Wendy Kohler, winningest female coach in Minnesota girls basketball

<p>It was way back on November 28, 2017, that Wendy Kohler, Alexandria girls basketball coach, became the winningest female coach in Minnesota girls basketball history with win #556. Now, almost 4 months later, she won #579 with a 69-42 thrashing of DeLaSalle in a Class AAA state tournament consolation game.</p> <p>I talked to coach Kohler after a 1st round loss to the eventual champions from Robbinsdale Cooper. “Cooper is #1 for a reason,” Kohler said. “Our game plan was to shut the lane down, and really get on the boards, and handle their pressure. And we did for the most part, though we made some mistakes. But Cooper just made plays when they needed to. They were the better team. It was a tough draw right away.”</p> <p>Still, Kohler took justifiable pleasure in the fact that, “Nobody thought we’d be here this year. Our theme this year was ‘Start Unknown. Finish Unforgettable.’”</p> <p>“When you started out 30+ years ago,” I asked—and she quickly clarified, “33 years.” Okay, when you started out 33 years ago, did you think you’d be around long enough to win 578 games?</p> <p>“No,” she said, “you take one year at a time and one team at a time. It’s all about the faces that I got a chance to coach and work with, all the incredible girls and athletes. Alexandria basketball has a great culture and our kids understand the expectations to play for this program. I guess, no, I never thought I’d be at this point, and here we are.”</p> <p>I told her that 76 percent of Minnesota girls basketball coaches today are men, that only 2 of the top 20 winners are women, and that 82 percent of the coaches in the coaches’ association hall of fame are men. In the 1970s, 55 percent of the coaches of state tournament teams were women. Since then it’s only 25 percent. Why is that?</p> <p>“It’s definitely tougher (for a woman to get into coaching today),” Kohler said. “There’s a saying, ‘Here’s to strong woman. May we know them. May we be them. May we raise them.’ But it’s tough when they start having families, and there’s an expectation that you’re not doing what you should be doing if you have a career like that.”</p> <p>St. Thomas coach Ruth Sinn remembered that before Title IX, women had all of the coaching positions in girls sports, because girls coaches were paid less than boys coaches. Men didn&#39;t want those jobs. But, then, Title IX required pay equity between boys and girls sports. With pay being the same, men began to apply for jobs coaching girls. </p> <p>Today 35 percent of girls teams in Class AAA and AAAA are women, but just 20 percent of teams in Class A and AA are coached by women. A higher percentage of teams in the metro area and among the larger schools are women. Those in rural areas and smaller schools are less likely to have a woman as coach.</p> <p>"There’s lot of great guys that have given up years of their lives for our female athletes, too," Kohler said, "don’t get me wrong. But I tell the girls, we don’t coach girls, we coach athletes, and they’re strong athletes and they’re strong women. And you can do whatever you want to do, even if you have a family, there’s a way to balance that.”</p> <p>“Girls need to understand that and the young coaches, I try to encourage them, like Katie Martin at Sartell and all the other female coaches in our conference, I try to encourage them because our girls need them. They need strong female role models. But our girls need strong women leading them and showing them how to compete and how to be strong for the rest of their lives.”</p> <p>How long are you going to do this?, I asked. “One year at a time,” Kohler said.</p>