How clubs can help their coaching moms

In 2007, at eight months pregnant, the US Air Force moved our family to Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska.

 

I had spent the previous 14 months in the border town of Del Rio, Texas, as a middle-school PE teacher, where the only commonality between my students and I was soccer.

 

So, when we showed up in Nebraska, I knew returning to the field to coach was where I wanted to be. 

 

A small club by today’s standards, Phoenix FC was the only club interested in hiring a former All-American retired professional soccer player who also happened to be pregnant. 

 

Two weeks later, still pregnant, I helped with club tryouts. Two months later, I was on the field, coaching. 

 

Most nights, the two hours of coaching became my sanctuary, my ’me time’, and my husband got quality dad time with our daughter CC – named after the great Sissi, from Brazil, who I had been honored to play with, professionally. 

 

And when my husband was deployed when CC was just four months old, I sometimes coached with her in a baby carrier, or in a stroller while one of the team moms pushed her around the complex. 

 

The 11-year-old girls I coached at Phoenix became teenagers I trusted to babysit when I coached high-school games.

 

Phoenix FC never asked me to put my child in childcare and work in an office, even when I was promoted from the role of girls’ director of coaching to the club’s technical director, overseeing both boys’ and girls’ teams.

 

Those at the club always understood how important it was to me to be at home with my babies, and I always wanted to repay that support, with efficient and excellent work from home. 

 

This meant that I sometimes completed admin and paperwork during nap time, or I would work after practices, late at night, after putting the kids to bed. 

 

Occasionally, I would even be planning out my next training session during a messy lunch. 

 

I’m not saying this is the right path for every ’soccer mom’, but it was for me, and I’m grateful to everyone at Phoenix FC for trusting that I was capable of carrying out both roles.

 

I was not a perfect coach, and certainly not a perfect mom, but having both titles gave me balance and purpose and, I believe, made me better at each. 

 

I also recognize that having a supportive partner was another key component to my development as a coach and a mom. 

 

These are some things I believe that clubs can do to support coaching mothers...

 

Think outside the box

Clubs should be open to new ideas for making it work, rather than be stuck in traditional patterns of saying "it won’t work".

 

Just because we did, or didn’t, do something one way in the past does not mean that’s the best way to do it now.

 

Consider maternity leave and supporting the mom’s return

Be open to ideas for how the coaching mom would like to be supported when she returns to the field.

 

Will she coach while wearing a baby carrier or having a stroller on the sideline? Maybe the club can pay for, or provide, childcare during games?

 

Maternity leave was never once mentioned during any of my three pregnancies, but it should be standard protocol now for every club – it’s not, but it should be.

 

Side note: I recently saw a female referee with her two kids playing quietly on the sideline while she refereed the game – it was awesome! The boys were quietly playing together, and the coaches showed a lot more restraint knowing there were young children nearby.