Last November at the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Cross Country State Championship meet, the coach Sharon Moreno Hernandez brought her team to the fourth place in Girls’ Division IV, with the top runner placing 10th overall at her school, Bishop Amat Memorial High School in the San Gabrielle Valley area, in Los Angeles. It was her fourth year as an assistant cross country and track and field coach.
“We were a fairly new team, and building trust can take years, so I’m very pleased with our results,” said Moreno Hernandez.
As proud as she was, she couldn’t help but notice the lack of female coaches at CIF every year. “I’ve been coaching for almost 20 years in running, and I have been a runner all my life, but I haven’t seen many female coaches at all. Throughout my running from middle school to college, I’ve only had one female coach in high school for cross country.”
In a report State of Play released by the Aspen Institute Project Play, only 25 percent of youth sports coaches were female in 2020. According to Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport, women of color make…
