Keep our girls playing sports...

Keep our girls playing sports by hiring women coaches and creating business and community leaders. The role of the coach is not just coaching!

A survey of executive women found that 80% played sports growing up, and 69% said sports helped them develop leadership skills that contributed to their professional success.

Did you know?
• Brazil President Dilma Rousseff played volleyball.
• The first female head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, was a member of the French national synchronized swimming team.
• Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton played several sports, including basketball, soccer and softball.
• Former US National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was a competitive figure skater and tennis player.
• PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi played cricket in India and later baseball in the US.
• Mondolēz International CEO Irene Rosenfeld was a four-sport athlete in high school and played basketball at Cornell University.
• DuPont CEO Ellen Kullman played college basketball at Tufts University.
• The co-founder of Marvell Technology Group, Weili Dai, played semi-professional basketball in China.

Review this list above and you'll see that many of the women "participated" in sports . . . but was not necessarily the top athlete in that sport. According to the NCAA most of our girls won't play college or professional sports.

• BASKETBALL: 433,344 female high school players only 3.8% will play in college and .9% drafted to play WNBA
• VOLLEYBALL: 429,634 female high school players only 3.9% will play in college
• SOCCER: 374,564 female high school players only 7.0% will play in college
• TENNIS: 184,080 female high school players only 4.9% will play in college
• SOFTBALL: 371,891 female high school players only 5.1% will play in college

Knowing the benefits of playing sports and knowing that many of our athletes won't play in college, shouldn't our focus shift? It's a life lesson to be a part of a team and learn what your contribution to that team is. Ultimately, youth sports are not about developing the next U.S. Open champion, World Cup goalie or even college scholarship recipient, but rather about teaching, molding, growing and developing young girls to be the business and community leaders of the future.

We can create strong athletes by assisting them in preparing for training programs, communicating effectively with other athletes, assisting them with developing new skills, but also encouraging positive self image and leadership opportunities.

Our girls' self-esteem plummets at age 12 and doesn't improve until 20, so how they are treated in the weight room, on the court and on the field will have a huge impact on them for the rest of their lives.

We need women coaches and role models in these weight rooms, on the fields and on the side lines. As a woman coach, I am able to ever vigilant when the girls talk to each other with their guard down. They talk about their bodies, sex, parties, friends and I am in the background absorbing it all.  A woman in the locker room and weight room can watch out for early indications of eating disorders, drug and alcohol abuse, bullying behaviors and more. We need women coaches to teach our girls that each girl is unique and plays a role on the team and in our community.

Interesting reads:
Moms Team- http://www.momsteam.com/team-parents/coaching/why-women-make-great-youth-sports-coaches

TIME-  http://time.com/3896935/women-coaches/