Why are collegiate sports so often a man’s game?

She's led the Fighting Irish to the Final four an impressive nine times and has taken home the national championship titled twice, most recently and memorably in two thousand eighteen, when Notre Dame one with a heart thumping buzzer beater hon Jennifer j Seventeen years to the day, the Notre Dame party as Hall of Famer. Muffett McGraw is now in her thirty third season at Notre Dame, but she's

always been an outspoken advocate for women in sports. In fact, during the n C Double A Final four last year, her impassioned press conference about the need for more women leaders went viral. We don't have enough female role models, we don't have enough visible women leaders, We don't have enough women in power. Girls are socialized to know when they come out, generals are already set. Men run the world.

Men have the power, Men make the decisions. But wouldn't it be great if we could teach them to watch how women lead. When you look at men's basketball and the jobs go to men, why shouldn't one of the jobs and women's basketball go to women? Right now? Few women sit at the top of the college athletics food chain. If you look at one of the most powerful jobs at athletic director, only ten percent of them nationwide are

women today, though you'll meet one of them. Growing up in the industry, there were that many um female role models in key decision making positions in athletics. Carla Williams made history in two thousand seventeen when she became the University of Virginia's athletic director, the first African American woman to lead athletics at one of the Power five Conference schools, the highest most competitive level of college sports. As ironic as it is, most of my mentors athletic director mentors

are men. Later, Carla tells us what it's been like being a pioneer in this male dominated field. But first, Muffatt McCraw on what's behind the lack of diversity in college sports and how she forged her own path. So my next question in college sports, when are women like Carla Williams and Muffett McGraw going to be the rule not the exception. If there's any indication of how good a leader Muffett McGraw really is, just look to what

her players go on to accomplish. A Women's Basketball Hall of Famer, two Olympians, twenty two All Americans, and twenty two current or former w NBA players, not to mention a number of coaches at the professional and college level. This is Beth Cunningham. I played for coach mraw, graduated in nine and I'm also in my eighth year coaching alongside her at the University of Notre Dame. Beth Cunningham

is Notre Dame's associate head coach. She's one of a few former players we asked to talk about how Muffett shaped their lives on and off the court. She has taught me how to be a confident leader and how to lead. She's taught me the importance of doing things the right way, not necessarily the easiest way, but the right way. Mamma has taught me how as a woman to go after what I want from life, so to speak up for myself and other women at all opportunities.

That's Sarah leive Shirt, another former Muffett McGraw player and one of the Originals Class of Sarah is now the director of Athletics Advancement at Notre Dame. She taught me how to be resilient in the face of adversity, how to work harder than my mind and body thought capable, and ultimately that to strive to be as good as a man is to underachieved. Over the course of her forty plus year career, Muffett has had the chance to influence a lot of young women, but she says she

never really set out to become a role model. I don't think I went into it thinking I'm going to be able to mold these young women, and I'm going to be able to teach these women something about um how they can step up and use their voice. You know. I don't think it was anything like that it was all about just the game, and that love of the game goes way back to her days as a little girl playing on the neighborhood courts in a Philadelphia suburb.

Growing up in that time, no social media, there was, you know, really you left the house, your mom didn't know exactly where you were, and it was always I was down at the playground, Me and nine guys down at the playground. And you know, sports was always sort of a meritocracy. If you can earn it, if you have the ability, you're gonna get in the game. So I was fortunate that I was able to get in

the game and nobody ever look twice at me. Muffett started playing basketball well before Title nine was passed in ninety two. That law, you might recall, was part of a sweeping set of education amendments that made it illegal for any institution receiving federal funding to discriminate on the basis of sex. That met Schools at every level, from elementary to college were expected to provide equal opportunities to their male and female students, both in the classroom and

in the gym. And it was lucky for Muffett back then, her Catholic high school was surprisingly progressive. Hard to believe, as this is the Catholic Church. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia was way ahead of Title nine. So girls were playing basketball in the leads and I know in the sixties. I'm not even sure if it was before that, but way before Title nine came out in the early seventies, they had teams for girls. But the program did have

its limitations. When I was playing in the early seventies, we were playing six on six at that time, which was horrible and not even a real game of basketball. It started out three on three at each end, then it graduated two two at each end, with rovers going back and forth, and then finally in high school we got back to five on five, but we still had to do it while wearing a skirt. Oh, that's so funny.

