Women Making Little or No Progress in College Sports Administration and Coaching

The latest report on the status of women and racial and ethnic minorities in college sports has been released by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) at the University of Central Florida.

The scorecard gave a grade of C+ for gender diversity in college sports programs. This was the same grade received in each of the past two years.

Richard Lapchick, director of TIDES and the lead author of the report, stated that “College Sport has historically not been good at increasing opportunities for women and people of color. Outside of HBCU institutions, the representation of women and people of color in leadership positions within collegiate athletics has been weak.”

One of the most striking figures is that in 2019, women held the head coaching job for only 40.6 percent of all women’s athletic teams in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. In contrast, 96 percent of all head coaches for men’s teams in Division I are men.

Here are some other statistics on the status of women in college sports:

• Women are 44.2 percent of all student athletes at NCAA institutions.
• Women held 40.1 percent of head coaching jobs on women’s teams in Division I and 36.3 percent of the head coaching jobs for women’s sports in Division II.
• Only 13.6 percent of all athletics directors at NCAA Division I institutions are women. The good news is that this was up from 10.5 percent in the previous year.
• Less than a third of all associate athletics directors and assistant athletics directors at NCAA Division I institutions are women.
• Women were less than 15 percent of all sports information directors in all NCAA divisions.