Coaching HER

Coaching HER is a coaching resource that helps sport coaches of girls challenge the status quo and the taken-for-granted assumptions of what it means to coach girls. We are helping coaches minimize gender inequalities and to coach differently.

Coaching HER tackles central and unaddressed issues which negatively impact girls’ and women’s performance, self-perceptions, sport choices, and experiences: coaches’ unconscious gender biases and stereotypes.

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About
Coaching HER

How an athlete feels about their coach is one of the most important factors determining whether or not she keeps playing sports. Coaches are powerful role models who can impact girls' self-perceptions, experiences, and development. Yet coaches often lack the education and training needed to address concerns specific to girls and women, including gender identities, stereotypes and bias.

Our Vision: To help more girls get and stay in sport through critical drop-out ages of 11-17, so they can stay active, healthy and thrive across the lifespan.

Who's a Coach?

When we say "coach", that includes volunteers, teachers, parents, guardians, caregivers, siblings, and coaches. Any caring adult who guides or supports young people to move and find success both on and off the field.

All girls deserve sport coaches who help them succeed, flourish, thrive, and realize their full potential.

Nicole M. LaVoi, Ph.D., Director of the Tucker Center

OUR WHY

At the Tucker Center we are continuously asked, "How do we coach girls?" Coaching HER is a coaching resource that helps sport coaches of girls challenge the status quo and the taken-for-granted assumptions of what it means to coach girls. We are helping coaches minimize gender inequalities and to coach differently.

Provides coaches the tools they need to effectively coach girls

Supports the needs of girls in sport by helping coaches create a climate where girls can realize their full potential, optimally develop and flourish.

Gives voice to girls and includes HER perspectives

Is girl-focused, gender-responsive, and recognizes girls experience the world differently, face many barriers, and are treated differently than boys, because they are girls.

Developed by world-renowned experts and championed by leading brands

Stands as an industry-first, evidence-based, rigorously tested tool for sport coaches of girls.

Coaches' unconscious gender biases and stereotypes are often a reason girls drop out of sport.

One in three girls drop out of sport by ages 16-18. By comparison, the dropout rate for teenage boys the same age is 1 in 10.

43% of girls who considered themselves sporty stopped playing sports in middle school—right around the time of puberty.

DATA

The Importance of Coaching HER

Watch this 2 minute video as Dr. Nicole M. LaVoi, Director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport at the University of Minnesota, talks about the importance of Coaching HER, and how it upskills coaches to help all girls reach their full potential.

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FAQ

Coaching HER is a project of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport at the University of Minnesota. We conduct solution-based research, translate knowledge, provide educational opportunities, and engage in community outreach that impact girls and women in sport and physical activity. Established in 1993, the Tucker Center is the first interdisciplinary research center in the world to undertake and pioneer the academic study of girls and women in sport.

Be her reason to stay in sport •