ovember 16, 1993 by Niki King-Jocks Like pretty much everything in this decade, team sports seems to be the latest thing that needs to be intro- duced to gender equality. Women need to get involved and be accepted, not only as players in every sport, but also as coaches, officials, coordinators, etc. Unfortunately, however, even in the nineties there is much standing in the way of women being involved in sports on every level. The problem being is that women who do get involved in sports mostly get into it because their husbands or boyfriends are involved. Its the whole social-cultural thing of sports only being there for men. In Canada women hold only 28% of the executive director positions and only 10 % of the national coaching positions. This is out of almost 70 National Organized Sports leagues. Women in Canada cite lack of access due to gender inequality as one of the major reasons hindering them from participating in organized sports. Another reason may be the unconscious discrimination that women are facing when- ever they do participate. However, unless we have women coaches and women officials involved in sports how are we to ever teach the next generation of children, especially the boys, that women can and are equal participants in sports. Children in our culture grow up watching men play, referee, coach and own all the teams in all professional sports leagues, so there is the obvious bases for the unconscious discrimi- nation that all women feel when they try to participate. Recently a 5-year old girl started playing on her first softball team in New Westminster. On her first day of prac- tice she was greeted almost instantly by 5-year old male child on the same team who said, “Oh great! We're going to lose now, there's a girl on our team!” Fortunately for the little girl she had a coach who quickly spoke up and replied to the little boy, “I guess we must be in real trouble then because your coach is a girl too!” Because of the fact that the coach was a women, instead of bolting off the field and never com- ing back the girl just smiled and never thought twice about the boy's comments. In terms of coaching positions women have a lot to offer. More often than not children quit participating in team sports because they have bad coaches. What makes a good coach is commitment to the players in time and energy and, also caring. Caring is very important especially when coach- The Other Press ing children and trying to keep them interested and involved. And caring is one attribute that most women can accom- plish with ease. In the media we are inundated with the view of the stereotypical coach, the overweight, overbearing man with the whistle around his neck. His only means of motivation being how loud he can rant and rave at his players. It is because of this stereotype of coaches that we are all brought up to believe that women don’t get involved in coaching. They feel that this media version is what a coach should be. This not only discourages women from coaching but also keeps little girls‘form playing, after all who wants to do some- thing for fun and get yelled at for it. There has been only marginal increase over the past decade of women's participation in sports dispite efforts by various interest groups that are involved in encouraging women to do so. Women need to realize that being in posi- tions of authority in the sports helps men realize that women aren't incompetent when it comes to it. Tradition has to change so that women have more mentors in the sports in- dustry, this is the only thing that is going to change peoples ideas. One of the groups involved in encouraging female participation is the Coaching Association of Canada. They have a program called READY, SET, COACH that is dedicated to encouraging women in Canada to consider becoming coaches. Geoff Gowan, president of The Coaching Associa- tion says, “Sports administrators are missing out on a large pool of potential coaches by not considering women for the job. We will frequently ask Dad to coach the local soccer team, but rarely consider asking Mom”. The fact is that women are highly under-represented in sports. Because of this under-representation other women are not motivated to join sports in many areas because they are not willing to be the barrier breakers. Another group that is involved in motivating women towards sports careers is Promotion. They are dedicated to ensuring that all females have access to any opportunity in sports that men may have. Without these organizations that promote women in sports most women would have to go it alone. Needed: Women in Sports! Douglas College Athletics Director, Betty-Lou Hayes says, “Women deserve to have all the benefits from sports that men have had for years.” Some of the benefits that one re- ceives from working in sports are lifetime skills in manage- ment, how to motivate a group of people towards a common goal and how to deal with stress and defeat. Not only are women who don’t participate in sports losing out on these lifetime benefits but they are also missing out on all the fun and social aspects of it as well. 21 As the Defending Champions... The Douglas College Badminton team hosted the first BCCAATournament of the season and continued where they left off last season. Douglas placed first overall and won all 5 events. Winners of their respective events were as follows: Men’s Singles - Corey Loken Women’s Singles - Julia Chen Men’s Doubles - Dak Ban Michael Co Women’s Doubles - Rachel Shiu Tomomi Ohkubo Mixed Doubles- Gary Nyugen Tosca Lueks ‘FINAL STANDINGS: 1ST - DOUGLAS 2ND - MALASPINA 3RD - BCIT 4TH - CARIBOO 5TH - VCC 6TH - CAPILANO Womens Basketball team Claim Third Place in SAIT Tourney The Womens Basketball team travelled to participate in the SAIT tournament on Oct. 29-31. In their first game, the Royals went head to head with thee Lady Trojans from SAIT. Douglas started with great intensity, the Royals pushed to a 25- 6 lead. But, due to several mental lapses SAIT was able to come- back to win the game in the final seconds 52-50. Celeste Rivet lead the Royals with 16 points. In the second game, the Royals still seemed to lack some intensity but managed to keep up with the Mount Royal Cou- gars, trailing at the half 31-29. The Royals managed to fight back to get a 10 point lead early in the second, but the Cougars edged their way back once again to overcome the Royals 63-58. Leading the Royals were Jenee Lutz (12pts) and rookie Sheri Zimmerman (10). Marlee Siemens was have a great game as well with 8 points, 6 rebounds and 4 blocked shots, unfortunately she was taken out late in the first half with a sprained ankle. The Royals dominated throughout their third match against the Medicine Hat Rattlers. Playing extremely aggressive on both offense and defense, everyone contributed as the Royals went not- stop to the final buzzer destroying the Rattlers 73-31. Leading the Royals to victory were Robyn Knight and Rookie Melanie Batouche with 14 pts each. The Royals were faced with the early first half loss of rookie Joanne Blesch to an unfortunate knee injury. The Royals went on to challenge the Grant MacEwan Grif- - fins. Coming out with the game winning attitude and intensity, they dominated once again throughout the game. With 24 steals and 42 rebounds, the Royals displayed excellent examples of skill and teamwork from the opening tipoff to the final buzzer leaving the Griffins behind 72-47. Robyn Knight lead the Royals with 14 pts., while Brooke Nygard added 10. _ Bronze Medal Game Douglas: 57 SAIT: 50 In the Bronze medal game, Douglas met up with SAIT once again. Both teams worked extremely hard, but by the half the Royals had pulled ahead by 12. The Royals came out even stronger in the second half determined to win. SAIT had that same determination but got themselves into foul trouble with 7 of their 11 players having 3 or more fouls. The Royals took advantage on the opportunity and shot an excellent 62% form the line enabling them to hold onto their lead and defeat SAIT 57-50 and capture the Bronze medal. Jenee Lutz led Douglas with 17 points. FINAL STANDINGS: 1ST - FRASER VALLEY 2ND - MOUNT ROYAL COLLEGE 3RD - DOUGLAS COLLEGE 4TH - SAIT Mens Volleyball Team Takes 1-1 Record vs VCC Douglas College Men's Volleyball Team travelled toVan- couver Community College to take on the VCC Falcons, Nov.5 and 6. On the first day, the men were not as successful as the women. The lack of quality serving and service reception con- tributed to the 3-0 (15-10, 16-14, 15-7) loss. Saturday night saw a different Douglas Men's team as they came out strong in all aspects of the game and defeated VCC 3-1 (15-10, 10-15, 17-16, 15-12). Strong serving and hitting proved to be too much for the VCC squad. Douglas's ran a balanced attack which seemed to keepVCC’s defense guess- ing the entire match. Adam Kelly, Brad Premack, Jeff Foo and Kurt Heinrichs all had strong matches. The win leaves Doug- las with a 3-1 league record.