Becky Hammon Versus the Bigots

You’d think that the selection of Becky Hammon to be the first female on the full-time coaching staff of a men’s professional basketball team would not only be cause for celebration, but a sign that things are starting to change in an arena long dominated by men. You’d think it would make people say, “Well, this is long overdue. Why has an entire class of people been shut out of a job opportunity for so long? Why is gender even an issue?”

Then again, you may also think that electing the first mixed-race president of the United States – twice, yet – would make people realize that race shouldn’t have anything to do with the qualifications needed to run the country. And that’s hardly been the case. While there are indeed those who are unhappy with President Barack Obama’s approach to domestic and foreign affairs, there is an alarming degree of pure racism his very presence in the Oval Office has exposed. Worse, his election seems to have provoked latent racism among people who had little problem keeping their bigotry to themselves until they felt threatened by the elevation of a half African-American man to the nation’s highest office.

And so it is for Hammon, who has been named an assistant coach of the San Antonio Spurs. She’s a stellar player, with what experts call a high “Basketball IQ,” and if she were a man, her appointment would have been wholly uncontroversial. Instead, the talented Hammon is upsetting the closed world of those who can’t stand the idea of women playing – literally or figuratively – in a man’s world.

[SEE: Political Cartoons about President Obama]

As Slate reports, there is still a great deal of sexism and hostility toward female coaches, even among coaches themselves. According to a report by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, the representation of female coaches in college sports is getting worse, not better, with more than 60 percent of women’s Division I teams being coached by men. A few women have served as assistant coaches for men’s college sports teams, but none has served as head coach. And as Slate notes, CBS sports reporters did a survey of college coaches, eliciting alarming, and anonymous, responses. Said one coach, “A big part of being a college coach is molding boys into successful men. Obviously a woman can’t do that. I just don’t see a place for it.”

Set aside for a minute the fact that so many men are coaching women’s college teams. (Are they qualified to turn these young women into successful, more mature women and athletes?) If only men can turn boys into men, then these male coaches need to be presented with another question: If they have sons, did they stay home all day with them, or even take primary care-giving responsibility? Or did they rely on their wives to mold the boys into successful men? What’s the variable here – that parents don’t get paid for raising sons (or daughters), but college coaches can make many times the salary of the president of the United States by leading a sports team?

Hammon got another piece of hate-mail from a letter writer to the Washington Post. The reader complained that Hammon’s appointment was being celebrated despite the fact that Hammon had “[given] up her U.S. citizenship and became a naturalized citizen of Russia just so she could participate in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. Do the fans of the NBA and the San Antonio Spurs really want to cheer for a person who renounced her American heritage?” the letter writer asked.

[ READ: Was the NCAA Right to Loosen Rules for Major Conferences?]

The offended fan was wrong – Hammon got dual citizenship to participate in the Olympics. She did not give up her U.S. citizenship. And why should Hammon get slammed for this? Think of how many NHL players skate for their native nations of Canada, Russia, Sweden, Finland and other hockey-happy countries. And there are other U.S. citizens – male and female – who do some fancy paperwork to play on other nations’ Olympic teams. Members of the WNBA also go play abroad in the U.S. off-season – something male professional basketball players don’t have to do, since thy get paid dramatically more than female professional basketball players. The athletes are merely looking for a way to compete, and if they can’t do it for the U.S. or in the U.S., why not play overseas? It’s not much different than U.S. companies locating their headquarters overseas to avoid paying U.S. taxes. In fact, the athletes are far more honest about it, since they actually work overseas (unlike the CEOs of companies practicing corporate inversions), and are not going there just to exploit the lower-paid foreign workers or avoid taxes.

The message to Hammon seems to be this: It doesn’t matter how well you play or know basketball. You’re female, so stay in your second-class, lower-paid court and leave the better-compensated, more glamorous jobs to us. This was the message Obama got during his campaign, and it’s escalated during his presidency. Hats off to Hammon for getting this job. And special kudos to her, in advance, for the brutal backlash that is already starting to mount. It will be unpleasant, but she will make it that much easier for the next female coach of a professional men’s team.

Becky Hammon Versus the Bigots