Sonia Raman, former women's basketball head coach at MIT, is now an assistant coach in the NBA. But when will a woman get the head coaching job for a Division III men's basketball team? MIT athletics file photo

By Ryan Scott
D3hoops.com

This past fall, the New York Times did a feature on a regular season Division III men’s soccer match. This unusual attention was due to who was on the sidelines. Both NYU and Chicago men’s soccer teams are helmed by women. This matchup was believed to be the first time two college men’s teams have faced off with female head coaches on both sides, and Julianne Sitch’s Chicago Maroons went on to win the national championship.

As far as we can tell, Division III men’s basketball has never had a full time female head coach of any team. Just this week, Warren Wilson women’s basketball coach and athletic director, Robin Martin, has taken over the men’s team as well for the rest of 2022-23, but this doesn’t seem like a permanent move.

There’s no reason why a woman couldn’t coach men; there are certainly plenty of men coaching women’s teams — 38% of women’s basketball head coaches are men. (All NCAA statistics in this piece come from the NCAA demographic database. The most recent information available is for 2021.)

Around the Nation has tried to highlight not just the successes of Division III basketball, but the places where improvement is needed. The lack of diversity in coaching is certainly one of those places. Last year we highlighted the dearth of Black coaches and in previous seasons pointed out the decreasing number of women getting head coach positions for women’s teams.

Men coaching women is not inherently problematic, so long as women receive opportunities to coach men as well — equal opportunity across basketball for all coaches to apply for all jobs.

It’s not so easy, though. Becky Hammon spent seven years on the bench for the San Antonio Spurs, earning a stellar reputation as an assistant coach and widely believed to be the heir apparent to Gregg Popovich. After being passed over for a number of head coaching jobs in the NBA, she went to the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces and won the title in her very first season.

“Many NBA teams are kicking themselves they didn’t take a chance on Becky Hammon,” says Princeton women’s basketball head coach, Carla Berube, who coached the Tufts women for 17 seasons. “There’s no reason a woman wouldn’t be as prepared and successful as a man.”

Sexism is a reality for women everywhere. There may be fears a woman coaching men would have her gender used against her in recruiting. Maryville athletic director Sara Quatrocky, though, thinks that kind of sexism could backfire, especially at the Division III level.

“There would definitely be men making sexist comments, but with this generation of students, that might be a turn-off. Our students are so dialed in and sensitive to social issues, like gender equality. They look at leadership differently. We have women in high leadership positions, even in male prominent fields, like never before. That would not be a major concern for me [in hiring].”

I spoke with Berube because someone in her position — a successful Division I coach with a long history in Division III — would be incredibly overqualified for a Division III men’s head coaching job, but it often takes an incredibly overqualified candidate to break a barrier like this one.

“I have no interest in coaching men,” says Berube. “I like coaching women. It’s what I know best. I like women and being around women. It’s what I love to do. Why would I consider anything else?”

Berube also noted that very few women coaches ever bring it up in conversation. The only woman she mentioned ever talking about coaching men was Sonia Raman, formerly the women’s basketball coach at MIT.

“Sonia went to Tufts and she loves Tufts,” says Berube. “When I was there she talked about maybe applying for the men’s job when Bob Sheldon retired so we could coach together.”

Raman found her outlet elsewhere, leaving MIT to join the coaching staff of the Memphis Grizzlies, where she continues to excel coaching men’s basketball at the very highest level.

For many women coaches, though, coaching women is a calling, a chance to mentor the next generation.

Kiki Jacobs, now the athletic director at Roger Williams relayed a story about searching for a coach for a women’s team at a previous school. “The student athletes wanted a male coach, because that’s what they were used to. I asked what they wanted to do after graduation. Some said ‘coach.’ I then asked, ‘so you wouldn’t want you as a coach?’

“They didn’t know what to say.”

“We have too many men coaching high school girls,” notes Berube. “There should be more women out there. I recognize I’m saying this as someone who was coached by a man (UConn’s Geno Auriemma) and that went really well. I’m not saying that men shouldn’t be coaching women, just that we need more women coaches in general.”

This is where equal opportunity becomes so important. In our previous column on the lack of women coaches, legendary Capital women’s basketball coach, Dixie Jeffers, bemoaned inexperienced men — graduate assistants or directors of basketball operations, guys way down the bench — getting women’s head coaching jobs over lead assistants who were women.

Again, not to discount the role sexism plays in our society, but the athletic directors I spoke with see a bigger issue at play.

“Even when you post a women’s sports job, there’s not many women applying for those either,” says Quatrocky, who also serves as the first ever female chair of the Division III men’s basketball committee. “You have to really dig deep to find female candidates, even for women’s jobs, let alone to coach men.”

Across all Division III sports, 73% of head coaches and 70% of assistants are men.

Berube mentioned that it’s very difficult to be a woman and a coach without an incredibly flexible partner. Coaching often means moving. A lot. Not every spouse is ready to uproot. Quatrocky points out that the assistant coaching jobs needed for women to get experience often don’t pay enough to support children or cover child care, concerns which continue to fall overwhelmingly on women in the U.S.

There’s also that tricky issue of actually applying.

“Women seem less likely to jeopardize the job they have by applying for something else,” notes Quatrocky. “They also seem less likely to leave a job mid-year, often, again, because kids are in school.”

Jacobs, who also serves as the president of the National Association of Division III Athletic Administrators, shares that “I’ve had 6-7 searches in the last few years. For women’s sports, I had about 25% women’s [applicants] and 75% men apply.”

You might be familiar with a now-decade-old report from Hewlett Packard which found men apply for a position if they meet 60% of the requirements, while women generally won’t apply without fulfilling 100%.

The Harvard Business Review researched this more deeply and discovered this isn’t due to issues of self-confidence; women are simply more likely to believe that requirements are requirements, while men are more likely to believe some requirements would be waived for the right candidate.

The very day I spoke with Quatrocky, this came up at dinner in my house. My wife, an experienced middle school librarian, a former State Librarian of the Year, and past president of the state librarian organization, noted that the manager of our local library had retired. She didn’t want the job, but I asked if she’d ever consider doing something like that and her response was, “I’ve never managed a staff; that’s probably required.”

There’s no way that would have ever crossed my mind as a hindrance for her, but it was the first thing she thought of. I’m sure there are plenty of books written about the sociology behind this gender disparity and even if the science on it isn’t up to snuff, it’s a widely observed phenomenon.

Jeffers’ complaint that less qualified men are being hired over more qualified women may, at least in part, be due to fewer of those women applying for the job. There are men still less likely or unwilling to hire women, but there are also plenty of athletic directors out there willing to hire the best candidate for the job, no matter who it is.

Berube put it succinctly, when I asked why women don’t apply for more jobs, “Women, especially young women, constantly underestimate themselves.”

Quatrocky said basically the same thing in practical terms, “Men always ask for more money; women never ask for enough. It’s a 20-25% difference.”

It’s only a matter of time before a woman is hired to coach a Division III men’s basketball team. It may be an overqualified candidate making a splash at a big school or a small program simply looking outside the box to find the right fit.

Giving women a fair chance at every coaching job and the encouragement they need to apply for them will only help all of us and improve the Division III basketball product we love so much.