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Sue Johnson (Yale '86)Head Basketball Coach -- New Hampshire |
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Bio
 What was your experience in youth athletics? Were there opportunities available to you?
In 1977 I was a seventh grader and that’s when my public school system first inaugurated an after-school inter-school sports program. So I was able to play on a field hockey team, volleyball team, basketball team, and softball team. Four sports I played starting in seventh grade competitively inter-league and so forth. Where my sister who was four years older than me did not have the opportunity to until she was a 10th grader in high school. That was the impact of Title IX, which obviously passed in 1972 but didn’t really hit my public school system in Long Island until 1977. So I had definitely a better opportunity to play competitive sport at a younger age than my older sister. So we were kind of symbolic of that shifting of the tide right there as Title IX was starting to pick up some teeth. Prior to that the only thing available was the YMCA Leagues and so forth for girls, there wasn’t much for girls at all. Then obviously in high school it was pretty high powered in my area. We were a pretty strong high school program. But I think the biggest thing that reflects that time period versus now is that girls can get involved in competitive sport at five years olds now in all sorts of sports where as in my day it wasn’t until seventh grade that you were really able to do anything organized and competitive.
What opportunities were there for males?
All the guys were playing organized sports, multiple after school sports program that were competitive between schools starting in seventh grade where the girls didn’t have it until 1977 the boys had it for how ever long prior to that, probably many many years.
How did an Ivy League experience affect your athletics pursuits?
I had a scholarship offer from Fordham, William and Mary, and UMass. Yale was the only Ivy League school I considered. It was really a dark horse for me. The assistant coach there had grown up on Long Island and I had met her at camps when I was pretty young, probably a seventh grader. She was the only reason I ended up at Yale. She was a public school kid too and when she started recruiting me I was like you know I’m a public school kid I’m not going to fit in there, I’m not a rich kid I’m not a brainiac. She convinced me to come up and give it a look, that there was place for me there. I didn’t think it would be a fit. I went up for an official visit and they were savvy enough to have the host be someone who had a very similar background to me and I had an excellent time and I came home and told my parents I wanted to do that. They got out the calculator and tried to figure out how they could afford that instead of having me go somewhere for free.
[The academic demands] were definitely a challenge. I was pretty intimidated my freshman fall with striking that balance. So that was pretty intimidating but I was fortunate enough to have a good work ethic and probably be so scared out of my pants that I wasn’t going to be able to get the job done that I just worked like a dog. I had success my freshman fall semester and did pretty well and felt like, oh I can do this, and just continued to take that approach of feeling like an underdog academically and therefore just working extremely hard to make up for my perceived lack of high SAT scores to be there.
 Has the national climate concerning women's basketball changed since you were in college?
It’s changed dramatically, the opportunities are unbelievable now. It’s a whole new world for female athletes, for better or worse. I think for the most part it’s for the better. Girls can be in very competitive, organized traveling teams at age 11 in girl’s basketball now. Certainly that was not available to me whatsoever; the AAU scene had not even begun when I was in high school. So I think that the opportunities for young girls are very similar to young boys now but there is a real twist to this whole puzzle that is going on now has nothing to do with gender. Massachusetts is a good example where they have cut all after-school activities for sports at the junior high level. Young girls and boys now if they want to play organized sport in junior high have to do it through the town leagues and so forth. There is a cost to that and some towns are more developed than others so it’s not equal opportunity anymore in the public school system for girls or boys and I think that’s extremely sad. It’s all about tax dollars and the first things they cut are extracurriculars, art, music, sports, and I think it’s a real spin-off in the wrong direction that we are all going to pay for later. The other thing is that while it’s great I have a three-year old that by the time he is five he is probably going to be playing tee-ball, soccer, and all these organized sports. Whether he is a girl or boy he can do that, and I think that’s great, but the negative of that too is that you really see a decline in free play for kids. Kids don’t go out and play anymore together on their own, and make teams and make rules and make games; it’s always an adult organizing it. I think coaching at the college level there has been an obvious decline in leadership skills in the groups that I work with now. I really point to the decline of the neighborhood scene, I grew up playing with kids in the neighborhood. There were no adults around and we had to really figure thing out on own, make compromises, solve problems. Kids don’t have to do that anymore, coaches are there figuring out everything for them and I think it’s a really problem in terms of the life skills they have when they get to a higher level.
What obstacles still stand to young women who want to participate in athletics?
Yeah I think that [funding] is a major problem at the grade school level, the junior high level, that’s where that becomes an issue. Prior to that it is pretty much run though the communities anyway. But it’s at that junior high level where kids should be able to get out of community program and into competitive sport for free in a public school system if that’s where there attending. That funding has really gone down the tubes and I think that’s really hurting everybody not just girls but boys too. But as far as girls go everybody knows Title IX has not really created an equal landscape there are still vast differences especially at the college level where I am. From coach’s salaries to resources for the athletes, while its come a long way believe me, the opportunities are much better than when I was playing, it’s still not where it needs to be. That’s just a reflection of market value. The average fan is more interested in watching males play sports than women and therefore there is different revenue available entertainment wise. The market does not have to respond to Title IX legalities, but schools do, and that’s a real monkey wrench for schools and I’m not sure that’s ever going to be resolved.
 Will the gap between men and women’s athletics narrow or will it stay maintained where it is now?
It’s come a real long way and now I think it’s just crawling along. Because of what I mentioned before, if you look at dollars in men’s collegiate basketball and football there is no other comparison in any sport male or female. There’s a lot of power there. I’m not so sure how much further we’re going to go now. If you look at women’s basketball, which is the marquee college female sport in the country, it’s about 50-50 now male-female coaches. Why is that? Why are the men in our game so much now as opposed to 20 years ago? The salaries have improved dramatically and the men have flocked right in. You don’t see any women coaching on the men’s side though so what’s going on there? That’s obviously a major inequality right there. I think we’ve kind of hit a little bit of a glass ceiling. I think we’ve come a long way but we are at a real crawl right now and I’m not sure how that’s going to change just because of the colossal amounts of money in men’s football and basketball that is impacting everything. Not just women’s sports but look at men’s gymnastics, which is also extinct at this point, and men’s wrestling. Some of these shifts are not just impacting women, they are impacting men as well.
What kind of influence has athletics had on women who choose to participate?
They have all the statistics out there about the number of corporate CEO females who some high percentage of them typically plays collegiate sport or high school sport. They have stats about how you’re less likely to be in an abusive relationship if you’re a female who played sports. You’re more likely to live a healthier life and so forth. The statistics and research are clearly there to support the fact that it has a profound impact on your life. First just in terms of physical health but the flipside is emotional well-being in terms of self-esteem. Women still have less access to power in our society and being an athlete gives you access to a type of power that at a certain point in time only men had in terms of how you feel about yourself when you’re able to excel in a physical way. I think it does unbelievable things for little girls and young women with their self-esteem and then with good self-confidence you’re able to do more in other areas of your life. I think we see it over and over, female athletes and male athletes coming out of college have better opportunities to get a lot of different jobs because employers who are hiring them look at them and say hey look at what they were able to balance in college, look at what they were able to handle. They have turned out a higher level of proficiency than someone who was just studying. Certainly for boys and girls, I have a son, and certainly would want whether my child had athletic prowess or not, I would want them to be involved in sport even if they were just a terrible athlete to be honest with you because I think what can be gained from participation in sport is unmatched and not even to mention the whole teamwork aspect and learning to be part of a team and giving and unselfish.
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