The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) at the University of Central Florida recently released its annual report on racial diversity in college athletics. The scorecard gave a grade of C-plus to racial diversity in college’s sport programs, down from a grade of B-minus in 2013.
Among the highlights of the report regarding African Americans in college sports are:
- In Division I, African Americans make up more than 57 percent of the male student athletes in basketball and nearly 47 percent in football, but Blacks are only 4.8 percent of the baseball student athletes.
- Blacks are 47 percent of the football players in Division I but only 8.3 percent of the head football coaches.
- African Americans are 8.2 percent of all head coaches for men’s teams and 7.3 percent of head coaches for women’s teams in Division I. They are 22 percent of the head coaches for men’s basketball in Division I but less than 2 percent of all head coaches in Division I baseball.
- Blacks are more than 41 percent of the assistant coaches in Division I men’s basketball and 26 percent in football. Only 8 of the 727 assistant coaches in Division I baseball are African American.
- All 11 conference commissioners for schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision are White men. None of the 22 conference commissioners in the NCAA’s Division I are Black.
- Blacks are less than 2 percent of the sports information directors at NCAA member institutions.
Richard Lapchick, director of TIDES and the lead author of the report, stated that “the greatest number of career prospects are in college sports rather than professional sports because of the number of jobs available. That makes it even more important for us to create expanded opportunities in college sports for people of color.”
