Can Korea`s 1st woman pro sports coach bounce back?

April 15 last year was a historic day for Korean female athletes. Cho Hye-jung, 58, became the country’s first woman coach of a professional sports team.

Nicknamed “little flying bird” in the 1970s when she played volleyball, Cho signed a three-year contract to coach the professional women’s volleyball team Seoul GS Caltex. “I want volleyball that both players and fans can enjoy,” she said.

Her coaching career has been anything but enjoyable, however. Game after game, she seems fearful since GS Caltex is dead last in the league with a 2-7 record as of Thursday.

Having lost six matches in a row, the team is a heavy underdog in its match versus league leader Suwon Hyundai Engineering and Construction Hillstate Saturday.

GS Caltex’s foreign player is one factor behind the team’s poor performance. While foreign players on other teams rank first through fourth in scoring, GS Caltex’s Jéssica Aparecida Santos Silva is just 18th with a scoring rate of below 30 percent.

Many experts cite as another cause no sense of competition among key players.

Other critics, however, blame Cho for the team’s poor performance. In all sports, the coach is usually blamed for a lackluster showing, and this is something Cho should go through.

Yet the blame might be on Cho as a woman as opposed to her as a coach. A source from the Women’s Korean Basketball League said, “Whenever a coach was replaced in women’s basketball, a female coach was on the list but never appointed. The biggest reason was that female coaches were not proven.”

Cho describes her coaching style as “motherly leadership,” saying she is strict in a match but gives motherly support at all other times. Critics, however, say this style slackens team discipline.

Jeong Hyun-sook, head of the Womans Sports Association Korea who led the national team at the 2006 Doha Asian Games, said, “People say the world of professionals is mean but it takes time to learn at first whatever you do. Only after Cho sets a good precedent can other women dream (of becoming pro coaches). I’m sure that she can get through this well after trial and error.”

Cho is a trailblazer for other female athletes. Though struggling with growing pains, she could live up to her nickname of “little flying bird” by making a splash in professional volleyball.