Coaches & Leadership
You got here.
That means something for more than just you. The female athlete or assistant coach or young professional in athletic administration who is behind you is looking at what you built and deciding whether it is possible for them. What you do with the position you have earned — whether you extend a hand backward as well as reaching forward — shapes more futures than your own.
Read this passage slowly.
In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness.
Titus 2:7 — NIVLet that sit for a second before you move.
Set them an example by doing what is good. The mentoring instruction is first modeled, then taught. The female coach who demonstrates what excellent, principled, effective leadership looks like in an athletic institution is providing the most powerful form of mentoring available: the lived example that says this is possible and this is what it looks like when it is done well.
But the example is not sufficient on its own. The explicit investment — the time given to the young woman who is navigating the early stages of the career you have more of behind you than ahead of you, the specific sharing of what you learned the hard way, the opening of doors and the making of introductions that the institutional network does not automatically extend — that investment multiplies what you built beyond your own program and your own career.
The female coaches who advanced in athletic leadership before the current generation often did so without mentors who had navigated the same specific terrain. They built the maps from scratch. The female coaches in that generation who now hold positions of influence have an opportunity their predecessors did not have: to give the next generation the map rather than making them build it from scratch too.
Who is behind you? What do you have that they need? When did you last give it to them?
The female coaches who advanced without mentors built the map from scratch. You have the map. Give it to the person behind you rather than making them build it again.
Who is the young woman in your professional circle who is navigating something you have already navigated? What specifically do you have to offer her that would shorten her path?
The named person becomes the mentoring action item. Follow up on whether contact was made.
Give the map. Open the door. That is how what you built becomes larger than your program.
Deliver only to female coaches and women in athletic leadership.
Most relevant for coaches who have significant experience and are in positions of influence. Junior coaches should receive this eventually but may need the earlier devotionals in this series first.