Transcripts

DAN GUNDERSON: A couple dozen boys run drills in the high school gym. It's the night after a Spartans loss, and Coach Kelly Anderson tells the players they let the other team rebound too many missed shots.

KELLY ANDERSON: Last night, we gave up five offensive rebounds to the shooter down low. First thing shots up, box out.

DAN GUNDERSON: The practice is fast-paced, intense, and focused on fundamentals.

KELLY ANDERSON: Box out! Shots out! Box out! Get low! Get low! Box out! Get low!

DAN GUNDERSON: Kelly Anderson says she's always loved basketball, and she's always wanted to coach. Anderson played basketball in high school and college. She helped her team at the Fergus Falls Community College win a national championship in 2001. She started teaching at Ulen-Hitterdal three years ago. She was assistant varsity coach last year, and this year became head coach. Her presence on the bench causes a little confusion at games.

KELLY ANDERSON: Refs will usually say, where's your head coach? I get a lot of strange looks-- people thinking, I'm a statistician or the cheerleading coach or the manager. I usually don't correct him. I just let him see that I'm the coach, and they can figure it out for themselves.

DAN GUNDERSON: Team members also get a few questions from opposing players about what it's like to play for a woman coach. Sophomore starting center, Troy Peterson, says he tells people it's no big deal. Peterson says he respects the coach because she's made him a better player.

TROY PETERSON: She knows what she's talking about, and she demands respect, and she gets it. I mean, I don't think there was really any difference. I mean, maybe say different stuff in practice maybe. But how you talk with guys, it's a little bit different when there's a girl, so.

DAN GUNDERSON: Coach Anderson says she earned the respect of the boys the first year she taught at Ulen-Hitterdal.

KELLY ANDERSON: And I had one of my eighth grade boys say basketball is a man's game. And it was my first year as a teacher, and I thought, no way this isn't going to happen. So I said, all right, you really think that? Oh, yeah. So we played one on one. I was five months pregnant, I think. And from then on, it's that spread around the school and hasn't been a factor.

DAN GUNDERSON: Kelly Anderson is one of only a handful of women to coach Minnesota Boys Basketball in recent years. Nicole LaVoi says there could be many reasons women don't coach. LaVoi is associate director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport. The center is based at the U of M. She's studying why fewer women are coaching. Well, more girls are playing sports. In Minnesota, women coached just 2% of boys' high school sports and only 38% of girls' teams. LaVoi says gender bias is one barrier.

NICOLE LAVOI: If a guy shows up for the first day of practice, he's automatically assumed to be competent because he's a male. But when a woman comes, that's the first thing we think of. And that's another one of these kind of gendered stereotypes about leadership. We assume that men are automatically more competent than women.

DAN GUNDERSON: LaVoi says that uphill struggle for acceptance keeps some women away from the sidelines. LaVoi says another challenge is different societal expectations of women, who often struggle to blend the demands of coaching with family responsibility. Kelly Anderson is familiar with that balancing act. During the basketball season, she's at school about 12 hours a day. Her husband farms. So during the winter months, he watches their two-year-old son.

KELLY ANDERSON: My husband last night brought me supper. And I got to see my son before the game. But it's hard. You hear about the stories, what I'm missing at home and what he did today. And it's hard.

DAN GUNDERSON: But Anderson says for her, all of the challenges are offset by her passion for basketball and coaching.

KELLY ANDERSON: I really just love seeing kids succeed. I love seeing them smile after they do something right. I love seeing the camaraderie, the teamwork, and them just growing as a person. I love that part of the game.

DAN GUNDERSON: Anderson says she won't be satisfied until people are talking about the winning team, not the woman coach. Dan Gunderson, Minnesota Public Radio News, Ulen.