Female Coaches Making Strides: A Look At An Inspiring Story Of A Female Hockey Coach Alex Hedlund is a minority of one. Hedlund is in her first season as head coach of the Grand Forks KnightRiders hockey team. She is the only female who currently is head coach of a girls varsity high school hockey team in North Dakota. “I wish there were more,’’ the 24-year-old Hedlund said. “It’s nothing against guy coaches. I’ve always had guy coaches. But it is a girls sport. I think I can probably relate better to female athletes. Girls can be very hard on themselves. I’d like to think I can help them become better athletes and people.’’ But, Hedlund says, being the only female in the North Dakota girls hockey head coaches fraternity “to be honest, is nothing that is on my mind. My focus is on my team, not on me or on other coaches. My team is my job.’’ Hedlund isn’t on a women’s rights crusade. Coaching is just something she wants to do. Sports have been a part of her life for as long as she can remember. Coaching runs in her family. Her mother, Paula Hedlund, is head girls golf coach at East Grand Forks Senior High and also had long stints as the Green Wave’s head coach in volleyball, girls track and girls basketball. Her father, East Grand Forks police chief Mike Hedlund, has been an assistant track coach at Senior High for many years. “When I was born, my mom was coaching volleyball, basketball and track,’’ said Hedlund, who competed in hockey, soccer, volleyball and track at Senior High, from which she graduated in 2009. “I’m told that I was in the gym, going to volleyball practices and matches, when I was about 4 weeks old. “I grew up around coaches. I admire my parents. Athletics was always my thing. It was my goal to coach, and I fell in love with hockey at a young age.’’ Hedlund coached East Grand Forks feeder-program hockey teams for four years and was an assistant soccer coach at Red River the past four seasons before landing the KnightRider job. Her team is off to a 6-1-1 start. The tie was against defending state champion West Fargo, in which Grand Forks won the shootout. The loss was to her alma mater, with a Senior High lineup that included her younger sister, Lauren, and stepsister Courtney Nelson. “It was not only my sisters, but a lot of girls I’d coached,’’ Hedlund said. “I was nervous before the game because of that. I didn’t think about (the connections) during the game. But I got a little grief from them afterwards.’’ Hedlund isn’t a coaching pioneer. For instance, Darin Schumacher, Hedlund’s predecessor as the KnightRiders’ head coach, said Bismarck, Dickinson and Williston all had female head coaches during his five seasons leading the KnightRiders. And Schumacher succeeded a female head coach, as Melanie Lima Lima was in charge of the KnightRiders for two seasons (2007-09). Matt Fetsch, executive secretary of the North Dakota High School Activities Association, said that, to his knowledge, the percentage of females who are head coaches of girls hockey programs has always been small. “Girls hockey hasn’t been around that long, so the number of women who have hockey-playing experience probably is still much lower than, for instance, the number of women who played basketball,’’ Fetsch said. “It is still a relatively new sport in the state. As the years go by, I would expect that, as more females play the game, it will probably correlate to more females who will coach the game.’’ The low percentage of females coaching girls sports (Hedlund is the lone female amongst 11 teams in North Dakota) isn’t relegated to hockey. For instance, Fetsch said, this school year, 17 of the 21 Class A head girls basketball coaches in the state are males. For the upcoming spring season, 16 of the 19 head coaches in girls tennis currently are listed as males, as are 11 of the 16 coaches in girls soccer. Those are numbers that don’t concern Hedlund. She has a bigger priority -- the number of wins her team can attain. “I have the same job all the guy coaches have,’’ Hedlund said. “We’re all doing the same thing, trying to make our players better and win games. I truly don’t think it matters if you’re male or female. It’s about knowing the game and having the ability to relate to the kids. “I can’t predict the future. But I can see (more female hockey coaches) happening. I know there are some girls on my team who love the game, who would be good coaches if they wanted to go that route.’’ grandforksherald/sports/prep-sports/3643528-girls-hockey-grand-forks-knightriders-hedlund-lone-female-head-coach-nd
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 11:53:46 +0000
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