Women Coaching: The Future

[Mr Epee]

Greetings.

Last weekend, I was enjoying the US Women's Gymnastics Olympic Qualification programme on NBC. (I enjoyed it. I'm also not sorry, nor embarrassed.)

One of the recurring sub-plots, according to the announcing team, was a requirement for the Olympic Games that at least one coach "on the floor" be a woman.

I don't know exactly where this requirement originated. IOC? USOC? US Gymnastics? However, I do KNOW that this sort of thing scores major points with the international athletic community.

Obviously, I started wondering about the status of Women Fencing Coaches in the US.

If a similar requirement was made for US Fencing who could we send, and would they be able to justify their selection over their male peers?

Thoughts?

[Allen Evans]

A more important question might me: "Why does this requirement exist in women's gymnastics?"

AE

[Durando]

The question came up over the dinner table as to how many women maitre d'armes exist in the U.S. Everyone could list one or two single-weapon coaches, but we could not list any active three-weapon coaches.

[Fencergrl]

You've come a long way baby! Women's Sports = BORING



It only took 3 years... the next mission:
Get Mr. E to read a book written by a woman, and admit it.

[Jason]

Originally Posted by Fencergrl

Now if only I could get you to read books written by women.

Dear, god! They're not teaching women to write now, are they??

[Allen Evans]

Originally Posted by Jason

Dear, god! They're not teaching women to write now, are they??

It's even worse than you think....

[Fencergrl]

There's a few guys here that need a good cuff on the side of the head. *fencergrl smacks Jason*

[MdA]

Originally Posted by Durando

The question came up over the dinner table as to how many women maitre d'armes exist in the U.S. Everyone could list one or two single-weapon coaches, but we could not list any active three-weapon coaches.

The only three women who are certified American Fencing Masters, Md'As

Muriel Bower Tait - Retired (the First certified by NFCAA)
Lynn Antonelli - Retired - graduate of American Fencing Academy at Cornell
Vincent "Vinnie" Bradford - certified 2001 - not actively coaching competitive fencers.

[MdA]

Originally Posted by Mr Epee

Greetings.

Last weekend, I was enjoying the US Women's Gymnastics Olympic Qualification programme on NBC.
One of the recurring sub-plots, according to the announcing team, was a requirement for the Olympic Games that at least one coach "on the floor" be a woman.

Obviously, I started wondering about the status of Women Fencing Coaches in the US.

If a similar requirement was made for US Fencing who could we send, and would they be able to justify their selection over their male peers?

Thoughts?

I think it would have to be Nat Goodhartz. She is currently the co-National Womens Foil Coach. She is not a three-weapon coach and is not certified by the USFCA or AAI. But she is a great foil coach....and has much international experience with the USA team.

[Mr Epee]

Originally Posted by Fencergrl

You've come a long way baby! Women's Sports = BORING



It only took 3 years... the next mission:
Get Mr. E to read a book written by a woman, and admit it.

Yes... actually it only took me a year to realize that what I was trying to say back then was true and could be demonstrated much more elegantly with the following...

Herfindahl index



where si is the market share of firm i in the market, and n is the number of firms. Thus, in a market with two firms that each have 50 percent market share, the Herfindahl index equals 0.502 + 0.502 = 1 / 2.

The Herfindahl Index (H) ranges from 1 / N to one, where N is the number of firms in the market. Equivalently, the index can range up to 10,000, if percents are used as whole numbers, as in 75 instead of 0.75. The maximum in this case is 1002 = 10,000.


There is also a normalised Herfindahl index. Whereas the Herfindahl index ranges from 1/N to one, the normalized Herfindahl index ranges from 0 to 1. It is computed as:



where again, N is the number of firms in the market, and H is the usual Herfindahl Index, as above.


A small index indicates a competitive industry with no dominant players. If all firms have an equal share the reciprocal of the index shows the number of firms in the industry. When firms have unequal shares, the reciprocal of the index indicates the "equivalent" number of firms in the industry. Using case 2, we find that the market structure is equivalent to having 1.55521 firms of the same size.

• A H index below 0.1 (or 1,000) indicates an unconcentrated index.
• A H index between 0.1 to 0.18 (or 1,000 to 1,800) indicates moderate concentration.
• A H index above 0.18 (above 1,800) indicates high concentration

Of course this is based on the assumption that "competitive" bouts are more interesting than "non-competitive" bouts.

[Fencergrl]

sniff sniff does any one else smell the droppings from bulls?

[Fencergrl]

To get back on topic....

Naturally, I'm all for having more women coaches in all sports. However, I think female coaches are there for practical reasons with gymnastics. Put simply, a good chunk of the judging in gymnastics is on appearance like dance & figure skating. Women typically have a better sense of aesthetics.

[Zilverzmurfen]

Originally Posted by Jason

Dear, god! They're not teaching women to write now, are they??

Mm, perhaps they are not teaching men to read...

[RITFencing]

Originally Posted by MdA

The only three women who are certified American Fencing Masters, Md'As

Muriel Bower Tait - Retired (the First certified by NFCAA)
Lynn Antonelli - Retired - graduate of American Fencing Academy at Cornell
Vincent "Vinnie" Bradford - certified 2001 - not actively coaching competitive fencers.

Ok, but how about high level female coacheswho aren't certified? Maureen Griffin springs immediately to mind, being both a former elite fencer and an extremely good coach, as well as one of the best strip coaches of any gender anywhere, but I'm not sure she'd want to go through all the rigamorale.

[RITFencing]

Originally Posted by Jason

Dear, god! They're not teaching women to write now, are they??

Yeah... they can vote now, too apparently.

[Fencergrl]

Let's not forget all the male coaches *cough Mr. E *who are willing to wear the barbie boobies under their t-shirts so they can get their expenses paid to the Olympics as a "female" coach. Not to mention their hopes in getting into the woman's change room.

[Hauptman]

Originally Posted by MdA

The only three women who are certified American Fencing Masters, Md'As

Muriel Bower Tait - Retired (the First certified by NFCAA)
Lynn Antonelli - Retired - graduate of American Fencing Academy at Cornell
Vincent "Vinnie" Bradford - certified 2001 - not actively coaching competitive fencers.

I'm curious as to where this information comes from. Is there a national registry of fencing masters/coaches that is all inclusive?

[MdA]

Originally Posted by Hauptman

I'm curious as to where this information comes from. Is there a national registry of fencing masters/coaches that is all inclusive?

This info comes from the history records of the USFCA. There is one more..

Jo Redmon - Fencing Master Emeritus - Longbeach CA. - she retired and was granted Emeritus status by the USFCA - she never took the certification exam - By-Laws have since been updated require Emeritus status at the certified level achieved (Moniteur, Prevot, Master)

The USFCA only publishes a list of current Master on its website but Walter Green created a database as part of a research project which is very accurate. But this database includes Masters of several nations

http://www.sallegreen.com/masters.html

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Originally Posted by Fencergrl

Let's not forget all the male coaches *cough Mr. E *who are willing to wear the barbie boobies under their t-shirts so they can get their expenses paid to the Olympics as a "female" coach. Not to mention their hopes in getting into the woman's change room.

What?

Where is the sunny Fgrl that I have come to get used to, and what did you do to hijack her account? This sounds more like something like Heretic or Dr.Lutz would have written!

While I agree that Mr Epee has posted his share of acerbic posts (I am fully aware that some would say the same about me!) I do not think that any of his posts in this thread warrant any barbs. If you really want to respond in kind to his harsher posts, please do so in those threads - otherwise all threads get derailed!

Anyway, I thought that the post about the Herfindahl index was spot-on.


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson