How to Coach Girls - Valarie Budayr

Keeping Our Girls in the Game

Did you know that 70% of all kids quit organized sports by the age of 13, with girls quitting at 6x the rate of boys?

Alison Foley, Boston College’s Women’s Head Soccer Coach, and Mia Wenjen, parenting blogger at PragmaticMom.com, help coaches — both parent volunteer and professional — crack the code of how to keep girls in sports.

HOW TO COACH GIRLS focuses on the key elements to keep girls coming back next season covering topics like Coaching Your Own Daughter to Pitfalls of Choosing Captains to Developing Team Chemistry. This is a hands-on manual to help coaches keep girls in sports!

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Coaching Girls Successfully is a Learned Skill

From soccer to lacrosse, field hockey to softball and more, HOW TO COACH GIRLS is filled with key elements to keep young female athletes coming back season after season.

This invaluable guide is the brainchild of Alison Foley, Head Coach of Women’s Soccer at Boston College, and Mia Wenjen, parenting and education blogger at PragmaticMom. As a mother of two daughters who played a lot of sports, Mia provides personal accounts to illustrate issues discussed throughout the book. Alison, also a mother of a young female athlete, has hands-on advice from coaching young women professionally for more than two decades to help coaches avoid potential pitfalls and build team chemistry, the key for retaining athletes.

Who is HOW TO COACH GIRLS for?

Volunteer parents and experienced coaches alike will find invaluable advice on creating a successful team that motivates girls to stay in sports beyond the middle school years. Twenty-two chapters cover major issues, including how to pick captains, the importance of growth mindset, issues around body image and puberty, as well as the challenges of coaching your own daughter.

In addition, fifteen professional coaches from a range of sports, including former Olympian athletes, give their advice on what girls need from a coach to allow them to flourish in sports, and most importantly, have fun.

About The Authors

Mia Wenjen

Mia Wenjen co-founded Aquent in 1986 with two friends as a dorm room entrepreneur at Harvard University. She has been a member of the Board of Directors ever since and has held a number of roles at the company, including founding the West Coast operations and growing the Los Angeles, California office into the company’s largest market. In 1992, Aquent (then called MacTemps) placed #12 on the Inc. 500 list for Fastest Growing Private Company.

Mia is also a blogger at PragmaticMom.com, a mash-up covering education, parenting, and multicultural children’s books. Her blog receives over one million views a year. She is a co-founder of Multicultural Children’s Book Day, January 27th, a non-profit which celebrates diversity in children’s literature. In just three days, the event generated over 3.6 billion social media share impressions!

A mother of two daughters and a son who play sports year round, she experienced first hand how girls react differently than boys as athletes. It is from this, and her husband’s experience coaching their kids as a volunteer parent soccer and golf coach, that this book was conceived.

Connect with Mia via her Pragmaticmom site, Twitter, Facebook,

Alison Foley

Alison Foley is the Boston College Women’s Soccer Head Coach. Her team’s success has led them to the NCAA Final Four and Final Eight during 13 consecutive playoff appearances. In her 20+ year career, she has coached many national team level players.

Alison started playing soccer at a young age, receiving ODP regional and national invitations. She played for Keene State College where she was an All-American, and earned a degree in psychology, focusing on sports psychology of female athletes. She still enjoys playing the game and can be found on the pitch both as a coach and a player.

Alison and Mia also created Alison’s brainchild, Soccer on the Mat (socceronthemat.com), a unique and innovative soccer and yoga program specifically created for middle school girls.

Visit the HowToCoachGirls.com website for updates, free downloads, and additional resources and info.

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