That must have been kind of awkward at times. Oh my god, let's not forget our femininity as uh, you know, childbirth is a pain free experience, but running up and down a basketball court, boy, that's that's something we're not ready for. That's so funny. Well, it's nice to get the Catholic Church a little bit of credit for being progressive, at least in that arena, right, Yeah, for women, that's

very unusual for them. Yeah. So meanwhile, you played basketball at St. Joseph's University and women's varsity basketball was pretty much brand new there. What was it like back then to play at the college level or did you feel like you were, you know, very well prepared for that given your high school experience. Well, it was the first year it was a sport at St. Joe's, first year returned varsity, so I was thrilled just to be a

part of it. There were no athletic scholarships. You paid your own way, We did our own laundry, We we drove ourselves to games. That was completely unlike what's going on now and and completely different from what the men were going through. We used to sit on the sidelines and wait for them to finish practice, and they would practice for as long as they wanted, whenever they wanted, and we would just wait patiently, waiting on the side until they finished. And it sounds like the Muffett sounds

like the guys were real jerks. They could be. I mean, they thought very highly of themselves in their programs and not very highly of you all, and kind of I think you know, sort of dismissed your desire to play. Yeah, I think I think they absolutely did that. And you know, socially, it wasn't that accepted at that time for women to be playing sports. So we had to fight against a lot of stereotypes and we didn't have a lot of advantages.

But we just we played for love of the game, and that's that's all we cared about, was that we love what we're doing. But how did you start to kind of develop your leadership skills? You know? I think it started way back when I was playing at the playground down there with the nine guys. I think that some of the things that you learn. There's so many great lessons that sports teaches you about work ethic and sacrifice and being a team player and and understanding your role.

A little self awareness is always good. But the thing I learned from playing down at the playground, there's no supervision, there's no referees, So you learned conflict resolution. You learn that you have to stand up for yourself. Um know, the ball was in or out? Who hit it out? Did I get fouled? And you start to learn how people look at each other and if you're the kind of guy that is calling a foul every time you miss a shot. You find out that people don't want

you on their team anymore. They're not going to enjoy playing with you. So I think you kind of learn a lot about personalities, how you can talk to some people a little differently than others. But I think the thing that fascinates me about leadership is how different so many leaders are and they can all be successful. There's introverts, there's extroverts. Uh, there's people that listen a little bit more, there's people that talk a little bit more. But I

think the biggest thing is leading by example. Is is something that I always tell my team that's expected, that that's that's something that you have to do. That's not leadership. Leadership is not being afraid to use your voice, and especially as a woman um starting out with not a lot of people supporting us, you had to be able to go out and really understand that this is what I want, this is what I'm gonna say, and you can't think that much about what other people are going

to say about it. What made you decide to give coaching a try? Well, I graduated from St. Joe's. I was a sociology criminal justice major, and I just really wanted to save the world, and I had no idea what that meant sociology. Not a lot of jobs really out there in the local high school. Job opened, and so I thought, yeah, I'll give it a try. I wanted to stay in basketball, but there was wasn't the opportunity to play professionally, so I took the job at

Archbishop Carol. In my first practice, I was just completely consumed and knew this, this is definitely a passion that I'm going to pursue. You know. It was all about offense and defense, and I just I love puzzles. I loved just kind of doodling on napkins and watching games. And of course we don't have any female role models back then, so I'd watch the NBA, I look at things that they were doing and try to bring that

back to the women's side. I know that you had a short lived stint at the Women's Professional Basketball Association, and I'm curious what that was like for you, because that was a precursor to the w n b A. That was exciting for me. It was nineteen eighty I played in California and mar team with the California Dreams.

