Reminder: Male coaches never have one-on-one interactions with female athletes

Master of Lolly wrote:

Personally, If I (male) were a coach, I would only train male athletes and let female coaches train female athletes.

There are certain things about women's physiques and mentality that men are not meant or capable to understand, therefore might just save yourself the trouble.

Does a female LRer exist that might want to respond to this poster's "Chicks are crazy" belief?

OP has a good point. It is better to make sure there is someone else in the room when you tell an athlete that she is fat and needs to drop weight by arbitrarily restricting calories. Or when your athlete confides in you that she is suffering a mental health breakdown and you tell her to suck it up. Best to make sure there is someone else around in case you are accused of being soft on your athletes and need to defend yourself.

Sorry, but there are hundreds of guys who coach female runners and do the job professionally without ever having any complaints about inappropriate behavior. It really isn't that hard.

docLorna wrote:

Right, can I respectfully ask who/what is the problem exactly?

The culture of abuse. Look at all the 'tough guys' on the Mary Cain thread.

Not coaching females at all is a bit extreme, but the threat of some sort of false or misleading incrimination is definitely there if you're a male coach. The disingenuous and condescending advice of "just be a good person and you won't have to worry" works 99.99% of the time when you're dealing with mentally healthy people. But there will always be that one person with mental health issues who interprets something wrong or is just opportunistic and makes a false allegation of some sort of abuse - for whatever reason this tends to be women against men.

I don't agree with OP, but if you're a male coach you should be advised to keep your wits about you in order to save your reputation and livelihood.

Yes, the idea that if you are "just a good guy and not a creep, you'll be fine." is true most of the time, but...

The thing about accusations, especially of anything sexual, is that is all anyone will ever remember.

No matter how innocent you are, or are proven to be, all anyone will remember is "Hey wasn't he the coach messing with young girls??" It's an accusation that's almost as damning as the action itself. Also, the stress of a such a terrible thing could tear you apart.

Just always be very very very careful, copy parents on any communications, always have other coaches around, preferably a female coach or parent.

seems to be wrote:

docLorna wrote:

Right, can I respectfully ask who/what is the problem exactly?

The culture of abuse. Look at all the 'tough guys' on the Mary Cain thread.

Here's the thing

"Culture of abuse" could mean just that.. look at Penn State for an extreme example, but for others "abuse" could mean "the coach was stern with me" "the coach told me I needed to push it more". "Abuse" just has a very very very open interpretation.

track director wrote:

Just don’t do it.

.0001% of men are falsely accused of a sexual crime - "NEVER ASSOCIATE WITH A WOMAN"

1% of COVID cases result in death or long term health consequences "How dare you suggest I get poked in the arm or put a piece of cloth on my face!"

Brandon Walsh wrote:

Avoid coaching females. Might have to deal with toxic feminists like Molly huddle.

You obviously don't know her or are just some worthless loser. She is actually a fantastic person who regularly gives back to our sport with no expectations from anyone else.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

If you don't act like dirt bag, you'll be fine.

Famous last words. Experience speaks.

All it takes is one entirely baseless accusation. Spotless conduct by the coach is no remedy: The "where there's smoke, there's fire" mentality takes over. And with the Internet, the accusation will live forever.

In any case, the easy way for the athletic director to "solve" the situation is to get rid of the coach. Has happened to more than one coach I know well, and to me.

weigh the risk maybe? wrote:

track director wrote:

Just don’t do it.

.0001% of men are falsely accused of a sexual crime - "NEVER ASSOCIATE WITH A WOMAN"

1% of COVID cases result in death or long term health consequences "How dare you suggest I get poked in the arm or put a piece of cloth on my face!"

Not to be a buzzkill but I was falsely accused of one, it caused trauma and derailed my life and cost my parents like $10,000 at least (when I was 20) so I'd rather not be told I'm a complete statistical nothing

khcglhc wrote:

The Jewish religion figured this out thousand of years ago.

A man and a woman are not allowed to be together alone behind a closed door. Unless they are married of course.

Why are we trying to reinvent the wheel?

All these “new” problems were figured out a long time ago

Speaking as a Jew, I think the percentage of active jews who practice that philosophy is pretty low.