A solid outfielder, she hits like one of the boys because her coach never forgets she s a girl. In pre-season practice, coach Craig Griffen caught himself discriminating. Something about the yelling. Girls seem to like to talk about things quietly. They don t respond when I bark at them, says Griffen.
Some experts say on the playing field boys and girls learn differently.
With girls, coaches must convey the competitive spirit more quietly. As girls get older, coaches need to reinforce that girls can be tough strong and feminine. Otherwise they start to see themselves as the women you see in magazines, they want to be like that and feel like it s not cool to be an athlete, says Lisa Ardery, a girls soccer coach. In the real game, girls like Jordan don t want to be treated differently. Still, boys and girls may be equal, but they are not the same.