So my husband got to wear a shirt that said my wife is a dream and we would, uh, we would go to the arena and we could count the number of people there during the national anthem and probably named most of them. Um. So it didn't get quite the attention. The league eventually folded because of financial problems. My contract was for eleven thousand dollars and I thought it was the greatest thing ever, And you know, I knew it was going to be a difficult thing to start.

But we've gone a long way obviously since then. I mean, things have grown tremendously and I think they're getting better now with Kathy Engelbert in charge of the w n b A, but we still have such a long way to go. What were some of the challenges back then to kind of get women's professional basketball to a place

where people were supportive. I think the first thing was just having some media attention and right now and I think even today, I think we get about four percent of media attention across all of um, you know, through ESPN or newspapers or whatever kind of if there's news out there anymore, we we just don't get any attention people didn't even know we had a league, and I think there's still some people that are unsure about the w n b A. So I think we need to

have a little more better marketing advertising. It's a great product. I think people have to come out and see it and they'll get hooked on it. It's happening in college. I think attendance has grown over the years. I think people are getting more excited about it. We're getting a little more exposure. I think we're on TV quite a bit,

and I think that's really helping us. But we just have so much further to go when you look at what's happening on the men's side, and and nobody wants the w n b A where thinks they should be comparable to the NBA. Not not yet, um, but I think that we need to make some strides. And you see what the soccer team is doing suing for equal pay.

I was going to ask you about that muffet about how if there's kind of, gosh, a ripple effect with what you see going on in women's soccer, and if that's reaching other women's sports and kind of you know, a rising tide lifting all boats idea. Yeah, that's that's what we're hoping. And I think there's a couple of other sports. I think there's a women's ice hockey is trying to do the same thing. I think women's tennis has probably done the best job. Women's golf is still

struggling with that. Um, I think all women's sports, and I think just we we just have to change the attitude of how we're looked at. I was gonna say media attention is one thing, and obviously, you know they're kind of inextricably linked attitudes and and impressions and media exposure. But but how much of it is just, you know, gender stereotypes that started when we were you and I were young, and that still exists in so much of the population today. I think most of it still comes

from that, just from the way you're raised. I think when you look at the way people raise their sons and their daughters, and you look at the differences and how they talk to them, what they compliment them for. Um, I think we're so busy telling our daughters how pretty they are, and we never tell them how smart they are. Trying to say that all the time to my daughters. I have two girls and you know, I really stop myself, even if I think they look prettier, I like their

dress or their outfit or whatever. When they were growing up there now twenty eight and twenty four, but I always say, you know, you're so smarter, you tried so hard. Now they're saying that girls and boys should be should be complimented for their grit and their effort. Um that that that really is is much more helpful, obviously than even saying you're smart. It's saying, wow, you really tried hard,

you really worked hard, and that's that's great. I think that's so important because so often you see parents, especially at sporting events. You know, they want their their child to be the best. They want them to shoot more, they want them to do more, they want them to play more. If if they don't, it's the coach's fault. Um, So I don't think they have the right perspective instead of looking at it and saying, well, you know, look at I love the way your teammates react to you

when when you say something, everybody's listening. I think you're a really good leader. I think you're a great teammate. You effort today was terrific. I saw you dive in for loose balls. I saw you hustling really hard, and everybody really appreciated that effort and things that you really can look at and say, this is important, and then they start to know that it's it's not about how many points you scored. Um, it's really about the way you play the game. Hi, this is Melissa leack Lightner,

a class of two thousand and ten. I played point guard for coach Murraw, which everybody knows is her favorite position on the floor. Melissa leack Lightner is the regional director of Notre Dame Athletics Advancement, a department that focuses on outreach and fundraising. Coach probably doesn't even realize the ways that she impacts her players lives. Obviously, she challenged us mentally and physically day in and day out, but she always made you feel and believe that you are

so much more than basketball. She has helped me grow into the woman that I am personally and professionally. She really just empowers you to be your authentic self. And

she's always a phone call away, meeting a lunch. You know, if you need advice or support, I would not be who I am or where I am today without coach and Notre Dame, I also probably wouldn't be as paranoid about showing up on time and so afraid of being late without her when we come back, Muffett explains why the law that was supposed to change everything still hasn't

fixed the massive gender gap in sports leadership. Muffatt McCraw was named head coach of Notre Dame's women's basketball back in fifteen years after Title nine was enacted, and while the number of female athletes at the college level has skyrocketed since then, the equal resources part of the law isn't necessarily being addressed. Title nine was the best thing for women ever. I mean, we went from about two

hundred thousand girls playing sports to two million. Um. It was just a great thing for women, giving the opportunities and seeing how much they wanted those opportunities. But it really didn't take effect. I think for years and years. I'm still wondering if if it's taken effect even now. And why do you think that's the case. You know, I think that there's a couple of there was three prongs to Title nine that you had to come up with as a university, and and I think they were

pretty easy to say, yes, we've given them opportunities. Um, you know, whatever they're looking for, we've satisfied this. But what is the emotional part? You know, it was the support, financial support that we didn't have. You know, the men or flying places were taken a bus. There's you know, eating at nice places were at McDonald's and so there was just a lot of things. I think that emotional support as a whole laundry list of things that you want to look at and say it's equal, but you know,

it really isn't the attention that we're getting. You know, when are we playing our games as opposed to one they're playing their games. Um, there's just so many things you have to look at. So de facto discrimination kind of lived on. Yeah, I think most schools willingly added sports and did whatever they could, but it was financially it was difficult, and I think a lot of people thought, if you're gonna add women sports, you're gonna have to

cut men's sports. And that was not exactly what happened. That was not ever intended to happen, and I think people use that as an excuse. So instead of just adding and we need more money, We're gonna have to make more money to be able to support these sports instead of cutting men's sports. So it was a great idea in theory, but in practice it really did take a many many years to go into effect, and some might argue it still hasn't fully leveled the playing field,

so to speak. No, it really hasn't. I think it has come a long way, though, And I think that when we started out, you know, coaches, maybe more were women. So everybody coaching a women's team was a woman who had been a pioneer and started out playing back before

Title nine. And I think a lot of women thought, well, when we have a good program, when I'm winning enough, when I'm in a position where i can talk more, And I would look at that and say, if I'm not fighting for my team, what are they going to think? How am I representing them? How am I teaching them anything? So we started to fight a little bit more for just facilities and travel and assistant coaches salaries and so

many different things. And I think that women have to fight for themselves because unfortunately, not many people are fighting for us. It was very depressing preparing for this interview. I learned that two years after Title nine became law, of women's teams and college sports had female coaches, but today that number is just under forty two percent. What

the heck is going on? Well, what happened was eventually the salaries grew and I think we got to a point and this wasn't until probably late in the nineties that coaching women's basketball actually became something that was worthwhile as a in terms of financially, and so you saw a lot of men coming over into our game. They either couldn't get a job on the men's side, they was it was too much dues paying, they had to

wait too long to have that opportunity. But if they went on the women's side, they could walk in and be a head coach a lot sooner than they could on the men's side. And so a lot of the jobs turned into obviously men men coaching on the women's side, and so they had so many more opportunities than women

because they could coach on on either side. And the problem also was the athletic directors, mostly white men, are going to hire people who look like them, and I think men have a very different way of networking of applying for jobs, of promoting themselves that women just don't do. And I think that it was easy. And they go and talk to the men's coach and say, what do you think about this guy? Do you think he could take over the women's team, And and that's pretty much

how it got started. You know, if I hear another story about a man failing up, I'm gonna like slip my wrist. I mean, every day I hear about somebody with some job and I'm like, what, wait a second, I thought they really screwed up. And then for women, you have the glass cliff. You know, once they get into a leadership position, if you know it, it doesn't go perfectly. You know, Sayanara exactly. And that's we see it on in sports or not. You see recycled coaches.

