On a small, nondescript soccer field in New York City, a recent match-up between two university teams marked an important moment in American sports history.
The game itself between Chicago and New York wasn't significant due to any great feat accomplished by the players, but instead the two coaches – both women – calling the shots on the sideline.
The tight contest, which ended 0-0, is believed to be the first time two female head coaches have come head-to-head in men's college competition.
One of them, Julianne Sitch, is a former Melbourne Victory player.
She said while her focus was on preparing her side, the historic nature of the match wasn't lost on her.
"Just to be a part of that, I feel very, very honoured, and humbled," she told the ABC.
2022 marks Sitch's first season coaching the University of Chicago men's side; a role she took on in April, since when she has led the team to 14 straight wins.
"It's not about if I'm coaching men or I'm coaching women, I'm going to have the same culture, I'm going to create the same environment for them to play," Sitch said.
The American defender's tenure playing in Australia may have been brief, but at the end of her sole season in 2009, Sitch was voted Melbourne Victory's most valuable player.
"I absolutely loved my time in Australia. I still have some of my really good friends that I talk to and keep in touch with," she added.
Sitch made the transition from professional athlete to women's coach when she retired six years after her season with Victory, and has received nothing but support since making the move to coaching collegiate men in Chicago.
"The team has been absolutely nothing but phenomenal. The previous coaches and the staff have done a really good job of creating just a very good culture," she said.
How long until this isn't 'a landmark' encounter?
Sitch's opponent for the game — described by American news outlets as "a landmark" — was New York University (NYU) men's coach Kim Wyant, who has held the position for seven years.
"I tend to try to stay very optimistic. But I wonder, of course, how long it's going to take to see more and more of this happening," Wyant told the ABC.
The women may be rivals now, but Wyant has also been a confidante to Julianne Sitch, encouraging her to take on the role with the Chicago men's side this season.
"She [Sitch] wanted to try to alleviate maybe some of the fears and concerns that she would have as a female going for that job," she said.
"I just have never really experienced any friction or any pushback."
The data is 'pretty depressing'
Despite coaching men since 2015, Kim Wyant admits recent figures which show just 5 per cent of all American men's college teams are coached by women are "pretty depressing."
She said sexism had never been a problem for her in her role at NYU, but wants more research into what's stopping more women following her lead.
"I've read a lot about how there's so many barriers for women," she said.
"We're generally also the heads of our households when it comes to caring for our children, and maybe that's a burden as well."
Since 2003, in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) of America, gender representation of head coaches hasn't really changed.
The number of women coaching women's teams remains around 45 per cent, while just 5 per cent of head coaches of men's teams are women.
"We don't have a large pool of female coaches to start with," Wyant said.
"Then, I start to wonder, how are we going to expand this? And how are we going to make it the norm?"
Sitch hopes both she and Wyatt can inspire others to break through: "Young girls, young boys, young men, young women seeing this and aspiring to be something because they can see it now and going after it."
Breaking the glass ceiling in coaching
That's the hope, too, for Australian Liz Mills, who became the first woman basketball head coach to lead a men's national team at an International Basketball Association (FIBA) continental championship.
Mills was also first woman head coach in the Basketball Africa League (BAL) and the first woman head coach of a men's club team in Morocco.
She told the ABC her goal was "continuing to break glass ceilings and use my platform as a vehicle to continue to discuss gender equality in terms of coaching."
Mills, like Sitch and Wyant, believes being employed by forward-thinking institutions has allowed her to succeed in a male-dominated industry.
"The challenge for [sporting] clubs, associations and federations is changing selection processes when it comes to hiring, and looking at qualifications, experience and skill set rather than gender," Mills said.
"It's such a boy's club in football and basketball in any sport, really. It's about breaking that narrative, having women in those decision-making processes, being in the room for those decisions, and adding diversity."
As well as more research, Mills said more needed to be done to boost the confidence of women coaches.
"In Australia, I really felt like I would never have the opportunity to coach men and I didn't even think about it … it's us imposing our own restrictions." she said.
Networking with fellow female coaches
Liz Mills recently launched the Global Women's Basketball Coaching Network, which now has almost 500 members worldwide, less than two months since it was established.
"As female coaches, we often operate in silos, or in a very odd world," she said.
"We all operate in a male-dominated industry and often, we don't get to work with each other, interact with each other the same way our male counterparts do."
While her personal goal is to become first woman coach of a team at the FIBA Men's World Cup, Mills also hopes to create a platform for other women to coach professionally.
"Eventually, one day we'll have clubs, federations and associations coming to us, to ask us about coaches that they could potentially hire."
