RIO GRANDE VALLEY – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) Department of Intercollegiate Athletics announced on Friday that track & field and cross country head coach Shareese Hicks will serve as a mentor in the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Female Coaching Mentorship Program (FCMP).
 
Last season, as an assistant coach at Memphis, Hicks was a mentee in the same program.
 
"I am so grateful to have the opportunity to be a part of this program as a mentor," Hicks said. "My mother has always been essential in showing me what strong leadership looks like and now I get to be that for someone else.
 
"I've been influenced by so many women in leadership roles. Judy Rose, the Director of Athletics Emerita at my alma mater, Charlotte, my mentor through the FCMP, [Austin Peay head coach] Valerie Brown, and our very own Deputy Director of Athletics here at UTRGV, Molly Castner. I'm looking forward to taking the things I have seen from them and encouraging others."
 
The FCMP is designed to increase the representation, depth of knowledge, and advancement of female coaches in cross country and track & field at every level while creating industry accessibility.
 
According to the "2020-2021 Women in College Coaching Report Card," a report prepared by Nicole M. LaVoi, Ph.D., Director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport at the University of Minnesota and founding member of the WeCOACH Board of Directors, Courtney Boucher, the 2021 Pam Borton Fellow, and Hannah Silva-Breen, a Graduate Research Assistant, just 18.4% of NCAA Division I women's track & field and 17.7% of NCAA Division I women's cross country head coaches were women last season.
 
It is well documented that females in academic and athletic professional settings face many challenges both personally and professionally. Mentoring involves career guidance and support, but also personal, psychological, and social aspects. The need for formal mentor training and effective mentoring is increasingly recognized as a critical component in the success of new coaches, and even mid-career coaches. With women and minorities still underrepresented in collegiate athletics, conscientious mentoring and role modeling is especially crucial. By joining professional female coaching groups that aren't directly connected to a workplace, women can glean more about the best practices of others.
 
The program aims to support climate change as well as the depth of female coaching experience through pairing individuals up with 1:1 year-round mentorship with a coach and adhering to set guidelines for successful consultations with esteemed leaders of the sport from a variety of backgrounds.
 
Mentors are expected to provide new perspective, orient to the coaching system the mentee is in, and provide unique insight to the mentee's situation-specific questions, be willing to share some of their best practices, and be open to telling their lessons-learned-the-hard-way stories. 
 
New coaching mentor/mentee partnerships are assigned every year to encourage the flow of knowledge, networking, and partnerships, as well as drive diversity of learning across the years.

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