When men coach women

Nobody gave Doug Bruno a quickie course in gender differences when he abruptly was handed the job of directing DePaul's women's basketball team three decades ago. "I just walked onto the floor," he remembers, "and coached them like I would men."

There still is no handbook, no how-to manual explaining how Mars should coach Venus.

"I don't think there's a prescription," says Ben Smith, who directed the US women's ice hockey team to medals at the last three Olympics. "Other than common sense."

Lessons in what not to do tend to become painfully public. Boston College women's ice hockey coach Tom Mutch stepped down last month amid allegations of improper behavior with one of his players, and legendary North Carolina soccer coach Anson Dorrance is facing the revival of a sexual harassment lawsuit from a former team member.

Inappropriate behavior isn't limited to male coaches. Louisiana State basketball coach Pokey Chatman resigned before this year's NCAA Tournament amid allegations of a sexual relationship with at least one of her players. The dos and don'ts don't differ by gender.

"I look at it as coaching and teaching and not much more than that," says Smith.

But while males have been teaching females in America for more than a century, they've been coaching them at the collegiate level only for several decades.

"I firmly believe that men and women can coach men and women," says Mark Hudak, the Dartmouth women's ice hockey coach. "Unfortunately, our society and culture has made it seem more appropriate for men to coach men, but I think it's because it's always been that way."

In the 35 years since Title IX became law, though, the number of men coach ing women's teams has soared. In 2004, the most recent year for which it has figures, the NCAA reported that 58 percent of Division 1 women's teams were coached by men.

"The funding for women's sports has become fairly equitable," observes Smith, "so it's attracting a lot of male coaches."

In ice hockey, more than two-thirds of the Division 1 coaches are men, including Olympic gold medalist Mark Johnson, whose Wisconsin squad has won the last two national titles. In the ECAC, nine of the 12 coaches are male.

"We're still an emerging sport," says Hockey East commissioner Joe Bertagna , who is also executive director of the American Hockey Coaches Association and was Harvard's first women's coach. "We're way early in the spectrum as compared to basketball."

More than two-thirds of Division 1 women's basketball teams are coached by females. But, despite obvious height differences, the game essentially is the same and can be taught the same way.

"A rebound is a rebound," says Bruno, who played at DePaul. "And the fundamentals of getting that rebound are the same."

And athletes are athletes, regardless of gender.

"They all react very well to being challenged, to positive encouragement, to honesty," says Hudak, who directed Dartmouth to the Frozen Four two years ago. "I don't see a difference there."

Men who've coached both males and females are hesitant to make broad gender distinctions because experience has taught them that stereotypes often don't hold up. The biggest difference between male and female soccer players, former US women's coach Tony DiCicco once remarked, is that men don't nurse in the dressing room between halves.

Harvard men's heavyweight crew coach Harry Parker, who directed the US eight to a bronze medal at the inaugural Olympic women's regatta in 1976, was asked about the difference. The women, he mused, were "slightly more punctual."

Smith, who coached the Northeastern men's varsity before taking over the US women's squad, wondered whether his language might be too salty for females, but soon realized that they knew all the same expletives.

Yet there are undeniable, if sometimes nuanced, gender differences.

"Women take things a little more personally," says US soccer captain Kristine Lilly. "I think that is true about everything."

DiCicco noticed that when he was critiquing a men's team, each player assumed that the coach was addressing everybody else but him. When DiCicco talked to the women's squad, he said, each player thought he meant her.

"I found when you spoke to one player, everyone would listen," says Smith, who quickly became aware of the "empathy factor" on a women's team, especially around roster-cutting time.

"Women really bond with our teammates," says Lilly. "We care about them as people, too."

The differences between male and female athletes may be subtle, male coaches say, but they are significant.

"One thing I've always sensed is that men want information from a coach," says Dave Marsh, who won his seventh men's and fifth women's NCAA swimming titles at Auburn this season. "The women want more of an investment of your whole person."

That investment can make for a delicate balancing act.

"As a coach, you're in a position of power, whether you realize it or not," says Hudak. "You're looked at with a great deal of respect immediately, and it can create an attraction. It's dependent upon the coach to make sure that there is that line and that you don't go over it."

Though coaches do occasionally become romantically involved with their athletes, and even marry them, it's usually after the athlete has moved on. Brandi Chastain, the heroine of the 1999 World Cup, wed her college coach, Jerry Smith, seven years after she graduated from Santa Clara. US rowing coach Tom Terhaar began coaching Jen Dore after he'd married her.

"I wasn't responsible for her selection," says Terhaar, who coached his wife in the quadruple sculls at the 2000 Olympics. "It was very clear to everyone that if she made the boat and there was a problem, that I would back off. If there's any discomfort, you've got to get out of the way."

Though the NCAA's Principles of Conduct deal with coach-athlete relationships (coaches should "exhibit fairness, openness, and honesty"), the organization leaves the oversight to individual schools, which are concerned primarily with sexual harassment issues. But male coaches say they don't need a rulebook to know what's inappropriate.

"This is teaching," says Bruno, who heads the Women's Basketball Coaches Association and will coach the US under-19 team at this summer's World Championships. "Whether it's kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school, college, or graduate school, the teacher-pupil relationship can never be violated. That's just a hard and fast fact.

"Do you develop close personal relationships with student-athletes? Of course you do. But we are supposed to be professionals, and professionals must be above reproach. I think it's easy to draw the line."

In gymnastics, where men routinely coach young girls and give hands-on help in "spotting" with difficult moves, the federation has a clear set of guidelines.

"We encourage people to do things the right way and tell them what the right way is," says USA Gymnastics president Steve Penny, whose organization has a zero-tolerance policy regarding improper behavior. "Our approach is to determine what is appropriate and say that anything outside of these guidelines might be seen as inappropriate."

The best approach to dealing with female athletes, male coaches say, is common sense and prudence.

"Just keeping it at a professional level," says Terhaar, who once coached the Columbia lightweight men's team. "You don't go out for coffee with them, for example."

Many male coaches will avoid one-on-one meetings with their female players behind closed doors. Smith said he'd conduct them during team skate-arounds or in the rink corridors.

"You want to try to avoid any situation which could possibly be misinterpreted," says Marsh.

Most men who coach women's teams have one or more female assistants, who frequently will handle personal issues with players.

"There are some things that are a lot better woman-to-woman," says Marsh, who made a point of having female co-coaches. "They can say, 'Yeah, I went through that, too. Get in there and start training.' Or, 'We've all broken up with our boyfriend. Let's go.' "

What has surprised some male coaches, though, are the topics that their female players are willing, if not happy, to discuss with them.

"When I started 10 years ago, I thought, I'll never be able to talk about this with a woman," says Hudak. "Five years later, that's the exact conversation I'm having."

If a female athlete feels that she can confide in a coach, the gender is irrelevant.

"It's all about trust," says Lilly. "It doesn't matter the sex."

Male coaches and female athletes indisputably have one thing in common: They're human.

"People are people," says Terhaar, who coached the US women's eight to the global gold medal last summer. "I don't think you have to not say certain things to just women. If you have to use foul language with anyone, you're probably not a very successful coach."

What works -- or doesn't work -- tends to be the same for both sexes.

"You don't have to worry about hurting our feelings," says Lilly. "If you worry about it, you're not really getting through to us. Everyone wants to hear things straight up."

There may not be a handbook for when Mars coaches Venus, but Mia Hamm's original advice to DiCicco may not be a bad place to start: "Coach us like men, but treat us like women."

John Powers can be reached at jpowers@globe.com.