On Women In Soccer & Sport As Social Change: Interview With The Team Behind COACH

If you’re a fan of both soccer and film – as I am – then it doesn’t get better than the Kicking + Screening Soccer Film Festival. Now in its 11th year, the annual festival brings together soccer fans across New York for four days of narrative and documentary films focused on the world’s most beloved game.

One of the films screening at this year’s festival is Coach, a 25-minute documentary centered on Tracy Hamm, then head coach of the San Francisco State women’s soccer team. The film follows Tracy from San Francisco to Wales in her quest to earn the UEFA A license – one of the most prestigious coaching licenses in world soccer. Tracy went to Europe to pursue her dream after her efforts to pursue a top license from U.S. Soccer were obstructed by requirements that candidates seeking waivers to bypass lower certification levels must have played three years of professional soccer. The problem for Tracy? When she graduated from college, there was no professional women’s soccer league in the United States.

I spoke to executive producer Courtney Carroll Levinsohn and co-director Jordan Axelrod about how Tracy’s journey inspired them to make this film, what U.S. Soccer should do about its current coaching license requirements, and how sport can help facilitate social change.

How did you hear about Tracy and decide she would be a great subject for a film?

Courtney: I met Tracy when I was the second assistant at Cal Berkeley for the women’s soccer program. That’s where I played. She was a junior on the team at the time and she stood out to me then as a transformative figure. You always wanted to play on her team and you hated playing against her.

Fast forward, I moved to New York, and I hadn’t seen her in a long time. I went back to California for my best friend’s wedding and I saw Tracy there. I’d heard she was coaching. She told me what she was doing and I immediately said, I have to know more about this.

She was one of two females in the B [licensing program], the only female in this set of A candidates. I had to see her hold a position of power and authority over those players in that space. When she shared that [Thierry] Henry was one of her classmates, I had to see her telling him what to do, and him showing her complete respect, because I knew that he would.

I wanted to normalize seeing her in this position. It works because it’s Tracy. She can translate what that feels like onto the screen because it’s how she operates all the time.

How did you then get involved with shooting footage of her doing this? How did that unfold?

Courtney: My son’s chess teacher is a filmmaker, and he changed the way I felt about storytelling. I asked him if this story was interesting, and he said, “It’s interesting if you think it’s interesting.” And I said, “I can’t go to Wales do this.” I had a five-year-old and a two-year-old at the time. So, I asked him to put me in touch with some people who could vibe with what I was trying to do. And that led to Jordan and Matt [Edward Ellison, the film’s co-director].

Jordan: Courtney explained to us what she wanted to do, and we knew from the first meeting that we wanted to be on board. It all happened very fast.

We really didn’t know what the UEFA program was. What was interesting to me was capturing the performance element of what Tracy was doing, and the mindset she would be in. We were trying to think of ways that we could capture that performance quality – even though we didn’t have the basis in soccer that Courtney has – in the most honest way possible. And that the chance to go to a foreign country and capture the reality of this experience was a dream for us.

The shooting started at the end of last May. We went to San Francisco for a few days – I hadn’t met Tracy yet at that point. That was the first time I’d met her in person. Then we went out to Wales and just jumped into it. And then we went back out to San Francisco at the end of September to shoot because her school was in session then so we could get her on the field with her players, in her traditional coaching atmosphere.

Courtney: But to be that intimate, that fast, I think that says a lot about them [the crew].

She must have been very open and willing to tell her story.

Courtney: That’s why it works. She was not tripping that there was a camera crew following her around the Wales conference rooms.

Jordan: If anything, I think we became closest over in Wales. There’s a moment in the movie, in the group work scene…from that moment on is the most candid we see her in the film. When you see it, it’s a pretty intense scene where Mido, who’s her partner in this group work, is in a whole other world. He’s on his phone while she’s working, he’s mansplaining while she’s trying to get the job done.

Courtney: He interrupts her, leaves the room. It would have been very easy to set it up as him versus her – but that would’ve been too easy.

Jordan: When that was happening, it was the midpoint of the program. We felt it then, we saw what Tracy was going through. Once Mido left the room and she was continuing to work, my sound guy, Sam, said, “Is there anything you want to tell us?” And that’s when she just opened up. There was no set-up for an interview, it was just the moment. And that was the most open experience we had.

So how much footage did you end up with that you then had to edit down to 25 minutes?

Jordan: We shot two cameras for most of it…I’d say there’s maybe 20, 25 hours of footage. In San Francisco, we got her coaching her university team and also her youth team, so we’d just go to practice and leave both cameras rolling. We had three or four practices and two games we went to, so there was a lot of footage to use.

So how do you go from shooting her in a conference room to shooting her during a game? How do you adjust to those different environments?

