Female Football Coach Causing Talk

The countdown out of football season is slowly dwindling down, and the countdown to the next season has barely begun. The Super Bowl has long gone, the NFL Draft has been retired and the boys of summer are taking over all the sporting headlines.
But one football story in the making has piqued my interest and has become one of my stories to watch this 2010 season.

A high school program has selected a new leader to guide the troops in the nation's capitol. Nothing really exciting about that. Coaches are ushered in and out every year.

But this hire has a lot of folks talking.

Earlier this year, Washington DC school system announced the hiring of Natalie Randolph, a 29 year old biology teacher, as head coach of the Calvin Coolidge Varsity Football team. A woman. I must admit when I first saw this I thought maybe this was a middle school or semi pro women's league appointment; however I was wrong, it was indeed a varsity boys team.

I then started to think back to the 1980's movie, "Wildcats", starring Goldie Hawn, who took over her school's football program and the numerous obstacles she faced being the head coach. Not only from her fellow colleagues but from her players and fans as well. In the end she proved she was well educated on the game and disciplined enough to get the boys in line.

I also thought about the movie, "Remember the Titans", about the hiring of an African American coach named Herman Boone to a newly segregated school during the height of the civil rights movement in the 1960's. Now Boone was a male but faced a lot of the same stereotypes and doubts regarding his ability to be successful.


I grew up playing football as a child and eventually into a young man and into my early adulthood. I have used the principles of team and the basic elements of the game to help make me a better person all around. The coaches who have influenced me have made profound impact on my development as an athlete, but more importantly as a man. Wins and losses are important. Despite what anyone says, it is more than just a game. It's an attitude and as long as Coach Randolph can "JUST WIN BABY WIN" she will be on the road to success, however; if she can help mold and shape better men, she will truly be a success and she has one fan here, in me, rooting her on.

Marvin James