We have a problem that needs to be addressed. One that has been going on for the last 13 summers, and likely much longer. One I’d like very much to rectify.
Every summer I compile the list of the 25 Most Influential People in Oregon sports. I’ve been publishing the list since 2004. The glaring problem again this year?
If my list were a movie, it would be titled, “Sausage Party 13.”
Only two of the Top 25 individuals this year are women. One of those, Olympic heptathlon bronze medalist Brianne Theisen-Eaton at No. 14, makes the list in a shared entry with her gold medalist husband, Ashton Eaton. The other, No. 22, is Oregon State’s All-Pac 12 point guard Sydney Wiese. Beyond that, the list is all male and nowhere on the list is a single female sports executive.
So where are the powerful and influential women? Where are the female sports executives? Where are the women in sports in our state who carry true clout?
Granted, the list is mine. So you might argue some of this is on me. But I have three daughters and I’d very much like to point to powerful female sports executives, coaches and athletes in this state and tell them, “See? You can be anything you want to be.” Except what I currently see when I look around the state for people of influence in sports is a line of men.
Willamette University’s athletic director, Valerie Cleary, is a woman. So is Shana Levine at Lewis and Clark. The University of Oregon has Lisa Peterson and Oregon State has Marianne Vydra filling the mandated “Senior Woman Administrator” roles. The University of Portland has Karen Peters in that spot, too. But when we’re talking about measuring the 25 most influential sports personalities in this state what we have is a deficiency worth thinking about.
The Trail Blazers highest ranking female employee is Sarah Petrone, who holds the title, “Senior Vice President of People and Culture.” The MLS Timbers have Kathy Jennings as Chief Financial Officer. As you comb through the sports entities in this state you understand that it’s not that women aren’t hired for sports jobs, just that they’re not hired to fill the highest-profile roles. In fact, in our state, women who rise in sports corporations are more likely found working in community relations and marketing roles.
Something about that feels wrong.
“It’s an industry issue and we can do better with it ourselves,” Timbers owner Merritt Paulson said on Thursday.
Paulson was part of a panel recently with a handful of MLS owners fielding questions when someone skewered the Seattle Sounders owners for not having a female presence on their executive team. The answer from Seattle came, “For every resume we receive from a woman, we get 10 from men.”
Statistics tell us that women are chasing MBAs at record rates. In fact, of the 243,529 GMAT exams taken in 2014, 43.3 percent of them were taken by women. That’s not only a record number, it marks the sixth straight year that women closed the gap on men who take the test. Women made up only 28 percent of GMAT test takers in 1995.
So a small piece of what may be in play here is that women who have attained the kind of educational background we typically find in a high-ranking corporate official just haven’t had the time to arrive on center stage yet. But I think that’s too generous an excuse. Given the statistics from even 20 years ago, I’d still expect to see a quarter or so of the high-ranking sports positions in our state filled by women, but we’re much closer to zero percent.
I think the reason runs much deeper. Compared to men, women who have MBAs more often begin their careers with entry-level jobs, are less likely to be promoted than their male counterparts and are more likely to be laid off. Further, in sports, women know they’re entering a male-dominated culture. What the Sounders owner offered was a poor excuse for a lousy hiring record, but it was probably honest.
Are potential female executives not regularly attempting sports-world corporate careers because they figure the corporate world is treacherous enough for a woman without the added complication of sports culture? If so, is it possible that women view the Presidency of the United States as more attainable seat than the Presidency of, say, Trail Blazers, Inc.?
Consider the case of Sarah Mensah. In 2008, I ranked Mensah No. 17 on the list of the 25 Most Influential Sports Figures in Oregon. She was then a Senior Vice President with the Blazers, had key relationships with sponsors, was in charge of the team’s broadcast rights, and was viewed as team president Larry Miller’s top lieutenant.
I didn’t much get along with her, but mostly because our jobs often left us defending opposite sides of the discussion. In fact, I found Mensah to be a far tougher adversary than a couple of the Blazers team presidents. She oversaw a $140 million revenue budget and helped launch the franchise’s current “Make it Better” campaign.
So when Miller resigned in 2012 after five seasons as president, all eyes turned to Mensah, who lobbied hard for the job. After all, she’d waited her turn, rising from an entry-level position in the Blazers sales department to the Chief Operating Officer title. Still, as the interviews began, we all sort of knew what would follow, didn’t we?
It took Mensah 19 years to get to the job interview. The Blazers hired current president Chris McGowan in Oct. 2012. Not McGowan’s fault. He’s done a nice job. But that’s how it went down. Mensah resigned a month later and went to work at Nike for Jordan brand.
Michele Roberts is the head of the NBA Player’s Association. Kim Ng is the senior vice president for Major League Baseball. But many of the other influential women in the sports world work for holding companies and media entities, not the sports operations themselves. There are 122 teams between the NBA, MLB, NHL and NFL. There are additionally 351 NCAA Division I athletic departments. That’s 473 total sports institutions, and fewer than 40 have a female at the head of the organization.
Like Paulson said, industry issue.
Cleary, the Willamette AD, I mentioned earlier is smart, tactful and a strong leader. She served a four-month stint at Portland State as the “interim” athletic director after Torre Chisholm resigned in late 2014. Without Cleary, the athletic department would have sunk in that period. It was about as close a woman in our state could get to sitting in the big chair at a Division I athletics department.
Portland State interviewed and hired Mark Rountree, a deputy athletic director from Miami (Ohio) University in January 2015. Not his fault, either. Rountree has done a very good job early on. But after the hiring, Cleary briefly went back to her role at PSU as “Senior Woman Administrator” before leaving for the athletic director job at Division III Willamette.
I had to know why Cleary left PSU for Willamette. So I asked her on Thursday night and she pointed out that there are so few opportunities in the area in athletics that, “when an opportunity presented itself to be an AD without having to move I had to pursue it.”
Nevermind that Cleary wouldn’t have had to move if PSU gave her the job, either. But it’s what Cleary said next about the lack of women in high-level sports jobs that struck me as more revealing. She believes there’s another issue at play.
“I believe the work-life balance is often difficult for women,” Cleary said. “Athletics isn’t a 9-to-5 (work day). Depending on their family structure, goals, support… many women don’t pursue higher-level jobs. Or there’s an unspoken bias on how women will balance work life.”
Paulson says it’s an issue that needs to be addressed. In fact, he went one better, with what sounded like a pledge. The Timbers owner said, “I hope in five years or less you will have a female from us on your list.”
This year’s list includes only two women. I looked for more. Oregonian Brenda Tracy, who has become an outspoken national advocate and growing presence in the discussion about college rape, got consideration. I strongly considered Cleary, too, but by virtue of Willamette’s Division III sports profile she ended up in the “Near Misses,” category. If this were a Top 50, she’s in. We’re not talking about gifting someone a spot on the influential list so we can all feel better about ourselves. We’re talking about the process of recognizing a qualified, talented, female executive that holds a job with real juice.
I’m not asking Oregon or the Blazers or Oregon State or the Timbers to gift an undeserving female candidate a high-ranking job. I’m just wondering why in the world nobody seems to have one. Someone hurry and help me out. I’m afraid I’m going to have to explain this to my daughters someday.
