This story is syndicated from The Spectator, the newspaper of Stuyvesant High School in New York City, NY. The original version of the story ran here.
As the first female coach in National Hockey League history, Jessica Campbell has established herself this season as a trailblazer in sports. Campbell’s appointment as assistant head coach of the NHL’s Seattle Kraken marked an important step in breaking the pattern of male-dominated management in both men’s and women’s sports.
Now, as the season approaches its end, it’s time we apply the lessons from her journey and appointment to other sports, where more perspectives on the game should always be welcome.
Growing up in Rocanville, Canada, Campbell was surrounded by hockey. From an early age, she enjoyed the sport and frequently watched her three hockey-obsessed siblings on the ice. After playing in high school and honing her skills as a forward, she played collegiate hockey at Cornell University as a forward. There, she earned All-Ivy League honors and became one of the team’s leading scorers. Her performance helped propel Cornell to the playoffs all four years of her tenure, gaining Campbell recognition for her on-ice performance and consistency under pressure.
After college, Campbell played professionally in Sweden’s top women’s hockey league, Damettan, as a forward for the Malmö Redhawks. There, too, she consistently ranked among the league’s top players in “points” — in hockey, a joint statistic that includes both goals and assists. In her best season, she recorded 20 goals and 21 assists in just 36 games. As a result, she earned recognition as one of the most dependable and skilled forwards in the league.
Through that reputation, she secured her next milestone: coaching for a German men’s team, the Nürnberg Ice Tigers.
With the start of her coaching career came a list of firsts. In 2021, she became the first woman to coach at the men’s world championship. The following year, she joined the Coachella Valley Firebirds as a full-time assistant coach, becoming the first female coach in the American Hockey League, the development league for the NHL. In 2024, she moved from the Firebirds to the NHL’s Seattle Kraken.
Campbell’s storied rise through these ranks reflects her dedication to player development and her ability to thrive in high-pressure, competitive environments. Still, her story shouldn’t be unique.
Since most sports organizations are male-dominated, women struggle to be prominent forces on the sidelines, regardless of their performance. According to demographic data collected by the NCAA in 2021-2022, across all NCAA divisions and sports, only 41 percent of women’s college teams have a female coach. Only three percent of men’s college teams have a female coach.
The wage gap between male and female athletics is equally alarming. In college basketball, the 2024 Final Four’s women’s head coaches received on average just 50 percent of the base salary of their male counterparts. Stereotypes that characterize women as weak or lacking intensity may also prevent them from working their way up.
Studies have shown that there may be benefits to diversity in leadership, whether in gender, race, or background. According to a study commissioned by the state of California on the effects of diversity on the private industry, companies with greater leadership diversity were significantly more likely to overperform in profitability and the creation of value to their organizations, as opposed to more homogenous companies. Teams with greater diversity in perspectives can create a new depth and allow for creative solutions that boost performance.
Researchers at the independent Pipeline Project analyzed data for all NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision institutions and found that women occupied only 44 percent of entry-level positions and 33 percent of early managerial roles.
Campbell’s story is emblematic of a larger modern movement in which more women are breaking barriers in sports leadership and joining a growing, but still short, list of trailblazers. In the NFL, referee Sarah Thomas made history in 2021 as the first woman to officiate a Super Bowl. Similarly, Katie Sowers became the first female and openly LGBTQ+ coach to appear in a Super Bowl as part of the San Francisco 49ers’ staff in 2020. In the NBA, Becky Hammon has been a pioneer, serving as an assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs starting in 2014 before becoming the head coach of the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces in 2021.
Since 2019, women’s sports media coverage has tripled, challenging the long-held perception that women’s sports are inferior to men’s. The rise of star basketball players Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers has brought even more attention to women’s basketball. Clark’s 2024 March Madness run while playing at the University of Iowa repeatedly broke viewership records
In 2023, the Washington Spirit women’s soccer team announced a mentorship program focused on supporting female coaches. Establishing more programs for rising female leaders and athletes will greatly contribute to the rise of female coaches, encouraging overdue female empowerment and establishing bonds between mentees and the women they admire.
We still have a long way to go before female and male coaches are considered equals on all levels, but Jessica Campbell’s high-profile rise to assistant head coach of the Seattle Kraken serves as the latest example of the recent progress being made in the sports industry. As great as it is, we owe these greats even more.