American Receives Grant from the Women’s Sports Foundation

WASHINGTON – American University has acquired a Tara VanDerveer Fund for the Advancement of Women in Coaching Grant from the Women’s Sports Foundation (WSF). The grant will assist skilled growth alternatives for Caitlin Foley, assistant coach for the lads’s and girls’s swimming & diving groups.
 
American is considered one of 11 universities and colleges nationwide to obtain the grant, which helps collegiate girls coaches on the rise, helping with dwelling bills, skilled growth and mentorship. Foley is the first-ever recipient from American.
 
Fellows are anticipated to attend a minimum of two skilled growth alternatives similar to a training affiliation convention or girls’s teaching networking occasion. Fellows are additionally anticipated to attend the WSF Annual Salute, an awards gala acknowledged as one of many greatest nights in girls’s sports activities.
 
“We are proud to be a member of this year’s class of the Women’s Sports Foundation VanDerveer Fund recipients,” stated Deputy AD / Senior Woman Administrator Katie Benoit. “We recognize the critical importance of closing the gender gap in the coaching ranks, and seeing more women in these influential roles helps inspire our student athletes. This grant allows Caitlin the opportunity to inspire our student-athletes through her coaching and leadership, as well as grow in her own professional development.” 
 
The WSF VanDerveer Fund has made an infinite influence throughout its brief lifespan. Out of the primary 5 lessons, 39 WSF VanDerveer Fellows proceed to guide in teaching roles, six have stepped into head teaching positions and 4 have used their fellowship expertise to safe jobs in a sports-related area.
 
Foley is in her third season as an assistant coach with the Eagles after becoming a member of head coach Garland Bartlett‘s employees in 2023-24. While working full-time as an E-Learning Coordinator with the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Foley is on the pool deck as a lot as doable serving to information the AU swimmers to success, working particularly with the person medley and mid-distance stroke teams.
 
From 2020-22, Foley coached at The Catholic University of America the place she helped the lads’s workforce to 2 convention championships and certified one swimmer to the 2022 DIII NCAA Championship. Foley additionally helped lead the ladies’s workforce to 1 convention championship and one convention runner-up end.
 
During her time at CUA, Foley graduated together with her grasp’s in administration and management. She earned her bachelor’s diploma in psychology from Kenyon College in 2019 and was a backstroke, freestyle and particular person medley specialist over her 4 years, serving as a workforce captain throughout her senior 12 months. She certified for the NCAA Championships every winter, serving to Kenyon earn runner-up workforce finishes on three events and a third-place effort the opposite 12 months. Foley posted six All-American laurels throughout her profession, whereas swimming the opening leg of the victorious 400 medley relay on the 2018 NCAA Championships.
 
In the classroom, Foley was a four-time College Swimming and Diving Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) Academic All-American.
 
“For more than 50 years, the Women’s Sports Foundation has championed opportunities for women to lead — on the sidelines and beyond,” stated WSF CEO Danette Leighton. “Expanding the presence of women in coaching is essential not only to equality in sport but to inspiring the next generation. When young women see a WSF VanDerveer Fellow coaching, they believe they can lead too — and that is the legacy we are committed to building and sustaining with this Fund.”
 
About the Women’s Sports Foundation
The Women’s Sports Foundation (WSF) exists to allow women and girls to succeed in their potential in sport and life. We are an ally, an advocate and a catalyst for tomorrow’s leaders. Founded by Billie Jean King in 1974, we’re one of many first organizations to acknowledge the highly effective connection between sport entry, fairness and society. For over 50 years, WSF has been altering the sport by way of its analysis, advocacy and group programming, investing over $115 million to assist women and girls play, compete and lead – in sports activities and past – with out obstacles. A frontrunner and champion of the whole girls’s sports activities ecosystem, WSF amplifies the very important societal and cultural influence that’s made when women and girls play sports activities. When ladies play, they lead, and all of us win! To be taught extra concerning the Women’s Sports Foundation, please go to www.WomensSportsFoundation.org.