NATIONAL GIRLS & WOMEN IN SPORTS DAY: HUSKIES REFLECT ON LEADERSHIP

By Washington Huskies

February 7^th, 2018

The Husky women's soccer team is one of the few in the nation to be led by an all-female coaching staff. With women a minority in the coaching industry, Lesle Gallimore, Amy Griffin, Nikki Washington, and Veronica Perez have been able to make the most of their opportunities to be leaders on and off the field in the sport they love. On National Women and Girls in Sports Day, the trio of Gallimore, Griffin, and Washington reflected on their journeys in coaching and what it means for women to have those opportunities to be leaders in sports.

NATIONAL GIRLS & WOMEN IN SPORTS DAY: HUSKIES REFLECT ON LEADERSHIP

"I've always just wanted to work with good coaches," said Gallimore. "It became important to [Amy and me] when we worked with other women that we pushed them the same way we had been to take the qualifier of being a woman out of being a coach and just be seen as a good coach."

Gallimore and Griffin have been with the Huskies for over 20 years now, with Gallimore the longest tenured coach in any Pac-12 sport at 25 years. The pair have been important voices in women's soccer across the nation, working with U.S. Soccer, U.S. Youth Soccer, and countless other programs. "We've had some great male assistants and staff members and we've had some great female assistants and staff members," said Gallimore, citing people like Tami Bennett-Nguyen, Erin Otagaki, Kelly Smith, Miranda Armstrong, jim Thomas, Chuck Sekyra, and Jimmy Gabriel, among many others, for their work with the Huskies. With the hiring of Perez and Nikki Washington before the 2017 season, it just so happened that Washington's staff would be entirely women.

"It just kind of came to be that we had an all-female staff this year: I think it was just a perfect storm where our staff is a highly qualified female staff and that gives our players a unique perspective," said Gallimore. "It's something not a lot of female players have in their careers, I know I can count on one or two fingers the number of female coaches I've had in my career."

"It hit me four or five years ago that all I've been trying to do is be a good coach and that I've missed opportunities to support other women in the profession," said Griffin. "I've had opportunities so I haven't really had my eyes as wide open as I should have. Especially working at this university with Lesle and people like Jennifer Cohen, you don't realize until you hear stories that not everyone has this opportunities elsewhere."

Gallimore emphasized how important it was to give back, saying that "as one of the more experienced coaches of my gender I feel it's kind of my duty to help other women become coaches if that's what they want to do because the attrition rate is really high.

"One of the things we say a lot is that if you can see it you can be it. As women it's our job to set the standard really, really high as to what excellence is, whether that's educating players, caring for them, or how we give back outside the sport. It's important to have that goal in our head."

Nikki Washington had seen the importance of having role models like Gallimore and Griffin first hand. "everyone wants to see themselves represented at different levels [in their field]," said Washington. "It's important that someone that looks like you or you identify with to be in a leadership role because it makes it seem that much more possible to do that yourself."