Recent hirings applauded, but not many women in sport leadership roles
TORONTO Catherine Raiche, then assistant GM of football operations for the Montreal Alouettes, recalls being at a Florida minicamp last year when an employee at the training facility had a question for the team’s head athletic therapist.
With a glance over at Raiche, he asked the therapist: “Or should I talk to your secretary?”
The 29-year-old Raiche, now director of football administration for the Toronto Argonauts, says that kind of antiquated mistaken identity happens “very, very often.”
“It’s funny how you have those preconceived ideas because you’re a woman in this world, that you’ll only have a certain type of position,” she said.
“People will ask ‘What do you do for the team? Are you a cheerleader?’ I’m like ‘No. I’m not,”’ an unamused Raiche added.
Sadly, it’s a story most women in positions of sport leadership have to tell.
Raiche grew up an Als fan and dreamed of a job in football. She got a law degree in hopes of becoming a player agent before the Alouettes made her the first female assistant GM in the CFL in almost 30 years in 2017.
Her hiring was big news, largely for the same reason Hayley Wickenheiser made headlines when the Toronto Maple Leafs hired the Canadian hockey star as their assistant director of player development last month. Wickenheiser’s hiring came a few days after Raptors 905 named Tamara Tatham to their coaching staff, making the two-time Olympian the first Canadian woman to join the staff of a G-League team.
Allison Sandmeyer-Graves, CEO of the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical Activity (CAAWS), looks at it two ways.
“One is this is awesome that these women are being recognized for their technical abilities that transcend gender, and that these two organizations have the sophistication to make these sorts of choices at this point,” she said. “On the other hand, and I think this comes from more of an idealistic place, is that I can’t wait for the day that this isn’t newsworthy.”