They get fired from one job, they move on to another. But when it happens to a woman, it's very, very difficult for them to come back and to get another job. And I think that one of the big problems is a lot of athletic directors and people in general look and say, well, we tried a woman, it didn't work, so now we're going back to hiring a guy. As if that one woman represented our entire gender, and they couldn't say it just didn't work out with that particular woman,

which is what they say when a guy fails. It's interesting because I know the NFL had the Rooney Rule and when it came to looking at coaches for every white man they had to look at a person of color for coaching or management jobs. But I don't know how well that's worked, do you It's not it's not working. I just read an article recently too, what what happened?

What's wrong? I think approach. I think they're interviewing, but they're not hiring, and I think that they're kind of moving the the idea of this is what you need to do this. You have to be an offensive coordinator, you have to call the plays, you have to do this with that, and so then then uh men are promoted to that job and then they say, now you know what, Now we're gonna say this is what you need. So they're constantly kind of moving the line um and

it's unfortunate. And it happens in college sports as well. I think the diversity at the college level in women's basketball is not nearly what it should be. When you look at the tremendous amount of great athletes that we have in our programs. I don't think the coaching staffs

represent those players. There is truly so much to Muffett, and having known her for thirty three years as a member of her first class notre name, I'm just one of the hundreds of people she's touched and impacted profoundly. Karen Keys has had an impressive career in sports, a year of professional play, coaching at the D one level, broadcast reporter, and now the coach of her former high school back basketball team in New Jersey. I would describe

her as authentic, genuine, candid, straightforward, even blunt. But some of that directness is the reason why she's such an effective communicator as a coach. Whenever a Muffett told you something that you might not want to hear, deep in your heart, you knew it was what you needed the year, and it might not all be comfortable and nice, but in the long run, she always had your best interest

in mind as a player and person. When we come back, I'll talk with a game changing athletic director who has more than a few ideas about how to level the playing field. It's often said if you can't see it, you can't be it, and for a lot of young female athletes, they're still not seeing themselves at the top. Carla Williams is helping to break that mold. As I mentioned, she's the athletic director at u v A, my alma mater, wa Hua. Carlos says that plane sports gave her the

tools to get this far. I do believe that sports is a great equalizer. I do believe that sports brings people together, whether it's teammates or fans, um cheering for their team, coming from all different walks of life and being able to participate in sports has opened so many doors for so many young people that may not have had the opportunity to go to college. I'm one of them, and so sports participation needs to be something that is

available to any kid that wants to play. And I just think that's very basically fundamental because that opens the door to all of those other benefits, so teamwork, hard work, time management, um, learning how to play with others, perseverance. Carlo has been a involved in every aspect of Division one sports. She played, she coached, and then she became an administrator, which is where she believes she can have the most impact. In fact, today she's one of only

four female athletic directors at Power five institutions. There were five of us when I became a D at Virginia, and now there are four, and and so I don't it's hard to to really have a good sense of how that's going to change in a year, two years, three years, or five ten years. It's just really hard to gauge it. Of course, with great power comes great

responsibility and the pressure not to fail. Carla does what she can for others, but also argues that the burden to change the system should not rest solely on women and people of color. I take seriously the opportunity to mentor I do try to have fall conversations, emails and meet with people who want to learn more and grow

in the profession. But at the same time I have to do my job because I do realize that a lot of people are, you know, excited and happy that this opportunity uh existed for me, and so I do understand what it means to a lot of people that that aspire to this. I also understand that it could be a burden also because my failure means a lot as well, and so I can't fail, um, you know. And so that puts uh, that's a that is a

difficult challenge. UM. And also I don't you know, creating a diverse workforce is not always the responsibility of the for the people of color, you know. And so I try to do my best. But if I allow myself to be the person responsible for making sure that African American women can become athletic directors, then I won't be an athletic director for very long. And so I really

think it should be a shared responsibility for me. I had some great UM role models who were athletic directors, and they were willing to include me in meetings, UM, in decision making conversations that were you know, critical decision making conversations, key decision making conversations. That is one way to really help women gain more experience and be in the room so that we can be a part of that discussion. I think athletic directors who are willing to

