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W hen I question those making the statements, theresponses are again very similar. The preferencefor females in practice settings stems from the

observations by these coaches that the female athletes lis-ten better, are more interested in learning technique and inknowing specifically what their role is in different situa-tions. Since most coaches find the details of technique andstrategy fascinating, the attention of their athletes to theseareas is naturally affirming.

The stated preference for males in competitive situations isthat male athletes can block out extraneous concerns and“just play,” that they take initiative in making things hap-pen, and that the goal of winning is never questioned andalways shared, if not always accomplished. For coaches,who are universally competitive people, these responses incontests are viewed as natural and normal, and any otherresponse perplexing, if not utterly incomprehensible.

So what causes these differences? Do our athletes come tothe gym with the predisposed characteristics to battle orto bond already hard wired into them? Or, are we trainingthem to respond differently to practice and competition?I believe the answer is a combination of both factors.

One way to unpack the issue of predisposition is to look athow athletes choose to behave when they are not beinglead or coached. A friend of mine has taught eighth-graders how to play volleyball in co-ed physical education

By Kathleen J. DeBoer

classes for over twenty-five years. He describes these pat-terns of behavior when the students enter the gym. Thefirst boy who comes into the gym grabs a volleyball off therack and either shoots baskets with it or tosses it up andhits it against the wall. The first girl who enters the gymsits down on a bleacher to wait for her friends. The nextboy who enters the gym generally engages with the firstboy. They start playing short court over the volleyball netor engage in a game of one-on-one at the basketball goal.The second girl who enters the gym may get a ball off therack and sit down next to the first girl or she may sit downin a different place on the bleachers.As more boys enterthe gym, the games they are playing either expand or mul-tiply. After a number of girls are in the gym they will get ina circle and pass and set the ball around the circle, laugh-ing and talking as they exchange the ball.

This differentiation is not universal, meaning there are girlsthat will display the characteristics typical for boys andboys who sit rather than engage, but they are the rareexceptions.The teacher reported to me that this pattern of gendered behavior has not changed for the twenty-fiveyears he has been teaching volleyball to his classes. Whenchoosing unsupervised interaction, the males choose competitive play, the females choose cooperative play.

What happens when athletes are being coached? The1990 Olympic Sports Festival was held in Chapel Hill,North Carolina. The 8 men’s and women’s volleyball teams

Training the Total Athlete

“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.

trained at Carmichael Gymnasium and an auxiliary facility.Bill Neville, a veteran coach with broad experience work-ing with both males and females at both the elite andbeginning levels, was the head of the volleyball delegation.In that role he spent considerable time observing the practices of the various coaching staffs.

He made the following generalization about the training:the women’s teams, regardless of the gender of the coach-ing staff, spent a lot more time on technique and position-ing drills than the men’s team; the men’s teams spent a lotmore time in competitive, game-like drills than thewomen’s teams.

I tucked the comment away for further reflection andobservation because I was curious as to whether this ten-dency was peculiar to volleyball or held true across variousteam sports.When I returned to my college administrativepost, I watched a variety of teams in practices to evaluateNeville’s hypothesis. The pattern he had observed in thevolleyball practices held true for our basketball teams, ourbaseball/softball teams, and our soccer teams. Like the vol-leyball team practices, the women’s teams spent more time

drilling on positioning, and repetitive technique-orientedsequences; the men’s teams spent more time in head-to-head, competitive, results-oriented sequences.

Since most of those coaching at the collegiate level hadspent all of their time coaching either men or women, thecoaches were unaware that this difference in trainingmethods was so prevalent.At our institution only mencoached the men’s teams but both men and women werein head and assistant positions with the women’s teams. Aswith the Olympic Sports Festival, only the gender of theathletes had an impact on the nature of the practice activi-ties, not the gender of the coach.

When I asked our coaches to reflect on the difference, themost common speculation was that the female athletes didnot have the same physical skills in terms of movement,jumping ability and power as the male athletes, and, there-fore, good technique was more critical to their success inplaying the game.

