In 2002, Ariko Iso, ATC, made great strides for women in professional sports, as she became the first female Athletic Trainer to be hired by the National Football League--the ultimate “boys club.” Prior to her almost ten year career alongside the Pittsburgh Steelers, Iso worked as an associate athletic trainer for Portland State University, where she served as the Head Football Trainer. Not only was Iso the first female to work in the NFL, but she was also only the third female athletic trainer hired in a professional sport--two of which worked for the NBA--at the beginning of her professional career.
Following Iso’s Resignation in 2011 the Steelers then hired another female athletic trainer, beginning the slow introduction of female athletic trainers on other NFL teams, such as the San Francisco 49ers.
While women are slowly making their way into professional sports, men greatly outnumber them in the workplace. As Sonia Gysland, recent Steelers hire, recalls, she only recognized herself as a minority when she was the only woman out of 150 Athletic Trainers in attendance at an NFL combine in 2013.
However, this large discrepancy in gender does not hold true in classrooms. In most university athletic training programs, women and men are equally represented while some programs have even seen a disproportionately between the two, as women continue to outnumber the men in their educational institutions. According to the National Athletic Trainers Association (NATA), as of 2011, 50.9 percent of its members were women.
So if women are beginning to dominate a once considered, men’s profession, why is this not reflected in professional sports?
While some of the NFL’s teams have opted for a female hire, none of these women were placed in a position of authority and are still surrounded by all men faculty. In fact, during her last year with the Steelers, when she was responsible for interviewing candidates to take her place, Iso remembers 100-200 of the applicants being women. The number of women wanting to enter the professional sports industry is continuously rising and yet the NFL remains a men's-only industry, highlighting, the League’s bias over gender rather than ability.
