Women’s Lacrosse Leads The Way

Lacrosse Extras Staff — December 13, 2021

Research done by Lacrosse Extras shows that 92.5% of all women’s lacrosse head coaches at the D1 level are female. Out of data compiled for 120 programs, 111 of them have female head coaches.

This may be surprising to some considering many other female sports at the collegiate level have mostly male head coaches. However, Marquette Head Coach Meredith Black is not surprised.

“We have always been a female head coach heavy sport,” said Black.

A possible reason for this is the majority of new assistant coaches each year are former players who have recently graduated college, according to Black.

A comprehensive report done by the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport at the University of Minnesota and WeCOACH found the demographics of head coaches across all women’s sports at the D1 level in the 2018-2019 school year.

Of 3,541 total head coaching positions, only 1,491 of them, about 42.1%, were held by females.

That is a drastic difference from the percentage of female head coaches in women’s lacrosse.

Coach Black is proud that women’s lacrosse is different from other sports.

“I think it is empowering to have been always coached and mentored by strong and confident women,” said Black.

The D1 women’s lacrosse programs who currently have male head coaches are Butler, Canisius, Detroit Mercy, Elon, Georgetown, Louisville, Presbyterian, St. Bonaventure and Stony Brook.