A significant moment in college sports history unfolded on a chilly Saturday afternoon in Salem, Virginia.
Not because the University of Chicago football team – a football powerhouse perennially reduced to Final Four appearances – finally broke their ostensible NCAA Division III semi-final curse and claimed the program’s first-ever national title. Not even because they did so riding an astounding undefeated record.
But because Julianne Sitch guided the squad to all of it, becoming the first woman to coach a men’s soccer team to a national championship.
Sitch was treated to the ultimate American coaching tradition to honour the occasion, given an iridescent blue Gatorade shower after the final whistle as the Maroons defeated Williams College 2-0 on Saturday to leave her sopping triumphantly wet on the pitch.
Such a shower is the ubiquitous image that has come to define success across US college sport, but the recognition is the least Sitch deserves. Previously an assistant coach for the university women’s football team from 2015 to 2017, the 39-year-old coach took over a men’s team that went 16-6-1 last season and led them to a 21-0-1 record the next, ranking at one point No. 1 in a Division III coaches’ poll before seizing the national title.
But perhaps most integrally, Sitch has helped to shatter the perception of a first-team coach in the men’s game.
In the USA, a small contingent of women are coaching at both professional and collegiate levels in men’s sport, but the overall trend continues to be underwhelming, particularly at collegiate level where male coaches far outnumber their female counterparts, even in women’s sports.
Sitch produced another landmark moment in college sports earlier in the year, when she faced off against New York University in October led by fellow female coach Kim Wyant. The event represented what it is believed to be the first NCAA men’s soccer game in which both head coaches were women.
Sitch did not deny the history she has made but she was insistent after her side’s win that she would not be the last. Coaching both boys and girls football for most of her career, Sitch has long fought to remove the stigma of gender within coaching authority and respect.
After Saturday’s performance, Sitch certainly seems to be moving in the right direction.
"It gives young girls something to aspire," Sitch told CBS News. "If they can see it, they can dream it, they can believe it, and then aspire to be that."
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