Female role models among high school athletic directors are difficult to find

High school sports in Wisconsin have made big strides in gender equity.

Eleven of the 23 sports sanctioned by the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association are considered girls sports.

More than 35,000 girls participated in WIAA-sanctioned sports in 2016-17. That’s 41 percent of the total number of athletes.

But when it comes to administering those sports, gender equity is far from equal.

For young girls who might dream of a career in sports as an athletic director, the role models are few and far between.

Of the 511 WIAA schools, only 64 have a female athletic director, while four more schools have the job split between a man and a woman.

That equates to 13.3 percent, and Valders athletic director Kelly Isselmann said the dearth of women is noticeable.

“You go to meetings where we’re all there," Isselmann said, "and there’s not many of us.”

Providing a perspective

Wisconsin is in line with the rest of the country, according to Phil Rison, the associate executive director of the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association, who said the national average of NIAAA members is 14 percent.

Alicia Pelton, a Madison resident who has a masters degree from Northeastern in sports leadership and founded the Athletic Leadership Alliance, sees that as a problem.

Pelton said that without women having a seat at the table, too often they’re underrepresented when it comes to important decisions.

“Women need to have a greater voice in sport policy decisions that affect them,” Pelton said. “Women can play a critical role in helping design measures that increase participation in sport and physical activity and harness sport as a tool to improve gender equity.

"The resultant policies and programs are more likely to be relevant and effective if they include the perspective of females.”

Isselmann added that women might approach a problem from a different angle, focusing on the relationships as opposed to other details that she feels aren't as important.

When Tina Bacon took over as athletic director at Wittenberg-Birnamwood 18 years ago, she was one of three female ADs in the Central Wisconsin Conference-Large. Bacon echoed Isselmann's point about women thinking differently, which made things easier.

“We would understand and back each other's answers, really support each other,” Bacon said. 

“I don’t know if you can be successful if you don’t build those relationships between ADs and coaches, and then between coaches and players,” Isselmann added.

Peggy Seegers-Braun, athletic director at Divine Savior Holy Angels for the past 31 years and current president of the Wisconsin Athletic Directors Association, said that lack of different perspectives hurts both genders.

"Student-athletes (boys and girls) are missing out on some tremendous leaders," she said, "and colleagues are missing out on those same tremendous colleagues who may offer a different perspective than their male counterparts in such things as how to look at problems in the profession, ways of doing things. 

"That is a detriment to the profession in general."

Pelton said without women in the position of athletic director, there’s a broken chain in the path from athlete to administrator.

"The importance of women in athletic director roles," Pelton said, "is not only crucial for the growth of sport for girls through role modeling, policy making and demonstrating viable career option that changes the way a young girl thinks about her future, but the evolution of our societal perspectives valuing the knowledge, experiences and diverse perspectives women bring to the game.

"Plus, it is just plain business smart."

Said Seegers-Braun: "It is like any other profession. We learn different things from different people, and diversity is good in any profession. We don’t grow if we are all the same and think the same way."

Pelton said our country's culture is where the root of the problem lies.

“It’s a societal thing,” Pelton said. “We don’t raise our girls to be leaders, we raise them to play and we’re happy with that.”

Family first

Seegers-Braun said it’s impossible to highlight what’s preventing women from rising the administrative ladder.

“I don’t think anyone is out there preventing it,” Seegers-Braun said.

She added that most women are still the ones expected to take care of their families, meaning if they have to pick between their job or family, it’s a tough choice.

“Unless you have a good support system at home, you might not make the commitment,” she said.

Isselmann concurred.

“My thoughts as a mom is it’s all about splitting time between athletes and family,” Isselmann said.

And even if women do become athletic directors, it doesn’t mean they’ll stay long, according to first-year Little Chute AD Kelly Wallace.

“There’s more pressure on women to be there for their kids than men, so they’ll step away,” Wallace said.

Despite women facing the brunt of the burden, Pelton thinks men too are sometimes unwilling to lose time with their families.

“There’s a high turnover of ADs regardless of gender,” Pelton said.

Sheboygan Christian AD Deb Van Drunen, in her 10th year, said the job can sometimes become too much.

“In today’s day and age, fathers are more involved in their children’s lives than they were 30 or 40 years ago," she said. "But the hours aren’t great. You’re gone a lot of nights and weekends and that takes a toll.”