Shortly after these conversations I went to watch a friendcoach his son’s six-year-old basketball team. When we

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entered the gym the boys were engaged in a variety ofactivities, some competing with each other by shootinglong shots from outside the three point line, others playingH O R S E, still others trying to dribble without havinganother child steal the ball.

The coach started the organized part of the practicewith a few dribbling drills.The boys engaged inthese exercises so lackadaisically that the coachstopped the drill and scolded them harshly,pointing out that dribbling was an essentialskill to playing the game and they shouldpay attention to their method.

Next he introduced a shooting drill. Myfriend began by explaining to his chargeshow to hold the ball in their hands, whereto position it in relation to their bodies andhow their hands should look on follow-through. During this explanation the boys fid-dled and nudged each other, rarely looking at thecoach. As soon as he gave them the go-ahead to practicethis technique, they ran to the baskets and immediatelystarted playing a game to see who could make the mostbaskets in the shortest period of time.

Shortly thereafter, about fifteen minutes into the sixtyminute workout, the coach divided the boys into teams forcompetitive drills, scrimmaging first in three-on-two fastbreak situations and progressing to five-on-five drills. Thesesix-year-olds had no skills or movement abilities whatsoever,yet they spent most of their practice time in competitive,game-like progressions.

My next opportunity for observation was at the Women’sVolleyball World Championships in Sao Paolo, Brazil, whenI accompanied our national team as an advisor. Our prac-tice times frequently overlapped with those of the otherwomen’s teams. During the course of the two weeks Iwatched the silver medalist Brazilian team and several ofthe Asian teams in training sessions.

These were the best women’s volleyball teams in theworld, full of elite athletes with 15-20 years of high-leveltraining and competition. They were, for the most part,above average jumpers with great body control and move-ment skills. Their practices, however, were amazingly tech-nique oriented. They worked for long periods of time onfootwork drills for blocking and transitioning from defenseto offense. They spend considerable time on serving andpassing drills. Only occasionally, for a few minutes at theend of a training session, did I observe anything that resem-bled a scrimmage or competitive exchange.

These back-to-back observations of a beginning boy’s teamengaged mostly in game-like activity and elite levelwomen’s teams engaged mainly in technique training mademe question the rationalizing lore I had been given by mypeers as to the reasons for the gender differences in train-ing regiments.

The truth is that we as coaches are training ourteams to their strengths because they are

more cooperative and easy to deal withwhen engaged in activities in which theyare comfortable. By our methods we reinforce what they already do well—teach females cooperative play, teachmales competitive play.

What we must realize, however, is that byour focus on technique, positioning and tac-

tics we short-change our female athletes.Wedon’t subject them regularly to the uncomfort-

able stresses of competition. In the same vein, by ourfocus on battle, rivalry and proving oneself in trainingmales, we leave them under-prepared also. They don’t getexposed to the difficult discipline needed to learn stress-proof technique or the repetition necessary to refine inte-grated tactics.

To make a female team more competitive, we must prac-tice competing. We must accept that the “me versus you”nature of a contest can be difficult for those who choosecooperative play when left to their own devices. Forfemales, then, competitiveness must be taught andrehearsed. On the other hand, the male worldview ground-ed in proving ones self in opposition to others does notlend itself to the restraint of repetitive drilling. For males,then, the discipline to train, to learn proper technique mustbe taught and rehearsed.

Each of you at this point can cite examples of elite athletesin your sport who are exceptions to these stereotypes-athletes who are both rigidly disciplined and insanely competitive. Yet I venture you could make a much longerlist of those who didn’t quite make it because they wereaccomplished in only one half of the equation.

The unanswered question for coaches is: how much com-peting do you put into your training if you are coachingwomen, or how much drilling do you demand if you arecoaching men? It’s a tricky question. Each coach mustevaluate the capacity for anxiety-producing activity amonghis or her athletes.

