Our recreational league has been coed since it’s inception. We formed coed divisions simply because of numbers. When our league formed in 2002, we had ~350 players or so from U6 up through U12 – just enough to form small two year divisions of coed teams (U6/U8/U10/U12). A few years later players were split by gender only if they made our new travel teams (U10 and above). After that, every year or two we’d have a healthy debate about coed with most (including myself) wanting to keep it. Common beliefs were that it helped improve the intensity and aggressiveness of the girls, helped them ‘toughen up’ playing with the boys, and would help them be stronger players when they got older. These were widely held beliefs, but we had little evidence to back them up, even anecdotal. One year we did a survey of our parents and the results reaffirmed what we thought at the time. Around 70% of the respondents preferred coed, with over 75% of parents with daughters preferring coed. We knew there was support for it, but those results were still surprising. Of course, any statistician will tell you people don’t like change and will say they like the ‘status quo’ even if they have some reservations. Fast forward to the past few years. Our travel program was growing and our players who started out with us when they were 4 years old were now in middle school, many playing on travel teams. While we had a number of boys travel teams, we struggled to get enough girls to come out in any given age group. My group of ’96 girls seemed to be an exception, so I had the first girls team from our league that played more than a year. We certainly struggled at first, then saw some success. But we couldn’t shake the feeling that we were ‘behind’ other teams/leagues. Other teams, from big and small leagues, had girls pursuing the ball with abandon who were confident with the ball. We didn’t. The differences were noticeable.
It was alarming when we started to put the pieces together. At U8-U10, most of girls were hardly touching the ball and were learning the wrong things (wait for the ball to come to you and get rid of its ASAP!). At the youngest ages, even in 3v3 matches, many girls were essentially sidelined as the boys and a few aggressive girls dominated the play. Based on what we were observing, we realized that we were likely hurting the girl’s development at the younger age levels and had to seriously consider a change.
After a few more years of solid growth, we certainly had the numbers to split the younger age groups, but what would the reaction be? Most league officers were on board with the change, as most were heavily involved in the travel program and a few coached girls teams and had seen the issues first hand. Two of coed’s most vocal supporters in the past (myself included) were now it’s biggest detractors as coaches of girls travel teams. So the board approved splitting the age groups by gender for U5 through U8 for our 2010-2011 season and braced ourselves. Overall we got very little response and the little we did was at worst split 50/50, which was good. Usually only those upset with something make the effort to say anything.
So the Fall 2010 season began with 5-7 girls teams in each age group. I had coached my youngest son’s coed U5 team and had a great group, so I ‘doubled up’ and coached the boys and girls from that team in U6. This gave me some first hand experience with how the coed change would impact our league and it’s players, girls and boys. None of us really knew what to expect or how it would play out.
In a word? Wow. Not only did it have a positive impact on the girls, there was a noticeable impact on the boys. But first the girls. My U6 girls team, as an example, had two very strong players (aggressive, fast, decent dribblers), two girls who were very new to soccer and wide eyed at their first practice, and a third who was in between. At our first practice I had no idea what to expect. But watching the two tentative girls develop compared to previous years was illuminating. They were VERY hesitant at first, but in early games when the ball came to them, they didn’t panic like I had seen others do when boys were involved. They just kept moving the ball. The mid player latched onto some of the ball rolling we did in practice and would roll the ball with the bottom of her foot out of the scrum instead of just kicking at it. They did things I had never seen girls on previous U6 teams do because the boys were always after or possessing the ball. From top to bottom the girls had a LOT more ball touches and by the end of the season my two tentative players were playing VERY well. It’s hard to describe, but watching them possess the ball in the scrum of U6 and doggedly moving the ball forward was a huge confidence boost for them. I don’t think they would have made the strides they did if boys had been in the games.
Now on the flip side, I practiced the boys and girls together. During activities, it was coed. But during the scrimmages, we usually split them up. It worked fairly well. From my team’s perspective the change was very positive. Other coaches echoed that sentiment for the most part. Most of what we observed with the girls was what we had theorized would take place, but the surprising thing was the boys. In my first U6 game, the boys were MUCH more aggressive. I’ve coached U5/U6 teams for some time and the difference, right from the start, was noticeable. I don’t necessarily mean aggressive in a bad way, but they were using their arms more and were really going after the ball in a way I had not seen at this age. There were times we had to tamp down on how hard they were playing. I’m not one of those coaches who want his players to be thugs – I just want players who go after the ball. I started watching other U6-U8 boys matches and saw similar things. When I asked some of our experienced coaches if they had noticed a difference, all said it was significant. The boys were playing with more intensity than they had in coed. It was surprising.
