The Impact of Coaching Experience for Women in Sports

Last spring during my sophomore year, I chose to take a gap semester from Connecticut College in order to find a better work and life balance away from school, and it ended up being the best decision ever. Like many others, I struggled to get through Fall 2020 while stuck in a dorm room with only a few friends around me, long Zoom classes everyday, and very few opportunities for in person activities, including water polo practices with my team. I didn’t know what the spring would look like at Conn, so I chose to take a risk and look for jobs at home in the San Francisco Bay Area instead. Luckily, I got hired as an aquatics coach for one of the high schools in my hometown, and my work coaching through the spring and summer shaped me as an athlete, coach, and woman. 

I grew up swimming as a kid, started playing water polo when I was 10, continued competing in water polo for my club team and high school team, was recruited to play in college, and am now on the Conn women’s water polo team. Unfortunately, my water polo career with Conn’s women’s water polo team was put on pause in the Spring 2020 semester. Getting to coach swimming and water polo for months reinvigorated my passion for water polo and got me actively involved in the sport for the first time in a while. I was excited for practice everyday because I had the opportunity to bring in my own experiences with aquatics to design workouts and help young athletes develop. 

I’ve had some experience coaching in the past, but this past year provided a more serious experience, greater responsibility, and full seasons working with kids. I didn’t expect my coaching experience to change me as much as it did, but I think it made me a more independent woman and confident leader. This experience translated directly to how I perform in the pool as an athlete. As I ran drills, explained rules, and taught techniques to students, I started to reflect on my own playing and began thinking about what I could do to strengthen my skills and improve my knowledge as much as possible. When kids asked me questions about possible new game scenarios, they gave me an opportunity for me to think outside the box and create effective solutions to problems. 

Having a longer season with the athletes gave me time to know each of them individually and understand how each player learned best. Building these close relationships showed me the value of interpersonal connections and how trust lends itself to athletic success, especially with female athletes. Coaching these young female athletes also provoked me to reflect on the need for more female-identifying coaches in the sports industry at every age. The girls felt comfortable asking me questions about my high school and college experiences, and being vulnerable about issues that existed outside of the pool. To them, I was a “girlboss” coach, and I was honored to become a role model.  

 I was taught by both male and female coaches and responded positively to all of their strategies and leadership, even if they sometimes differed in their competitive nature. When I was a teenager in high school and only had female coaches, it was clear that they valued us as more than athletes, taking a lot of time to get to know every athlete both in and out of the pool. Becoming more vulnerable with each other allowed for me and my teammates to establish more trust, close friendships, and communication when we were struggling with anything in our personal lives. I brought some of my past coaches’ strategies for team-building into my own coaching roles in order to help my players build relationships with each other, the same way that me and my friends on our teams once did.  

However, returning to Conn as a student after coaching every weekday and most weekends from February to August was a big change that I hadn’t prepared myself to be unsettled by. I had spent more hours in the day with these high school athletes and my co-coaches than any of my actual classmates, and I never had to worry about homework and classes. I struggled to get back into a student athlete mindset because I wasn’t being as active in the pool, and I felt like I was no longer making an impact on others. Coaching my younger athletes let me have a direct impact on their performance and development, but I grew to realize that my love and passion for the sport also led to an indirect positive impact on my teammates here at Conn. When we practice, I still try to share my knowledge and love for the game with my team to help us all approve, and I can appreciate the work that my coaches put in even more. I have plans to continue coaching in the future, and I genuinely can’t wait to meet more young athletes, work beyond water polo, and develop our leadership skills alongside each other.