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To make a female teammore competitive, we must

practice competing. We mustaccept that the “me versus you”

nature of a contest can be difficult for those who choose

cooperative play when left to their own devices.

My observation is that the younger the athletes the lowertheir tolerance for unpleasant experiences. Their primarymotivation for engaging in the sport is to “have fun.” Moremature athletes realize that periods of stress in training arepart of the process in pursuing athletic excellence.

I’ve also seen that, in most cases, a major jump shift from current practice does not work. Radical shifts makeathletes edgy and confused about the goals of training.They quickly lose the sense of enjoyment they get fromparticipation.

The coaches of female teams who have the most successwith teaching competitiveness are verbal and straightfor-ward about what they are doing and why. Instead ofassuming their athletes know how to compete, they makethe practice of competing a regular, disciplined, and evalu-ated part of a workout. They also verbally deconstruct theinevitable conflicts that result from forcing their athletesinto the uncomfortable situation of battling against eachother. They accept the strife as part of the learningprocess. Finally and very importantly, they are attuned tothe level of anxiety on their team so they can quicklyrevert to calming, process-oriented drills when necessary.

Those who failed at teaching competitiveness plungedtheir teams into a mano-a-mano struggle without explana-tion or debriefing. The resultant fretfulness and disruptionof team chemistry is generally disastrous to relationshipsamong the players themselves and with the coach.Thefeminine ability to put emotions into words and the pen-chant to problem-solve verbally makes authentic communi-cation between coach and athletes, and among the athletesthemselves a prerequisite for success in training a femaleteam to compete.

Basketball’s Rick Pitino is the coach I have observed whohad the most success with training males in repetitive,technique-specific, non-competitive sequences. He did thisby separating his technical training from his team training.His morning sessions were individual-one or two athletesat a time, short-20 minutes, and frequent-four times perweek. The focus was completely on technique-shootingthe three, cross over dribble, stutter step and accelerate,head/ball fake and shoot, free throws, etc. The athlete wascorrected each time he performed a technique incorrectlyregardless of the result of his efforts.

I observed a session one day in which a player missed 90%of his shots. The coach running the drill stood where he

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could only see the player’s form, not whether he made the basket or not. His comments were directed at the prescribed shooting form, which was correct most of thetime. The coach said nothing about the misses.

The sessions were also at game speed and very efficient.The athlete was breathing hard, yet aerobically, most of thetime and, depending on his position, took between 250and 400 shots per session.

The main reason for the success of this training regiment is the individual nature of the sessions. The athlete wasworking only to satisfy the coach and the soul focus of thecoach was the technical accuracy of a particular move-ment.The absence of rivalry and very clear feedback pat-terns allowed for concentration on method rather than outcome. Unlike the successful female practices, there wasno conversation and no explanation.

The mundanity of the individual training was numbing,even to me as a casual and occasional observer. But theeffectiveness is also clear. Pitino’s players are known at theprofessional level for their excellent fundamentals andhealthy self-confidence in their abilities. Their technicalefficiency has also been said to mask physical limitationsallowing them a couple of years or a season as a profes-sional that they might not otherwise have had.

Training complete athletes will not happen automatically.It takes purposeful attention by the coach to the part ofsuccessful competing that is difficult for them. Femalesmust be taught, through frequent repetition, how to benefitfrom and be comfortable with head to head competition.Males must be taught, through daily rehearsal, how to ben-efit from and be comfortable with repetitive sequencesfocused on technique and tactics.

Without knowledge of each gender’s predispositions,coaches easily gravitate toward a training regiment thatreinforces that gender’s strengths.The results are frustratedcoaches and semi-prepared athletes. Just as we takeresponsibility for all other aspects of training, coaches mustbe accountable for teaching their athletes either the com-petitive fire (female) or the technical discipline (male) thatis essential for athletic success.

Kathleen DeBoer is the author of the book “Gender andCompetition: How Men and Women Approach Work and PlayDifferently” and is currently serving as the Executive Director ofthe American Volleyball Coaches Association.