Jordan: We always had Tracy Cam – one camera on Tracy to make sure we didn’t miss anything that was going on. And then we typically had another camera going wide on the game. The game footage doesn’t really take up that much time. It was always about going back to her and being able to feel, as her, in the moment.

The final shots in the film, we’re pushing behind Tracy and her assistant, just watching the game. So the actual plays aren’t as important as being in the mindset of the coach.

Courtney: That’s a real skill. And Coach isn’t Coach without Matt and Jordan having this care. I’m so grateful that they brought that.

So, the UEFA A license. For people who don’t necessarily know, why is that important? What does it mean to hold that license?

Courtney: When we’re talking in the soccer culture, what does it mean to have the same license as Jose Mourinho? What does it mean to have the same license as Sir Alex Ferguson? It’s the most rigorous one you can earn in the world and it should be celebrated that Tracy is putting herself in the position to become the best coach that she can. And guess who gets to benefit? American soccer. So it’s a win-win.

And we’re highlighting that she went to UEFA because it is a story about choosing not to pursue a U.S. license after being treated with what she sees as less than respectful treatment.

I know she couldn’t earn the equivalent license from U.S. Soccer because she hadn’t played enough years professionally because there wasn’t a professional league at the time. Since she made that decision, is that still the case with U.S. Soccer? Has it changed at all, or do you think it will anytime soon?

Courtney: I want U.S. Soccer to reevaluate the policies that are keeping people out of the pool of eligibility. If they want to create strong leaders and strong coaches, get rid of the waiver [that allows candidates to bypass lower certification levels if they have played three years of professional soccer] and make everyone start at the absolute bottom. Because being a great player doesn’t equate into being a great coach.

It’s one of those invisible barriers that keep women out of coaching. And no one’s going to say you’re not allowed to coach at a club. So, why aren’t we going into coaching? What are the invisible things that happen along the way that makes us turn around and say f*ck this?

What I am most upset about is the breadth of coaching that was including in Tracy’s application, in addition to two years of professional play, and because that third box wasn’t checked you just erase this whole life of coaching? Whereas a guy who comes out of MLS can go in with zero coaching experience. Who’s reading that application?

So she was like, peace out, I’m going to Europe. I’m going to be successful. And I’m going to come back and show you how successful I can be, and that I didn’t need your license to begin with. The more coaches take ownership of going about it that way, U.S. Soccer will be forced to reevaluate who is left out. How many coaches a year are we losing?

Are U.S. Soccer aware of this film and Tracy and that it’s something people are talking about?

Courtney: I hope so. Ultimately, we want U.S. Soccer to be as great in the world as it can be – on the men’s side and the women’s side. And we believe that by opening up access to these coaching positions everybody benefits. Boys need to be coached by women just as much as girls need to be coached by men. Everybody wins when we have more Latin American coaches and more African-American coaches, both men and women.

Jordan, when you were over there in Wales, how did Tracy’s classmates react to having her around, and having you there shooting the film?

Jordan: They were made aware of it when they first got in. On the first day of the course, someone did call her a movie star or something in jest. But a lot of these guys are world famous former players who have cameras in their faces all the time. Mido, who’s a major character in the film, he is a TV sports analyst in Egypt. He’s well versed in this. These are guys who are used to this life.

There were a few moments where we weren’t allowed to shoot some lectures, but that was more UEFA not wanting to make their lectures public. But beyond that, everyone was pretty open. We were flies on the wall, we were pretty quiet. My sound guy would be holding the boom and listening, we’d make eye contact and he’d nod saying, this is something we should be filming and we’d go do it.

Courtney: So much of the willingness of the guys on film is genuinely not thinking that their behavior has a consequence. Because it’s so normal. They’re not intimidated by the camera because they don’t think they’re doing anything wrong. Those are the things we’re trying to hone in on. Those behaviors that interfere with the focus and concentration of others, unintentionally trying take her out of a position of power.

I imagine a lot of that is very unconscious. It’s so inherent in the culture that they don’t even think about it.

Jordan: We were very conscious not to demonize anybody. There was one scene in particular, we never structured it beyond how it actually played out, but we had people coming back to us saying that it felt like we were going too hard on one character in particular. But it wasn’t because we were intentionally making him look bad, it was just the events playing out as they happened.

Courtney: What that scene creates is the power of understanding what Tracy has developed a tolerance to deal with. And then you think about the things you’ve tolerated, the last time you felt valued at your job, the experience of trying to define yourself as an expert in your field.

I’m sure a lot of women, even if they know nothing about soccer, can watch this and go, oh, that’s a time that I as a woman was trying to put myself into a predominantly male space – because I deserved to be there – and had to struggle to show people that I deserved to be there.