be inclusive in a substantive way, UM. And that's really the only way to do it, because it just cannot be a superficial, check the box kind of position. It really needs to be you know, engaged in real discussions, and then of course presidents and chancellers that aren't afraid to only look at the qualifications when hiring for athletic director positions. I think sometimes you know it's it's you're comfortable, you know, hiring people that you're comfortable with, and so

that oftentimes excludes women for sure from those opportunities. Carlos is, diversity is key at all levels of college athletics. It's better for players, it's better for universities, and it's better for the game. Having a diverse set of opinions and experiences and thoughts to help make the right decision is really really important. And it's it's almost like you can't you shouldn't have a star warting five that are all centers,

because you know that may not work. You don't have your ball handler, you don't have your perimeter shooter, you know. So their strength in um having a balanced team in sports. So that's a given in sports, and so to me,

I see it the same in administration. Their strength to having balance and to having diversity because you allow yourself to hear different opinions and different experiences to make sure that we're considering that we're we're making an informed decision, and if everyone thinks like me, then I'm not so sure that we're making a completely informed decision. And so that's why I do That's why I think their strength and diversity. Matham McGraw agrees that diversity is something everyone

needs to be working towards. I think every coach in the country as to look and say, how can I support women? How can I hire more women? There's so many talented women out there in the w n b A when they want to get out and start coaching,

where is their opportunity. It's very difficult for them to break in and that's where we need to have more positions and the n c A is looking at that right now that we can have sort of a fellowship of being able to take a w NBA player on our staff, train them see if the coaching is something that they would want to do or be good at.

And I think that's a good way to start. And how can you or how do you foster leadership skills and coaches that are coming up through the ranks as they're kind of a mentor program to get even more women in the pipeline. And we have we have some programs in our Coaches Association, but I think it's up to really the head coach looking at her players that we have to be mentors for them and what they see at practice. And I have to be a mentor for my staff. I want them to be head coaches.

I've recently had an assistant coach go over to the NBA and she's with them Memphis Grizzlies. Now, ne l i v Um going to be one of the great coaches coming into UH into college if she chooses to come back here, and so I think we need more of that. I think the NBA is right ahead of the curve. They're hiring a lot of women. I think there's maybe ten or eleven women in the NBA right

now that are getting great experience. Becky Hammond had to take over a game, the first woman to coach an NBA team because Papovich either got tossed or or was not available for the game. So I think we're making strategy. Saw in the Super Bowl female assistant on San Francisco. I think it's it's coming. It's just so slow, but but we are seeing some change, and I guess we have to celebrate that and do whatever we can to

to feel more change in the future. I'd just like to see more women stepping up and using their voice and looking to hire and empower women. Prepared me to be a leader by challenging me. She was a great leader, but she led by example. She was so passionate, so hard working. I really looked up to her her advice. She's always taught her student athletes how to be strong

women and how to use our voice. That's Neil Ivy, an assistant coach at the Memphis Grizzlies, one of only nine female coaches in the m b A. I love you, um from the bottom of my heart, and I appreciate you helping me become the woman that I am. I think that, um, I've learned the right way to live. UM. I think I've learned the right way to coach and the right way to um to just be a human being. Before we go. For anyone out there wanting to step up to become a Muffett McGraw or a Carla Williams,

here's some advice from a pro. Always do more than what's expected of you. Do more, do extra, UM, And that has helped me, you know, as a student athlete, whether it's in the gym getting up more shots, are in the weight room a little bit longer, or as a coach, staying at the gym to recruit and see more players when your colleagues have already left. Um, it's just do is doing extra just doing more, going the extra mile to learn more and to do more. Um,

you know is something I always give. And then at work, just work, work, work, work. You don't work twenty four hours a day, but when you are working, make sure

that you are working really hard. Um and smart. That's it for this week's episode, I'd like to give us special thanks to Muffett's former Notre Dame players Beth Cunningham, Sarah Leivescher, Melissa lect Lightner, Karen Keyes and Nelle I v and go Irish even though I went to u v A. By the way, you can subscribe to Next Question and listen to all of our episodes on Apple Podcasts, the I Heart Radio app, or wherever you get your favorite shows, and you can keep up with me on Facebook, Twitter,

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