The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) at the University of Central Florida recently released its annual report on racial equality in college athletics. The scorecard gave a grade of C+ for racial diversity in college’s sport programs. A year ago, college sports received a grade of B on racial diversity efforts.
Richard Lapchick, director of TIDES and the lead author of the report, stated that “opportunities for coaches of color continued to be a significant area of concern in all divisions and the lack of opportunity for African Americans as head coaches increased in 2015-16.”
Among the highlights of the report regarding African Americans in college sports are:
- In Division I, African Americans make up more than 55 percent of the male student athletes in basketball and nearly 44 percent in football, but Blacks are only 3.3 percent of the baseball student athletes.
- Blacks are 44 percent of the football players in Division I but only 6.9 percent of the head football coaches.
- African Americans are 7.7 percent of all head coaches for men’s teams and 7.4 percent of head coaches for women’s teams in Division I. They are 20.8 percent of the head coaches for men’s basketball in Division I, down from 22 percent a year ago. African Americans are only 1.1 percent of all head coaches in Division I baseball.
- All 11 conference commissioners for schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision are White.
- Of the 326 athletics directors in Division I, there are 26 Black men and two Black women. African American have even lower representation among athletic directors at Division II and Division III educational institutions.
- Blacks are 1.1 percent of the sports information directors at Division I NCAA member institutions.
The full report, The 2016 Racial and Gender Scorecard: College Sport, can be downloaded by clicking here.
