Count Her In, Coach Her Forward: Promising Pathways for Recruiting, Retaining, and Advancing Girls and Women in Sport.

U.S. Soccer Foundation

Bringing together leaders in research, programming, coaching, and more, this panel will highlight promising practices for recruiting and retaining girls and women in sport. Featuring diverse perspectives from grassroots to professional sports, panelists will blend research, practice, and personal experiences, to explore the strengths of girl-centered strategies and share their approaches for advancing participation, development, leadership, and opportunities for girls and women in sport.

From Insight to Action: Creating Your Count Her In Playbook

U.S Soccer Foundation: Anna Goorevich, Ph.D., Audrey Shaw-Edwards, & Marley Duerst

- CAMBRIA ROOM -

Facilitated by the U.S. Soccer Foundation and guided by the six key strategies of the United for Girls initiative, this interactive workshop draws on insights from the keynote panel discussion and the Foundation’s experience supporting girls and women in under-resourced communities. Participants will reflect on key takeaways, explore promising practices for recruiting and retaining girls and women in sport, and begin developing strategies tailored to the needs, strengths, and realities of their unique communities and contexts.

Your Body Image Matters, Too: Supporting Yourself and Your Athletes

Hannah Silva-Breen, PhD

- INDOOR CLUB ROOM -

Coaches are powerful role models, and what they say and do around food, exercise, and their own bodies can shape how athletes learn to think about theirs. In this interactive workshop, coaches will explore their own relationship with food and body image, learn how coach behaviors can influence athletes’ body confidence and sport experiences, and practice strategies for modeling a healthier relationship with food, movement, and their bodies. Coaches will leave with practical tools to support their own well-being while helping create a sport environment where athletes can feel confident, enjoy their sport, and want to keep playing.

Leading Team USA: Well-Being, Resiliency, and High Performance as Women in Elite Coaching

This high-impact panel convenes elite women coaches from the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) ecosystem to address one of the most critical challenges in sports leadership: sustaining personal health, mental well-being, and competitive excellence at the highest level. In the high-stakes realm of international competition, the pressure on coaches to deliver podium results can often come at the expense of their own well-being. Moderated by Emilie Lazenby (MS, Human Performance – Sport and Performance Psychology), Director of Care and Well-Being and Associate Director of Coaching at the USOPC, this conversation reframes self-care and mental resiliency not as luxuries, but as foundational pillars of elite leadership and sustainable team performance.

- CAMBRIA ROOM -

Safeguarding in Sport — Protecting Girls, Protecting Women Coaches

Gretchen Kerr, PhD & Nicole M. LaVoi, PhD

- INDOOR CLUB ROOM -

Safeguarding girls in sports cannot be fully realized without addressing the safety, protection, and psychological well-being of the women coaching them. Join world-renowned experts Dr. Gretchen Kerr and Dr. Nicole M. LaVoi for an unscripted, high-impact conversation on modern athlete protection and the often-silent challenges women coaches navigate. These challenges are rooted in traditional, male-dominated sports cultures that have historically privileged norms of toughness, control, and winning above all else—often rendering care, emotional labor, and relational work invisible or undervalued. Crucially, safeguarding responsibilities disproportionately fall on women coaches, adding heavy, unrecognized emotional labor to an already demanding role while putting them in the tough position of challenging the status quo. This session elevates the critical dialogue around safe sports spaces, advocating for a culture where both athletes and coaches can thrive safely, authentically, and without compromise.

Student-Athlete Pathway:

Body Talk & Diet Talk: Challenging Diet Culture in Sport

Hannah Silva-Breen, PhD, CPMC

- M CLUB -

Body talk and diet talk are everywhere in sport, but how do these messages impact the way athletes feel about their bodies and their sport experiences? In this interactive workshop, athletes will learn to recognize body talk, diet talk, and diet culture, explore how these messages can impact body confidence and participation in sport, and practice strategies for challenging harmful messages in themselves and others. Athletes will leave with practical tools to build a healthier relationship with their bodies and help create a sport culture where girls can feel confident and stay in the game.

Sports Bra as a Tool for Leadership & Empowerment

Sarah Dwyer Schick (The Sport Bra Project) & Sarah Lesko, MD, MPH (Bras for Girls)

- CAMBRIA ROOM -

Double the Sarahs, double the sports bras knowledge! Dr. Sarah Lesko, Founder and ED of Bras for Girls, and Sarah Dwyer Shick, Founder and ED of The Sports Bra Project, will present how coaches can use sports bra education to develop leadership behaviors, skills, and potential in their athletes. Both Sarahs have 10 years experience leading sports bra nonprofits, and will share the evolution of their work and lessons from working with girls and coaches of girls.

Kids These Days: Effectively Coaching Gen Z and Beyond

Betsy Butterick, aka “The Coaches’ Coach”,

- CAMBRIA ROOM -

Based on her recent book “Kids These Days” this session draws from years of research and experience working with athletes at all levels. Betsy delivers actionable tools to help coaches adjust their approach without compromising their standards. Participants will be better equipped to replace judgment with understanding while engaging in best practices to turn the challenge of “kids these days” into a distinct competitive advantage.

My Road to Success, Motherhood and Beyond

Wendy Borlabi, Psy.D

- INDOOR CLUB ROOM -

After more than 25 years at the top levels of sport, from the U.S. Olympic Training Center to nine seasons as the Chicago Bulls' Director of Mental Performance and Health, Dr. Wendy Borlabi has learned that resilience looks different once you're building it for two. In this candid talk, Dr. B shares her path through professional sports as a single mother, the lessons in mental toughness that carried her from courtside to home life, and what it really takes to redefine success on your own terms.

Student-Athlete Pathway:
Mental Skills for Athletes

Johanna Glaaser, CMPC

- M CLUB -

Pam Baker, Founder of the Women's Coaching Alliance and Jess Nash, Executive Director of the Rush Soccer Club and Founder of the Emerging Coach Program, will share information on mentoring high school girls to consider coaching as a pathway after playing, and the role of sport to develop leadership.

No One is Stepping Up to Lead: Why Leadership Development May Be Hindering Athlete Engagement

Jo Line, PhD

- INDOOR CLUB ROOM -

Have you ever had a season where you see potential for the ways that athletes could work together if they were cohesive, but no one is asserting themselves as a leader to guide the team?
Have you ever seen potential in an athlete to be a leader on your team, who just didn’t seem to see it in themselves?
Have you appointed team captains, but the team does not follow their lead?

What if the traditional playbook of athlete leadership development is undermining our intentions to encourage all of our team members to apply their strengths and take responsibility for the team’s culture? During this workshop, Dr. Jo Line will introduce an alternative, coaction. Coaction is a team structure and an asset-focused approach to collaborating, guided by psychology research and scholarship on collective action. They will explain why and how shifting from leadership to coaction can facilitate athletes’ motivation and growth as engaged team members, on and beyond your team. They will offer a step-by-step process for cultivating a coactive team that you can implement along with reflection questions for you to explore with your staff and team to effectively engage as coactors together.

Join us for a special edition of HERD, presented in partnership with the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport to conclude this year's Women's Coaches Symposium.

This edition’s theme is "PLAY"—an evening of true, 5-minute, unscripted stories told from the heart by women who compete, take risks, break rules, change rules, and make their own way. HERD provides a safe, empowering, and joy-forward space featuring amateur storytelling performances by women, for women—with no judging and no winners, just pure community, connection, and deep listening.

Doors & Cash Bar: 6:00 PM
Storytelling Show: 7:00 PM (begins promptly)
Tickets: $29 — (Buy Now)