Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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4 MAY 2019 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED M u ff e t M c G r a w h a s coached women's bas- ketball at Notre Dame for 32 years. She has won more than 800 games here. She's led the Irish to 10 straight Sweet 16 appearances, made nine trips to the Final Four and claimed two national championships. She has earned the right to speak her mind, so she does. And she does so free of any apologies many of her crit- ics expected when McGraw loudly and proudly reiterated during a Final Four press con- ference in Tampa, Fla., that a man will "never" again serve on her coaching staff. "When you look at men's basketball, 99 percent of the jobs go to men. Why shouldn't 100 or 99 percent of the jobs in women's basketball go to women?" McGraw said as part of a lengthy diatribe that spurred equal parts sup- port and criticism. The issue of gender inequality in sports is not new, but the Final Four stage provided McGraw the perfect setting to revive it. A revealing interview with Mc- Graw and an in-depth story on gen- der inequality in sports from the news website ThinkProgress.org first shed light on McGraw's "no boys al- lowed" plan when the piece posted just prior to the NCAA Tournament. Asked repeatedly about the story in the weeks to follow, McGraw's strong response in Tampa went viral throughout social and traditional me- dia outlets and stirred a debate about her message. "Never" is the word McGraw's critics locked onto, and their points carry some merit. How long would a male coach be on the job if he were to publicly proclaim he would never hire a woman as an assistant? And if McGraw were a .500 coach at a second-tier program, might she be looking for another job today? "Muffet is a white, married, het- erosexual, highly successful coach, so she can say those things," theorized Nicole M. LaVoi, the director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport, in the Think- Progress.org story. "Whereas I would argue not many other women could get away with that." And maybe this archaic "be seen but not heard" backdrop best illus- trates the systemic inequality women face in sports. ThinkProgress.org reports that when the gender equality law known as Title IX was enacted in 1972 to help shrink the hiring gap between women and men, women were head coaches of more than 90 percent of the wom- en's college teams across two dozen sports. That number has steadily de- clined to only about 40 percent now. The percentage slip remains nota- ble, but is not as dramatic in women's basketball, where about 59 percent of Division I teams were coached by women this year compared to 79 per- cent in 1977. "Men run the world. Men have the power. Men make the decisions," McGraw continued. "It's always the man that is the stronger one." McGraw also admitted to a frustra- tion brought by the gender stereo- typing and double-standards female coaches routinely face. Male coaches screaming at players and referees is accepted as the norm. Similar actions by female coaches render them as raving lunatics. "That's where the problem is," McGraw said, "that peo- ple expect us to be a certain way." For the last seven seasons, McGraw has practiced what she preached in Tampa. When Jonathan Tsipis left Notre Dame for another job in 2012, he became the last male as- sistant coach under McGraw. Tsipis, now the head coach at Wisconsin, was replaced at Notre Dame by Beth Morgan Cunningham, a former Irish star player who was coaching at Virginia Commonwealth. And in the seven years since McGraw hired Cunningham and completed her first all- female staff, Notre Dame has made five Final Four appear- ances, reached four national title games and claimed one championship. McGraw is not alone among big- time college head coaches in her women-first movement. Hall of famer Tara VanDerveer at Stanford has never hired a man to her staff since she took the job in 1985. With the passing in 2016 of former Tennessee head coach and women's basketball pioneer, Pat Summitt, the torch belongs to VanDerveer, Bay- lor head coach Kim Mulkey and McGraw to champion the cause and sound the alarm for collegiate wom- en's sports. "All these millions of girls that play sports across the country, we're teaching them great things about life skills," McGraw said. "But wouldn't it be great if we could teach them to watch how women lead?" Muffet McGraw lost a one-point heartbreaker to Baylor a couple of weeks ago in the national champion- ship game, and with it a shot at her third title. But even in loss, McGraw found the admiration and respect of those who believe in simple fairness and equal opportunity. ✦ Muffet McGraw Owning Her Important Message UPON FURTHER REVIEW TODD D. BURLAGE Todd D. Burlage has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 2005. He can be reached at tburlage@blueandgold.com McGraw caused headlines when she said during the Final Four this year that she will "never" again hire a man to her coaching staff. PHOTO BY JOE RAYMOND