About women coaching men
So, let me get this straight . . . a woman could be in control of the entire country, but she’s completely incapable of earning the respect of a group of men? (I’m sure a lot of single mothers would disagree). Francesa told his listeners that since even a guy would have trouble controlling a room of 60 men, it “would be a very tall order for a woman.”
Essentially Francesa is claiming that coaching a professional men’s sports team is more difficult than being president of the United States (although, I’m sure a few New York squads make it seem that way). He even roped in coach Jeff Hornacek of the 26-38 Knicks, by mentioning that despite all his accomplishments, Carmelo Anthony still questions him. So how could a woman handle that?
“Think about the scrutiny that that places a head coach under,” Francesa said. “You’re talking about Jeff Hornacek, who has his number retired at Iowa State, who has his number retired with the Utah Jazz, who scored 15,000 points in the NBA, who played over a thousand games in the NBA, who played in the NBA Finals twice, who won games on last-second shots on the college level, and at the NBA level in the playoffs, who played for guys you would consider topflight if not legendary coaches on both levels, who’s spent his life in the NBA, who was an assistant, who was already a head coach before he ever came to the Garden, and with all that experience you have a player here GETTY questioning whether or not he can do the job.”
“How would one of these women stand up to that kind of scrutiny, if we’re being realistic? How would she possibly?”
News Flash: All women face is scrutiny. I may be called a bitch just for writing this. They’re facing it right now by having an outof-touch radio host spew this garbage on air − the type of backwards talk that sets this discussion back decades. Any male coach’s success or failure has as much to do with his gender as Becky Hammon leading the Spurs to a Summer League title had to do with hers.
As Francesa points out, Hornacek (who is a man) has loads of basketball experience, yet he still can’t coach the Knicks to a record near .500. Kind of like the how Phil Jackson (also a man) isn’t exactly the greatest NBA executive, despite a rich coaching history. You need that experience, sure, but people succeed or fail based on if they end up being well-suited for the job at hand.
The scariest thought isn’t that Francesa believes a woman won’t be a head coach someday − maybe she won’t be given the opportunity − it’s that he believes she actually can’t do the job.
“This is not cruel. This is not unreasonable. It is just the way it is,” Francesa said. “Not everybody is attuned or designed to do every single job. And as we move forward there’s no saying that everybody has to be able to do every single job. Some are better for some people, that’s all. That’s not being chauvinistic. That’s not being stone-aged. That’s just being reasonable. I’m just looking at this with some modicum of common sense.”
Here’s some common sense: Shut up.