By Jerry Mooney
This weekend while watching the March Madness, the conversation kept veering (especially once my bracket became a dumpster fire) to women in coaching. This topic was sparked at first by a discussion of the merits of Pat Summitt, which segued to the Buffalo Bills recent addition of Kathryn Smith to their full time staff.
I have a fairly evolved group of friends, but there was a persistent sentiment that she doesn’t belong. This divided the room and the decibel level elevated more in argument than in any form of the typical cheers.
The heat of the argument pushed us online. We argued statistics. We debated merit. We discussed displacement. But there were some important things we discovered that we could all agree on.
Sports has traditionally been a men’s club. There are exceptions, but we can still see the residual prejudice in places like Augusta National.
Women’s participation is good. We all want our daughters (some daughters are hypothetical) to participate in sports. And groundbreaking moves like Title IX have increased women’s and girl’s participation 990% since its adoption.
We would hate to be qualified and excluded from a job because of some factor out of our control.
This weekend’s sports discussions deviated from their normal direction. And perhaps, that by itself made the Bill’s hiring of Kathryn Smith worthwhile. Ultimately, I share her sentiment that I hope someday that such announcements aren’t considered extraordinary. In any event, this was a truly zenruptive hiring.
Jerry Mooney is co-founder and managing editor of Zenruption and the author of History Yoghurt and the Moon. He studied at the University of Munich and Lewis and Clark College where he received his BA in International Affairs and West European Studies. He has recently taught Language and Communications at a small, private college and owned various businesses, including an investment company that made him a millionaire before the age of 40. Jerry is committed to zenrupting the forces that block social, political and economic justice. He can also be found on Twitter@JerryMooney
FlickrCreative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license