With three seasons under our belts, the decision was a resounding success. We split U10 this past Fall and it went quite well. However, judging the long term benefits will take years, to see how the ’05s are playing once they reach travel age. We’re confident it will benefit our program and players, but also realize it’s not the only thing that needed to change. Continued coaching education, improvement of facilities, developing a consistent training curriculum, and parent education are all things we need to focus on. But this one change is likely to have a profound effect on the development of our players, regardless of gender.
When numbers dictate, coed is certainly a better option than not playing at all. But once you reach a point where you can sustain gender split teams, it’s an option you should strongly consider. The feedback we received from parents has been overwhelmingly positive and we can see our younger players doing things that their predecessors never did. The only difficulty we have had is getting enough coaches for our girls teams, but that seems to be easing as our parents get more comfortable with the new arrangement. But overall, and especially from a development standpoint, this change had a major impact. I’d recommend any league with a growing coed Rec program to consider it.
Update: Here’s an opposing view from The Women’s Sports Foundation (via Inside Youth Sports):
The Women’s Sports Foundation supports a position that girls and boys should be encouraged to compete with and against each other in sports whenever possible:
“Prior to puberty, there is no gender-based physiological reason to separate females and males in sports competition. In fact, research demonstrates that girls who participate with boys in youth sports are more resilient. … After puberty, coeducational competition should be encouraged at all levels where there are rules that require equal numbers of females and males on both teams and also rules that maximize fair competition between the sexes.”
The key phrase there is physiological – and they are right. The girls CAN physically play with the boys prior to puberty. No question. But our experience shows that the problems arise from a) the boys taking control of the match/ball or not passing the ball to the girls and b) many of the girls who mentally cannot or do not want to ‘engage’ the boys in a physical manner (soccer IS a contact sport). Above I noted that a few girls absolutely would hang tough with the boys and play toe to toe with them, but the vast majority, at least in youth soccer, did not want to and would find themselves sidelined from much of the action (ie the ball). Thus they rarely touch the ball and do not develop the necessary skills. This is absolutely not an equality issue – it’s a practicality issue. And what we observed in a moderate sized (1000+ player) sports league was eye opening.
H/T to @NetWorks_Sports for the link to Inside Youth Sports
January 5th, 2012 at 1:44 am
Really interesting post. I wonder if other people have noticed the same things. In our youth league kids are split onto gender specific teams, but the teams will cross over and playe each other because of numbers. They train seperately, and about half of their games are against the opposite gender. Good stuff, definitely would like to hear more about this down the road.
January 5th, 2012 at 8:23 am
Jeremy – we really were startled by it. Case in point. We sporadically had younger girls travel teams, but they sort of fizzled out each year and didn’t do very well. Sure we’re a young league, kids aren’t at the level of other clubs, etc. But then we started our U9 Academy. I coached the ’01 Girls in U9 and they were the last group that had grown up playing all coed. The first few matches were eye opening. They’d get scored on, and get the ball out of the net and have NO CLUE what to do with it. Same with throw ins. No clue. Why? Because in Rec, the boys would generally grab the ball out of the net and bring it to midfield, take throw ins, etc. Unless coaches worked to ensure the girls got equal touches – these girls were completely unprepared. Up front on offense – again it was a shock because many had played defense. So it took them a year before they finally started to feel ‘comfortable’ in pressure situations. But it blew me away seeing it firsthand playing against kids from other teams who also had ‘come up from Rec’ It will certainly be interesting to see what our U9 Academy teams are like in a couple years when we bring in the first group of kids who played split since U5.
January 5th, 2012 at 12:45 pm
Great blog.
I can see your point. I, too, was in favor of co-ed teams … but have never been in a club or league that supported it. Now I am on the fence.
My daughter wanted to play on an age-appropriate boys team a few years back–and the coach wanted to roster her, but several of the boys’ parents complained so it never happened. She guest played for them once a year or so later and was very competitive with their best players.