Courtney: The idea that we still have to work harder, all the time. And when we don’t have success, it’s on the gender as a whole. That’s why Tracy is the only woman there. Because they’ve created a space where women don’t want to be.

That’s something I was wondering about. Because only a very small percentage of people who have this license are women. I imagine it’s due to a variety of factors but one is likely that they just don’t feel welcome, and they know that they’re going to have to work extra hard to prove that they’re on the same level as guys who are just showing up.

Courtney: There’s also, among the unconscious stuff and things that are invisible…is my job safe if I get pregnant? What is a coach’s maternity expectation? We need to start talking about how that factors into a woman’s decision.

Women want to go into coaching, and they don’t because of things that they experience on the daily. It’s isolating and lonely, and we just need the tribe to come together and support each other.

What would you say was the most surprising thing you’ve learned over the course of making the film?

Jordan: It is inspiring, in the arts, to see someone so relentless pursuing their goal. As an artist, it’s the same mission. So Tracy became a role model for me, to be to see that the struggles of trying to be a creator are not just limited to your world.

Another thing we got from the experience…there’s an interview with JT, Tracy’s former college coach. The first shoot, we were leaving the stadium and the crew was four guys. These are all people I’ve worked with before. But by day 3 we were learning what the film was really about. It’s not just about Tracy and this license, it’s about the state of women in this sport and in positions of power. We looked at each other and went, we have a problem. We’re four guys making this movie. The film industry is very much having the same problem.

One of the most inspiring interviews we ever had was with JT. We asked her, what do you think about four guys telling this story? And JT said something like, now you’re on our team, you’re helping our cause which is great. And that is great but it forces you to look at your own industry.

So we went to Wales, and we came back to San Francisco. And our cinematographer, Raul, wasn’t able to come back because he got a full-time camera job. So the goal was to fill any remaining position that we needed to, any department head, with talented women who were just as qualified. When we were asking anyone for suggestions, we didn’t ask for female cinematographers, colorists, and composers, it was just “Give us your best.” And it just so happened that the people who were suggested to us were women.

The way I look at it is, the reason we didn’t have any women on the crew before, was that my film community hadn’t expanded in that way yet. So now that I’ve worked with these women, they’re part of my community. So in the same way that I call upon Raul, who I’m working with on a film now, they’re part of my group. So they’re not going to be out of my community anymore.

Right, as someone who used to work in production, I can understand that you have an insular community you go to time and time again, and it doesn’t necessarily come to mind that it’s all a bunch of dudes. You need something like this to make it come to light. But it’s great that it did.

Courtney: And I love the way Jordan is so honest about it in terms of walking into an unintentional thing because that’s the tone Coach is striving for. Because if it’s not men and women together, it’s not going to work.

I saw that you’re involved in an organization called Growth Through Sport. I wanted to hear about what the mission of that group is and how this film fits into that mission.

Courtney: Growth Through Sport’s mission is really to use soccer for social change. When I came to New York I was the assistant director of coaching at Downtown United Soccer Club and Gotham Girls Football Club. I left the club soccer culture to have kids because it wasn’t an economically viable position to have and to start a family. But when I connected with Brooklyn City Football Club to think about coming back into the club culture, I went to one of the big training facilities where I knew all of the clubs would be. I couldn’t have been more discouraged, disappointed, saddened at what I saw, which was joyless soccer, no creativity, no ownership of the ball, very robotic, everyone playing the exact same way. There was no club that was different than any other. Then I looked around saw that there weren’t any women coaching. Then I tried to find some and hire some for Brooklyn City – and there were none.

That’s when I went out to California for my best friend’s wedding and ran into Tracy. And I almost broke up with soccer. Which is the most important relationship in my life, because it’s the longest. And she saved it. Telling her story, feeding off the mission, I wanted to support it in any way I could.

Growth Through Sport is like my sport psychology entity. I want to elevate the culture of sport so that we have a better discourse so that kids can have a better sport experience in this country. With Coach, one way to help them achieve that is to get more coaches out there that are bringing a different type of philosophy that can help kids enjoy it.

So after this festival, what’s coming up next for the film? Do you have other screenings coming up?

Courtney: There is a film festival in Lyon centered around the Equal Playing Field documentary during the World Cup. Also in Lyon is a program called Street Football World. Delegations from all over the world will come to this university for five days and then present something they’ve worked on. They share their subjective action plan. And they’ve chosen Coach as their topic. They’re going to screen Coach at their conference – we’re actively translating it into French.

Jordan: We were talking about the timing of the project…we met for the first time last April, then we were shooting just about now [May], and we knew it was going to be done around the time of the World Cup. So this is just the ultimate dream, for this particular film to be welcomed over there during the World Cup.

Coach is screening at the Kicking + Screening Soccer Film Festival in New York on June 6, 2019. You can learn more and purchase tickets here.