Reference no: EM131337762

Hoop dreams

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equals success. That's an equation that holds true for women as well as men, and in recent years, dedicated female athletes have raised women's basketball to new heights and won the allegiance of many new fans.71

But what about their coaches? Do any obstacles stand between them and their dreams? Marianne Stanley didn't think so when she began coaching women's basketball for the University of Southern California, where she earned $64,000 a year-a fair sum, one might think, but less than half that of her counterpart, George Raveling, who coached the men's team. True, Raveling had been coaching for thirty-one years, had been an assistant on the U.S. Olympic team, and was twice named coach of the year. But Stanley was no slouch. She had been a head coach for sixteen years and won three national championships. In her last two years at USC, she had win-loss records of 23-8 and 22-7, which compared favor- ably with Raveling's 19-10 and 24-6.

So when her initial four-year contract expired, Marianne Stanley sought pay parity with Raveling. Stanley knew that

Raveling was also earning tens of thousands of dollars in perks, but she was willing to overlook that and settle for an equal base salary of $135,000. Instead, USC offered Stanley a three-year contract starting at $88,000 and increasing to $100,000. When she rejected that offer, USC countered with a one-year contract for $96,000. Stanley declined the offer and left USC, her hoop dreams diminished, although she later began coaching at UC Berkeley, where her salary was equivalent to that of the men's coach.

For his part, George Raveling didn't mind Stanley's mak- ing as much money as he did. But he understood why USC paid him more. He was, after all, a hot property, and if USC was going to prevent his being lured away by some other university trying to boost its basketball program, then it had to pay him a high salary. By contrast, Marianne Stanley didn't have any other job offers.

Too bad, one might say, but that's how the market works in a capitalist society. But what if the market itself is discrimi- natory? Defenders of comparable worth argue that it is and that coaches like Stanley can't negotiate for comparable salaries because women's basketball isn't valued as highly as men's. And it's college administrators, they argue, who are to blame for that. As one feminist puts it:

The women didn't get the advertising and market- ing dollars. They didn't get the PR. Then when fans weren't showing up, the TV stations weren't carrying the games and other universities weren't fighting over the best coaches, administrators told the women that, because they and their sport didn't draw as much at- tention as men, they shouldn't be paid as much.

In response, defenders of USC deny that it or any other university is responsible for the fact that men's sports are big revenue earners and women's are not. The higher pay for those who coach men simply reflects that social and cultural reality, which is something college administrators have no control over. If someone like Marianne Stanley wants to enter the big leagues, then she should coach men.

Still, many find it distressing that even though 40 percent of American athletic participants are female, their sports get less respect and less attention-to be specific, less than 5 percent of all media coverage and only 1.62 percent of sporting airtime on big networks.72 Shouldn't universities try to combat this, at least by paying equivalent salaries to the coaches of male and female teams?

Update

Sadly, sometimes even those who have fought against dis- crimination can discriminate against others. Just a few years after Marianne Stanley assumed her head coaching posi- tion at UC Berkeley, one of the assistant coaches, Sharrona Alexander, filed suit against the university, alleging that Stanley told her to get an abortion or lose her job. Stanley denied the abortion allegation, but admitted that she did ask Alexander to resign because of her pregnancy. Either way, a champion of women's rights was guilty of trampling on someone else's hoop dreams. Ironically, Stanley herself played college basketball when she was pregnant (returning to practice eleven days after her daughter was born) and went on, single and with a toddler, to coach Old Dominion University to three national championships. Moreover, some

sports commentators believe that, far from being a handicap, motherhood can give a coach an edge in recruiting because the parents of prospective recruits prefer their daughters to be coached by women who, when they say that they treat their teams as family, know what they are talking about. In addition, Arizona State coach Charli Turner Thorne says, because "you're taking young ladies at a very formative time, you have to play the parent role." She adds, "There's abso- lutely no doubt [motherhood] makes me a better coach."

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1.  The doctrine of comparable worth holds that men and women should be paid the same wage for doing jobs of equal skill, effort, and responsibility. Were Marianne Stanley and George Raveling doing work of compa- rable value?

2.  Was Stanley treated unfairly or in some way discrimi- nated against? Should USC have offered to pay her more?

3.  Why do sports played by men tend to be more popular and generate more revenue than sports played by women? Are female athletes-and their coaches-disadvantaged? Are they discriminated against? If so, who is responsible for this discrimina- tion, and do colleges and universities have an obliga- tion to do something about it?

4.  Should universities like USC base their coaching salaries entirely on market considerations? Or should they pay the coaches of men's and women's sports comparable salaries based on experience, skill, and performance?

5.  Respond to the argument that because men are free to coach women's teams and women to coach men's teams, there is nothing discriminatory in the fact that one job pays more than the other.

6.  Was Sharrona Alexander's pregnancy likely to have adversely affected her coaching performance? If so, was Marianne Stanley wrong to ask her to resign? How should Stanley have handled the situation?