The NCAA News - News and Features

March 9, 1998

Study compares racial makeup of pro and college sports

A recent report by Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sports in Society says that college sports have the worst record for racial and gender hiring practices when compared to the National Basketball Association, National Football League and Major League Baseball.

The center's annual "Racial Report Card" is a study that examines the racial composition of players, coaches and front office employees.

This was the first year that college sports had been included in the study, which has been conducted for the past nine years. This year's study also examined the racial composition of the staff at NCAA headquarters.

Lapchick said college sports fared poorly overall.

"It is particularly disappointing to see how colleges and universities, which should be leaders on issues of race and gender, are actually lagging behind the heavily scrutinized world of pro sport," he said.

Cedric W. Dempsey, NCAA executive director, expressed special concern that minority coaches don't receive enough opportunities.

"When you're talking tennis, golf, swimming and other sports where there are poor percentages of minority participation, that's a reflection of the fact that in our society we don't provide a lot of good programs at the secondary level, so we don't see high participation rates for those sports," Dempsey said.

"But it's inexcusable in sports like baseball, basketball, football and track, where we have high participation numbers of minorities, not to have more minority coaches."

Study compares pros, college

A comparison of the racial composition of college sports to that of professional leagues focused on coaches as those who hold "the most visible positions in college sports." Division I-A football was compared to the NFL, Division I men's basketball was compared to the NBA, and Division I baseball was compared to Major League Baseball.

The report said the percentage of black coaches in college sports lagged behind those in professional leagues. For example, in men's Division I basketball, 17.3 percent of the head coaches in 1995-96 were black, while 24 percent of the head coaches in the NBA were black. In Division I-A football, 7.2 percent of the head coaches were black, while 11 percent of the head coaches in the NFL were black. In Division I baseball, none of the coaches were black, while Major League Baseball reported 14 percent of its managers were either black or Latino.

The study went on to compare college sports to the professional leagues in terms of assistant coaches, athletics directors and administrators.

The study also looked at different NCAA divisions and the percentage of minorities who held positions such as head coach, assistant coach, athletics director, senior woman administrator and faculty athletics representative.

In the study and its accompanying materials, Lapchick singled out Division III for criticism, noting that Division III head coaches and athletics directors were unlikely to be minorities.

In Division III, 3.1 percent of the men's teams and 3.3 percent of the women's teams were coached by Blacks. Also, 3.4 percent of the athletics directors in Division III were black men and 0.3 percent were black women.

However, Mary Jo Gunning, athletics director at Marywood University and a member of the NCAA Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee, told The Chronicle of Higher Education that Division III's small proportion of black coaches and administrators may be due in part to factors other than discrimination. She pointed out that many of the institutions in Division III are small liberal arts colleges in areas with few black residents.

"In Division III, you must look beyond the raw figures and look at the percentage of minority students enrolled in the institution," Gunning said.

An NCAA committee is charged with tracking minority hiring.

"It's important to note that the Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee continually observes the hiring practices of member institutions and conferences," Dempsey said. "This season the committee encouraged the college presidents to assume more of an active role in the recruitment and retention of minority coaches and staffs."

NCAA staff

The report stated that the NCAA headquarters had a good record at the top but a weaker record for mid-level managers and other professionals than the respective professional league offices.

"I thought (the NCAA national office) had made some pretty striking improvements in the last several years," Lapchick said.

In 1997, two of the seven NCAA group executive directors were black (28.6 percent). At the next level, three of the 38 chief aides were minorities (7.9 percent). At the next level, five of the 53 managers were black (9.4 percent) and one was a Latino woman (1.9 percent). In all, 16 managers were women (30 percent).

Of the 106 professional staff members, 53 percent were women and 27 percent were minorities. When the survey was conducted, 14.9 percent of all 323 NCAA employees were minorities, and 66.3 percent were women.

More education necessary

Dempsey said that in recent years the NCAA has initiated several programs intended to increase minority opportunities in intercollegiate athletics.

One such program is the diversity education program, which has been developed for athletics staff and institutional personnel who are responsible for athletics administration.

The goals of the program include providing participants with an understanding of, respect for and sensitivity to multiculturalism and diversity; assisting participants in becoming catalysts to promote diversity at their respective institutions; and providing participants with an implementation guide on how to get started.

Also offered is the NCAA National Office Internship Program, which provides on-the-job learning experiences for ethnic-minority and women college graduates.

In addition to those programs, postgraduate scholarships are awarded to increase the pool of ethnic minorities and women pursing degrees in sports administration or a related field. Those grants are awarded to 12 women and 12 minorities each year.

Also, the NCAA Fellows Program is being developed with the specific goal of enhancing the employment and leadership opportunities for minorities and women at the senior-management level of intercollegiate athletics administration. The purpose of this program, modeled after the American Council on Education's (ACE) Fellows Program, is to identify minorities and women who aspire to hold positions such as athletics directors and conference administrators and to involve them in various senior-level administrative experiences in intercollegiate athletics.

The NCAA also adopted legislation a few years ago to permit minority football coaches to participate in the NFL Minority Coaches Fellowship Program. If procedures are properly followed, an ethnic-minority NCAA coach may receive compensation from an NFL club participating in the program.

Dempsey acknowledged that increasing minority opportunities is the role of every NCAA institution. At the NCAA Convention in January, Dempsey urged members to take a new look at ways to increase ethnic and gender diversity at their institutions.

"In your last recruiting for a coach, what steps did you take to increase the ethnic and gender diversity of your staff?" Dempsey asked the membership in his annual State of the Association address. "Our performance in this area leaves much to be desired."