This has been an astounding time for massive social change in our nation’s capital.
We saw our first African-American president move into the White House last year; same-sex couples were finally able to legally marry in D.C. last week; and this week we might see the biggest shocker of them all: A woman will become the head coach of a high school football program.
Sadly, cries of foul have already begun.
After The Washington Post reported that Natalie Randolph will take the job at Calvin Coolidge Senior High School in Washington, D.C., and probably be the only such female coach in the nation, a flurry of online commenters worried about the boys of Coolidge.
“This is a brutal physical sport that rips the testosterone from guys and puts it on display. There is no place here for an estrogen injection,” one reader commented.
I wonder if this person has ever seen childbirth up close.
“THERE’S NO WAY IN HELL A FEMALE CAN BE CONSIDERED A LEGITIMATE COACH OF FOOTBALL,” another ranted.
Hmmm. Perhaps this person has never read “The Complete Handbook of Coaching Wide Receivers: The Difference Is the Details,” a go-to handbook written by a former Texas high school assistant coach, S. Chuck Myers. The “S” is for Susan. (Her publisher suggested the “Chuck.” It worked.)
And plenty of folks can’t help but wonder about the locker room: How is a team ever going to achieve that quintessential sports moment when the guys are in their towels and the coach is ranting and raving atop a bench if the coach is a she?
I don’t think my male swim or ski coaches ever set foot in our locker room, and our team respected them, feared them, learned discipline and determination from them and grew under their tutelage.
And really, after all we heard about former representative Eric Massa and locker rooms, we can do with a little less of those scenes in our lives, right?
“Oh puh-leez,” said Carol White, when I asked her about the locker room issue. She began coaching college football at Georgia Tech 41 years ago.
She was an assistant coach, a Southern lady teaching good ol’ boys how to punt, long before Randolph was born. White had to use the university’s gardening sheds and concession stand closets — “you know, where they kept the paper towels and hot dog buns” — to change on game days.
“First off, let me congratulate the coach and the school system that was willing to chose someone qualified, no matter what their gender,” she told me before going into a locker room-style rant about how this shouldn’t even be news.
Coaching, she explained, is not gender-specific.
“What is coaching? It’s inspiring kids. It requires knowledge of people, patience in dealing with people, attention to detail and positive self image,” White barked over phone from her home in Georgia, where she still runs a kicking and punting clinic.
When she was coaching college players 40 years ago, White said the men had little concern for her gender once they got on the field and saw she knew what she was talking about.
“The players are remarkably lacking in sensitivity in this area; all they want to do is get better,” she said.
Down in Tampa, Stephanie Crawford is heading the Hillsborough High boys’ basketball team to one of its best season records ever. Out in Wasilla, Alaska, (hometown of Sarah Palin), Joanie Welch, the school nurse at Wasilla High School, gets her skates on after school and coaches the boys’ hockey team.
Just as they have proven they can be firefighters, cops, pilots, mayors, soldiers, surgeons and senators, women will surely prove they can discipline, inspire, train and mentor boys who happen to wear shoulder pads and helmets.
And they might even do it differently.
