Practice Like a Girl, Compete Like a Boy: Training the Total Athlete
By Kathleen J. DeBoer
“I’d rather coach women in practice settings any day, but if we are talking about coaching in competition, I’d prefer coaching men.†I have heard this statement or a variation of it from many coaches who have worked with both female and male teams in a wide variety of sports. This pattern in preferences for different genders in different situations, while not universal, is certainly common enough that it cannot be attributed to isolated coaching idiosyncrasies.