work with strong alpha women. When they go into the workforce, they’re going to work with women. We’ve seen a little bit of the needle moving We’ve seen some of the women — and Major League Baseball has hired some women as hitting coaches. You’ve seen the NBA — Becky Hammon certainly broke that ceiling. We’re not there yet. We’re still evolving. We’re supposed to fit in and walk the walk, but we have to do it in this really particular way That doesn’t necessarily ruffle feathers. Double standards — you see it all the time. If there’s a bad call in our game — Hey! — — and I run out there and I get in the umpire’s face, — and I run out there and I get in the umpire’s face, basically, I’m emotional. Jim Harbaugh is our football coach. Five-yard penalty. Frustration building for Harbaugh. In a football game, when there’s a bad call and Jim Harbaugh gets in that ref’s face and throws his headset and people say he’s passionate, he’s intense, he’s just leading his men. Lookie here, lookie here. [INAUDIBLE] Is livid and I don’t blame him If you look at male coaches who have been released from their jobs — whether it be for not winning, cheating — they resurface, they get other jobs. When a woman loses her job, she is branded and marked as no good. Sports are no different from business or politics, tech, you name it. It starts at the top. People hire people who they’re comfortable with. Male boards in business hire male C.E.O.‘s. And in sports, male athletic directors hire male coaches. And 89% of Division I athletic directors are men. The research shows that diversity leads to success — that means hiring only men is leaving titles on the field. The only way change is going to happen is if organizations and institutions hire more women. University presidents should set a target and make it public so that they’re held accountable. It’s not rocket science. Women are all great enough to play the game. Women are great enough to coach the game. [MUSIC PLAYING]