Volleyball player Jamie Bodden ’07, soccer player Meagan Mattson ’07, and lacrosse player Connie Wuenschel ’07 learned what it’s like to become a professional coach – a field they hope to enter after college, at the Snell Shillingford Coaching Symposium. The annual conference for Centennial Conference institutions Jan. 19-21 was hosted for the first time by McDaniel College.

“You get to see a groundwork of what coaches do,” says Mattson, who hopes to be a soccer coach. “You get a different perspective of what the career is like.”

Named for Eleanor Snell, a professor of physical education and field hockey coach at Ursinus College, the symposium gives women considering the field of coaching an opportunity to hear about the issues surrounding the career from leading coaches in lectures and panel discussions.

“The young women who attend learn about the history of Title IX, coaching ideas and philosophies,” says Associate Director of Athletics Carol Fritz. “It’s a solid program.”

Title IX, enacted in 1972, banned sex discrimination in schools, in both athletics and academics. Up to three students from each Centennial institution are selected to attend each year.

“I heard it was a really good experience to get your foot in the door” says Bodden.

Conceived in 1999 by Jenepher Shillingford, Bryn Mawr College emerita athletics director, the symposium was intended to stop a decline of women coaches, as seen in the ongoing study “Women in Intercollegiate Sport.”

The survey shows that in 1972, the year Title IX was enacted, more than 90 percent of women’s teams were coached by females. Since then, the number of women’s teams grew dramatically, but the overall percentage of female coaches sunk to 44.1 percent in 2004.

This year’s speakers included Shillingford, Title IX advocate Christine Grant, women’s athletics pioneer Charlotte West, and coaches from McDaniel College, as well as Bryn Mawr College, Dickinson College, Franklin and Marshall College, Gettysburg College, Haverford College, Johns Hopkins University, Muhlenberg College, Swarthmore College, Ursinus College and Washington College.