(August 4, 2002)                                                                                              Hot News Main Page 

Nike Offering A Football Clinic - For Women

BIRMINGHAM AL (August 4, 2002) In its 48-year history, a national football clinic started by coaching greats Bud Wilkinson of Oklahoma and Michigan State's Duffy Daugherty never has taught women. Until now.

Birmingham will be the first on the 18-city Nike Coach of the Year Clinic tour to offer a session for women interested in learning more about the game their sons play and their husbands watch.

The Feb. 8, 2003, women's football clinic will coincide with Birmingham's annual Nike Coach of the Year Clinic, a two-day event that draws high school and little league coaches from around the state for instruction by college football coaches and their staffs.

The women's clinic, also sponsored by Nike, will be taught by at least two major Division I head coaches and assistants from other divisions, says director Becky Logan, who coordinates media and marketing for the regular Birmingham clinic.

The women's event is slated for the Mountain Brook Inn on U.S. Highway 280. The cost is $50 for registration prior to Jan. 15 and $65 thereafter. The regular clinic will be held at the Quality Inn in Homewood Feb. 7-8.

Survey Found Support

"A lot of mothers sit in the stands year after year and night after night and watch their sons play, but they still don't understand the rules and regulations," says Logan, owner of Maverick Advertising and Marketing.

Logan says she conducted an informal national survey and found overwhelming support for a women's clinic.

"I attend games every year and end up faking it to act like I know what's going on," was the response of one woman polled. "I don't dare interrupt my husband's concentration to ask him about plays."

Women attending the Birmingham event will hear from the same pool of 59 major Division I coaches used for the Nike Coach of the Year Clinic, which is owned by former Tennessee head coach Johnny Majors.

Coaches For Both The Women's And Regular Birmingham Clinics Will Be Named This Fall.

Meanwhile, the annual Birmingham clinic over the years has drawn the likes of former Florida Gators head coach Steve Spurrier and Georgia Bulldogs head man Mark Richt. This past winter, Larry Coker, who coached the Miami Hurricanes to a national championship, was scheduled to attend but canceled after a Miami player was killed in an automobile accident. Coker has been re-invited for the Feb. 7-8 session.

Unlike the women's clinic set for this weekend in Tuscaloosa by University of Alabama coach Dennis Franchione, the Nike event will cut across school lines. That and this report from the Birmingham Business Journal's Gilbert Nicholson

"Our clinic is not tied to one university," says national clinic director Chuck Rohe, who retired this year as executive director of the Florida Citrus Bowl. "A lot of ladies in Birmingham would like to know more about football ­ whether they're for Alabama, Auburn or UAB."

The idea for a Nike women's clinic belongs to Logan, the media and marketing director for Birmingham's regular Nike coaches clinic. Rohe says the Citrus Bowl conducted a successful women's clinic for five years under his leadership.

"Becky (Logan) was the one who really wanted to pursue it in Birmingham," Rohe says. She lined up R.L. Ziegler meats and Barber Dairies as sponsors.

"We're proud having the Barber's name attached to Nike. It's not something you get to do every day, especially as a dairy," says Johnny Collins, Barber's vice president of sales and marketing. "It hits our demographic very well when you're talking about moms. It's a great event for a milk company."

Logan says her research found a consensus of smart, well-educated women across the nation who want to know more about the game.

"Men can remember stats on a football game when they can't even remember to pick up diapers at the grocery store," was one observation, Logan says. "How can they do this, and how can I learn to keep up with stats? Is this just an inborn `male' thing?"

Says another woman: "I consider myself a very intelligent person. After all, I'm a judge. However I don't know a thing about football." Her boyfriend "cared enough for me to learn about art. I care enough about him to learn more about football."

[Souce: Gilbert Nicholson, Birmingham Business Journal]