Her u12 team (she’s 11) plays u13/14 all the time. Their coach entered them also in a u16 indoor league — I am still not comfy with that (risk of injury and worries that it might diminish confidence) and would rather they play age-appropriate boys leagues. Apparently, however, indoor facilities around here will not permit girls teams in boys leagues … so ….
Great post!
Sean
January 5th, 2012 at 9:02 pm
Really great read.
Our club plays co-ed in U5 and U6 and then splits the genders after that. Practice nights for each age group are held together though, so we see mixed gender training groups for skills work. In the training work (most of it done 1 ball each or 1 ball per two players) there’s little difference in technical skills between the average players.
I haven’t had much of a chance to see match play from the girls teams, but I’ll make a point to do so this spring.
January 9th, 2012 at 5:11 pm
Great article and I completely agree but like you I coach a boys U6 team and a girls U6 team. I tried to practice the teams together but really ran into issues with a joint practice. Maybe it was my style with the Girls and Boys but when I ran practices together OR my son practiced with the girls (because he was around) I found that the girls “confidence” with the ball was an issue. Just as in a coed game when we practiced the girls seemed to back off when the boys would “attack” the ball.
SO in the end I broke up the practices and this spring I will not allow my son to practice with the girls.
If you have some magic advice to impart to allow group practices I would really appreciate it!
January 10th, 2012 at 10:10 am
My biggest issue with the joint practices was size. I had 12-14 6 year old kids running around, so it was a challenge because I didn’t have an assistant. But with the technical drills I rarely had issues as the boys and girls would often self segregate (unless a girl latched onto one of the boys which always made me laugh) At this age it’s one ball per player anyway so they often are on their own. When we’d do stuff in pairs, the girls and boys would often stay away from each other. So it worked. When we’d scrimmage, I’d always have them scrimmage separately. Occasionally I’d take the stronger girls and throw them in with the boys, but that was the exception. And it seemed to work. This Spring, I likely will see if some of my U15 girls are up for helping as asst coaches. Otherwise I’ll split the practices just because of the numbers.
January 11th, 2012 at 9:53 am
Good advice, I appreciate the feedback.
February 5th, 2012 at 8:19 pm
Great article. My family lives in a small town in Ohio where co-ed teams are the norm until high school. My children both play for very competitive teams in the Columbus area. When they do play locally, we have observed everything that the article points out–girls not knowing what to do, lacking in aggressiveness, and generally being short changed. And the boys are simply not aggressive enough. What you say is true.
February 12th, 2012 at 8:25 pm
an interesting article about an issue that causes challenge to leagues and coaches alike. I was fortunate to coach a couple teams in an Upward league in the past. Our league ended up co-ed for the same reasons as most. Upward has some guidelines that made a big difference, so the co-ed experience actually worked in favor of the girls in my opinion.
first, everyone had to play, and we were encouraged to mix the players, so girls and boys were usually splitting defense and offense assignments at the same time. Players also had to play at least half of the game, so the weaker players were guaranteed playing time.
This league plays 4×4 without a goalie. Playing time is divided into 6 periods, players are changed during stoppage. I rotated my players thru a number system, so in theory, they would play 3 periods, and a different position each period. I found all players developed, but girls seemed to improve the most because of the level of competition. The games are small sided, so touches on the ball are also maximized. It was never perfect, sometimes we would come across a team who would use a player, either boy or girl, to stand in front of the net as a ‘handsless goalie’…which did nothing for that players development…some coaches seemed to think it was a great way to use a kid who didn’t want to get involved…I refused; we’re there for the kids, not for ‘wins’…but as the year would move forward, I found the girls, many who had not played before, would improve and often become experts on tactics. Our group handles kids pre-K thru 5th grade. coed can work, but you have to be careful to ensure the opps are kept equal. Ideally, if the numbers are there, keep them separate, but it can work. Interesting points from all. Thanks for sharing.
February 26th, 2012 at 8:01 pm
I am a Referee of 6 years, having done both girls and boys but never together. Main difference I notice is this. Girls tend to have an element of fear in there play. It causes them to pull back on there ability and shy away from anything physical. Boys tend to be a little reckless, they will go for it even when it is not a good idea, or unsafe. As they get older the better girls start to overcome this with confidence in there skills, but still play a little more cautious than boys. Boys tend to learn a little more control and rein in there recklessness.(Unless they get mad, then the reckless attitude comes back strong!)