Nicole M. LaVoi, Ph.D. (@DrSportPsych) is a Senior Lecturer in the area of social and behavioral sciences in the School of Kinesiology at the University of Minnesota where she is also the Co-Director of the Tucker Center (@TuckerCenter) for Research on Girls & Women in Sport, and the co-founder of the Minnesota Youth Sport Research Consortium.

In her research article, titled Mother-Coach Generated Strategies for Increasing Female Coaches in Youth Sport, Lavoi proposes nine strategies for increasing female coaches in youth sport, as it is estimated that less than 20% of youth sport coaches are female. The scarcity of female coaches within interscholastic and collegiate sport is well documented, but little research has examined this phenomena at the youth level. Given that female participation in sports across competitive levels is at an all time high it is disconcerting that more females are not entering the ranks of youth sport coaching.

Here are those the first three of those nine strategies:

1) ASK & INVITE WOMEN

“A lot of women are hesitant to coach because they think they’re not competent, but if you asked, just asked them…And people do it and you know they’re happy to do it if you just give them a little bit of confidence that you think they can do it”

2) INCLUDE FEMALE MENTORSHIP

“Do a mentorship program, where have you know, a more experienced female coach mentor the younger coaches”

3) INCLUDE CO-COACHING OPTION

“Again support I think is the main key, you know that you would have, that there would be other coaches that could step in if you needed to be home so that they would be flexible”

To read Lavoi's full research and see all nine strategies, download the PDF below.