It’s game time for San Mateo County’s women athletes as one Burlingame organization sets its eyes on boosting the number of female coaches out on courts and fields this fall through a new mentorship program.
Coach today, lead for life, is the Women’s Coaching Alliance’s mantra. Its mission was developed in part by its founder Pam Baker’s passion for uplifting women to leadership roles and her drive to honor her late husband Doug Friedman, a devoted coach and father to two girls.
Friedman died from pancreatic cancer two years ago and Baker has worked to keep his legacy alive through two efforts — easing the path for underserved kids to enter recreational sports by establishing the Doug Friedman Legacy Fund and boosting the odds kids would be mentored by a good coach, Baker said.
Establishing the scholarship fund was easy, Baker said, noting her background has been in the business and leadership world. But her investigation into the world of coaching, one she’d never participated in before, proved to be more difficult.
“Something I knew after speaking with people in the coaching world was there is just not enough women,” said Baker. “It was interesting hearing that there aren’t enough women coaches out there because there aren’t enough women leaders out there.”
Kicking off
Recognizing the need for more women in leadership roles on and off the field, Baker’s newest mission became clear and the Women’s Coaching Alliance was born. The program will provide aspiring female coaches with two mentors, one with athletic leadership experience and another leading in a different field.
Together, Baker said aspiring coaches will have the opportunity to bounce ideas off of their mentors, ask for additional guidance when a drill or lesson may not be working and to learn how to adapt what leadership lessons they do learn to an industry outside of athletics.
Among the many partners supporting the Women’s Coaching Alliance is Burlingame Councilmember Donna Colson. Beyond her expertise as a city official for more than six years, having served as mayor in 2019, Colson has also been a leader in the financial sector, a youth athlete and a coach.
“Pam Baker’s vision for the Women’s Coaching Alliance advances 50 years of Title IX, providing young women opportunities to play sports, to women leading in sports. As a civic leader who has supported women’s sports organizations, the recruitment of more female coaches is the next step in gender equity and modeling aspirational leadership for our young female athletes,” Colson said in an email.
Other key figures leading the movement are Katy Steding, assistant basketball coach of Stanford University’s women’s basketball team; Katie Goldhahn, a National Champion winning Stanford University volleyball player and current College of San Mateo head coach; Ellen Estes Lee, a silver and bronze medal-winning Olympian for the U.S. water polo team; Kim Turner, the director of Gender Equality of Positive Coaching Alliance, a national youth sports nonprofit focused on equity; and Nicole Borg, head coach the College of San Mateo women’s softball team.
Goldhahn, who is also the head coach of club volleyball team Encore, said she fully believes in the Women’s Coaching Alliance’s mission and leaped at the opportunity to partner with the nonprofit after speaking with Baker and James Johnson, the organization’s marketing and partnerships director.
“When I reflect back on my athletic journey and the incredible people that helped shaped my path and positively influenced me, I can’t not be a part of this movement. I feel blessed to work with many young women in this community via my role at CSM, Encore Volleyball Club and private training. We have a duty as coaches to provide leadership, instruction, knowledge of the game, discipline and mentorship. I look forward to watching this initiative grow and develop the next generation of female leaders in our community,” Goldhahn said in an email.
Baker’s team of women will come together this Saturday, Aug. 13 for the organization’s launch and its first Leadership Academy at the Burlingame Community Center. Programming begins at 10 a.m. with Steding leading as guest speaker and lunch and other activities to follow. The leadership academy will begin at 11:30 a.m., giving mentees an opportunity to meet the various women supporting the effort ahead of the fall season.
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Anyone and everyone are welcome to attend the morning’s events, Baker said, noting buy-in from the broader community, whether financial or with mentorship, will be vital for ensuring the program will last and expand.
“I think it’s important that young women learn early on that when you do work, and coaching is work, that you get paid for it,” Baker said. “The more donations we have, the more coaches we can support. Most season kids are turned away for lack of coaches so we’d love to fill that need so that every kid that wants to play has a coach.”
Addressing the gender gap
In general, Baker said the lack of women in leadership positions could be attributed to the different ways boys and girls are socialized. Boys are encouraged to take risks while girls are often taught to prepare and “take the backseat,” Baker said.
These lessons, she suggested, drive up confidence in men and their skill sets, leading them to take on roles they may be less qualified for without as much fear of rejection. Meanwhile, their female counterparts may shy away from opportunities unless they meet nearly all qualifications.
In the local sports community, Baker said she found this notion to be anecdotally true, having spoken with male youth coaches who took on the role without any experience in the sport and female athletes who said they didn’t feel qualified to pick up the whistle.
“We hold ourselves to this ridiculously high standard in order to put ourselves out there,” Baker said. “Many of the men, my husband included, never played soccer in their life and get out there and coach. But we have women who play at the collegiate level saying they don’t feel qualified.”
Another key issue, she said, is that girls are less likely to see themselves reflected in leaders in their communities, including those coaching their teams. But Baker, citing findings from the University of Minnesota’s Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sports, said the gap in male to female coaches could be reduced by just asking women to take on the opportunity.
Baker makes clear though that the movement is not anti-men, noting many men throughout the community, particularly male coaches, have championed the initiative. Instead, she said the objective is to help young women realize their potential through female mentorship so they can one day return the favor to future generations.
“This is not about women leading at the exclusion of men,” Baker said. “What we’re trying to do is make sure they have the confidence and the support to go toe to toe with the men out there.”
Visit the Women’s Coaching Alliance website at womenscoachingalliance.org for more information on the program and to register for events.
(650) 344-5200 ext. 106
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