Documentaries
The Tucker Center has created multiple award-winning documentaries that support our research objectives.
Game On: Women Can Coach
While there has been an explosion of women participating in athletics since Title IX, only about 40% of them are coached by women. "Game On: Women Can Coach" explores the supporting research, dispels false narratives and celebrates female coaching pioneers. This film was made in collaboration between tptMN and the Tucker Center.
The film features championship women coaches at every level, youth, high school, NCAA, national and professional including USWNT Soccer Coach Jill Ellis and WNBA MN Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve. Their stories are the stories of all women coaches who face barriers in the occupational landscape of the coaching profession to do what they are passionate about and who desire to make a difference in and through sport.
Help spread the #SHECANCOACH movement.
Trailer for Game On: Women Can Coach
Concussions and Female Athletes: The Untold Story
Concussions and their devastating consequences affect athletes in all sports and at all levels. However, while sport-related concussion has ignited a national conversation and public debate about this serious brain injury, the majority of attention has focused on male athletes.
Critical issues-and unanswered questions-surrounding the impact of concussion on female athletes have been largely ignored. Are females as or even more susceptible to concussion than males? Are female athletes less likely to report a concussion when compared to their male counterparts? Through the personal stories and experiences of coaches, athletes and their families, as well as in-depth interviews with nationally recognized scholars and medical experts, this documentary examines the causes underlying concussion and offers practical solutions to help prevent and treat sports-related concussion injuries in female athletes.
Media Coverage and Female Athletes
40% of all sports participants are female, yet women’s sports receive only 4% of all sport media coverage. Female athletes are also more likely than male athletes to be portrayed in sexually provocative poses. The Tucker Center and tptMN highlighted why this matters and the disparities in this groundbreaking documentary. Research-based information is used to examine the amount and type of coverage given to female athletes.
Expert scholars, award winning coaches, and athletes discuss this issue and help dispel the common myths that no one is interested in women’s sport and that "sex sells" women’s sport. Effective strategies for increasing media coverage and creating images that reflect the reality of women's sports are also discussed.
This documentary won a 2014 Upper Midwest Emmy Award in the sports category.
Throw Like a Girl: A Revolution in Women's Sports
This story is about what it's been like for girls and women to play sports as told through the eyes of different generations of Minnesota families. The story shares the barriers that were overcome to achieve the passage of Title IX and female sport participation at all levels. This documentary showcases the triumph and what it means to live during an era where "throwing like a girl" isn't seen as a criticism, but as a complement.
This documentary was in collaboration with KARE 11 TV (NBC), the Medtronic Foundation, the Janet B. Watson Fund of the Minnesota Women's Foundation, and the Minnesota Lynx. It received the "Gracie Award" from the Association of Women in Radio and Television Broadcasting.