African Americans Making Little Progress in College Sports Administration and Coaching

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 B- for racial diversity in college’s sport programs. This was up from a C+ a year ago but three years 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 “college sport continues to have some of the lowest grades for racial hiring practices among all of the college and professional sports covered by the respective Racial and Gender Report Cards” compiled by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport. “Opportunities for coaches of color continued to be a significant area of concern in all divisions,” Dr. Lapchick added.

• In Division I, African Americans make up more than 53 percent of the male student athletes in basketball and more than 45 percent in football, but Blacks are only 3.7 percent of the baseball student athletes.
• Blacks are 45 percent of the football players in Division I but only 6.9 percent of the head football coaches. This was down from 7.7 percent in the prior year.
• African Americans are 7.8 percent of all head coaches for men’s teams and 7.3 percent of head coaches for women’s teams in Division I. The percentage of Black head coaches is lower in Divisions II and III.
• Blacks are 22.4 percent of the head coaches for men’s basketball in Division I. In the 2005-06 season, African Americans were 25.2 percent of all head coaches for men’s basketball in Division I.
• African Americans are only 1.1 percent of all head coaches in Division I baseball.
• All conference commissioners for schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision are White. There has never been a person of color to lead any of these conferences.
• Blacks are 8.7 percent of athletic directors at Division I institutions, down from 9.1 percent the previous year. African American have lower representation among athletic directors at Division II and Division III colleges and universities.

The full report, The 2018 College Sport Racial and Gender Scorecard, can be downloaded by clicking here.