Both Seegers-Braun and second-year Green Bay Notre Dame AD Steph Mathu agreed that getting help at home, and school, can mean the difference between sticking around or stepping down.

“You need help when the job just doesn’t let you leave,” Seegers-Braun said. "If it wasn’t for my husband and mother, there’s no way I could have done the job while raising my two boys."

Said Mathu, “I don’t think there’s any magic answer, but if you have more people helping where you don’t have to be there until 8 or 9 at night, that helps. It’s just the nature of the beast.”

Besides potential family conflicts, Bacon said she doesn't think everyone is suited to do the job.

“Personally, I’m not married or have a family, so I live at school," she said. "I love the job, but it’s not for everyone.”

Boys club

With men dominating the sports landscape, it sometimes comes down to a numbers game for women to land athletic director jobs.

“A lot of ADs are former coaches," Wallace said, "and in a male-dominated profession, that’s where you see the link. More female coaches will lead to more female administrators.”

Van Drunen said it goes even deeper into the demographics of teaching as a whole.

“More women are at the elementary and middle schools compared to men in high school, so there’s more options for them,” Van Drunen said.

This imbalance of women in the role in turn leads to fewer thinking they can do the job, Pelton and Seegers-Braun said.

“Girls don’t have role models who can be seen as examples,” Seegers-Braun said.

Added Pelton: “Women are looking for jobs and don’t see other women doing that. They have to think, do they want to take that on and fight for it.”

And just because they fight for it doesn’t mean they’ll get it.

Pelton shared a story about a cross-country coach who spent 20 years building the program up from six runners to more than 100 but didn’t even get an interview for the athletic director position at her school.

“We see that and it impacts us,” Pelton said. “I think women want the jobs, there’s just not a huge pool of applicants, so we need to hunt them down.”

‘Like a sorority’

Taking it a step further, because of the low number of female ADs, it’s important for organizations such as WADA to embrace its female membership, said Wallace, who has a masters degree in sports management.

“Within WADA, they do try to have a women’s-only group to talk about our challenges and see other women in our role," she said. "I instantly felt welcomed by that organization.”

It makes it easier, Mathu said, when you’re not alone in your conference. The Fox River Classic Conference has three female ADs in Mathu, Pulaski’s Janel Batten and Green Bay Southwest’s Amy Hogan.

“I feel fortunate that way,” Mathu said.

Mathu said it’s almost like being part of the collegiate Greek system.

“It’s kind of like a sorority," she said, "so it’s important to go to to WADA clinics and area meetings where you can meet and network.”

Having leaned on her predecessors, Bacon is trying to return the favor to Tri-County’s Dawn Byrum, who is in her first year as an AD.

Seegers-Braun said she, too, wanted to give back, running for vice president of WADA, which entitled her to start a four-year cycle in the organization as vice president, president-elect, president and then past-president.

The longtime AD became just the third woman to hold the office of WADA president in the organization’s 52-year history.

“The workload on top of your regular duties is tough," she said. "My children are older so I thought it was my time to step up.”

Changing the tide

Pelton is working at the grassroots level to give women options.

Her hope is that the WIAA will step up and create an ad-hoc committee, similar to what the Ohio High School Athletic Association implemented in 2004.

The Ad-Hoc Diversity Council addressed diversity issues within the OHSAA and became a standing committee that created scholarships and internship programs for minority students.

Pelton said just because the WIAA doesn’t decide who becomes an AD doesn’t prevent it from making an impact.

“They’ll say they don’t hire, but they can lead,” Pelton said.

This is unlikely to occur unless member schools reach out to the organization to do so, WIAA executive director Dave Anderson said.

"If there's avenues to add more diversity or female membership among ADs, it would make most sense for that to come from WADA," Anderson said.

With Pelton leading the charge, the Wisconsin Women’s Soccer Advisory Council was recently formed and has drawn praise from both U.S. Youth Soccer and U.S. Women’s National Team coach Jill Ellis, she said.

The organization is trying to grow a network of contacts and a mentoring program for women in soccer, and Pelton said the process has started to create a similar organization for women’s hockey.

Bacon said that becoming an AD takes a particular type of person, but even if they're found, nobody can do it alone.

“You have to have a person who loves sports and loves helping and encouraging athletes," Bacon said. "But they need support of the administration and their family for it to work, too,”