A recent USA Today article trumpeted the fact that the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York, is the only NCAA Division I-A program with a trio of African-Americans in key athletics department positions. Warde Manuel is the director of athletics; head men’s basketball coach Reggie Witherspoon just completed his seventh season; and Turner Gill, the highly decorated former University of Nebraska, Lincoln, quarterback, was recently hired as head football coach.

As rare as the circumstances at Buffalo are, diversity issues aren’t always a matter of black and white. Two equally unusual and perhaps lesser publicized diversity issues are the participation in intercollegiate athletics by ethnic minority groups other than African-Americans — and the lack of participation by ethnic minorities, including African-Americans, in a wider array of sports.

The 2003-04 NCAA Student-Athlete Ethnicity Report shows for example that white males make up 71.4 percent of all student-athletes participating in NCAA competition, compared to just 18.1 percent for black males, 3.5 percent for Hispanic males, 1.4 for Asian/Pacific Islanders and 0.4 for American Indians/Alaskan natives.

The numbers are similarly skewed for females. Whites compose 78.2 percent of the student-athlete population, in contrast to 10.6 percent for black women, 3.2 percent for Hispanics, 2 percent for Asian/Pacific Islanders and 0.3 percent for Native American/Alaskan native females.

Also, while African-Americans are well represented in football, track and field, and basketball, that is not the case in other NCAA sports. For example, 86.7 percent of NCAA baseball student-athletes are white, compared to 4.5 percent for African-Americans. In field hockey, black women represent just 1.2 percent of the competitors (91.4 percent are white). The numbers are similarly low for other sports such as gymnastics, ice hockey, lacrosse, skiing, soccer, softball, wrestling and water polo.

What keeps those sports from being more diversified?

“Much of what those data reflect can be attributed to access and finances,” said Kathy DeBoer, executive director of the American Volleyball Coaches Association.

DeBoer cited the example of a recent girls’ volleyball tournament in Colorado Springs that spanned two weekends, occupied 100 courts and involved more than 16,000 athletes ages 12 to 18. She said many sports, including volleyball, have become “gentrified” into upper-middle-class activities.

“The systems for getting the amount and level of training necessary to compete at the collegiate level is very expensive and has moved out of the high schools and into private clubs with coaching staffs. The club movement is growing by leaps and bounds,” said DeBoer. “But to be able to fly or drive to Colorado Springs, stay in Denver for three or four days — to be able to participate in that kind of tournament, by definition, is going to cut out a large segment of the population.”

Exposure and cultural nuances also play a role. Peter Roby of the Center for Sport in Society at Northeastern University said that in many cases, a high percentage of athletes of color are growing up in major urban markets where, for any number of reasons — including lack of access, facilities, funding or coaching expertise — they may not be exposed to the same breadth of sports opportunities as kids in the suburbs.

“Another factor is that, especially with families of color, many happen to be first- and second-generation immigrants. In some of those cultures, sports aren’t nearly as big as they are in the United States, especially for girls,” said Roby.

Cultural factors also may influence the way certain ethnic groups view the role of sport or the way society views an ethnic group’s relationship to sport. Richard Lapchick, president and CEO of the National Consortium for Academics and Sport at the University of Central Florida, noted that African-Americans may be nudged toward viewing and using sport as a career or as a way out of a poor socioeconomic situation. “Those same kinds of proposals of escape have never been applied to Latino or Asian communities,” he said.

With participation numbers in many sports at an all-time high, and the addition of NCAA championships in women’s bowling, rowing and ice hockey as proof of expanding opportunities, does the color of those actually taking advantage of the opportunities matter? Many people think it does.

Lapchick suggested that if college sports, as an aspect of American society, don’t reflect America, then efforts should be made to broaden the level of inclusion, and not just for the sake of doing so but because of what he referred to as “the miracle of the huddle.”

“Once you get inside that huddle, all the things that keep us apart — race, religion, sexual orientation, age — melt away because we have to pursue that common goal of victory,” said Lapchick. “That is easily replicable in other parts of our society if we understand it. It gives sport a unique platform to influence society; therefore, that’s one of the main reasons why including other racial and religious groups within our sports organizations is really important.”According to Roby, practical reasons with larger societal implications — such as controlling the growing epidemic of overweight and obese young people, and the socialization opportunities that come with participating in team sports — make it important to provide access to all youth. He pointed to FBI statistics indicating that violent juvenile crime increases by about 44 percent between the hours of 3 and 8 p.m. because so many youths are latch-key kids and are not being supervised.

Roby also said making sure intercollegiate athletics is truly diverse means that more females can take advantage of Title IX opportunities. “If a lot of (inner-city) girls aren’t active, then they are not taking advantage of the opportunities that are presenting themselves to girls in the suburbs, and there’s a resulting disproportionate access to those opportunities.”

On a more micro level, former Ohio State University Director of Athletics Andy Geiger said one reason for the concern is that institutions that sponsor broad-based athletics programs are giving away thousands, and in some cases, millions of dollars in financial aid in a not very representative way.

As critical as the circumstances may appear, many people are keeping such diversity issues at the forefront of discussion and using current minority leaders in sports as the voice.

The AVCA, for example, has established a minority coaching program to increase the number of ethnic minorities who have access to coaching opportunities. DeBoer believes seeing ethnic minorities in leadership positions will encourage increased participation by ethnic minority student-athletes. In addition, the AVCA works with a national USA Volleyball program that supports volleyball clubs, tournaments and related activities specifically targeting underprivileged youth.

Geiger also noted a number of ways to help turn the tide, such as starting pilot projects in schools and conducting clinics.

“In the rest of the world, athletics is club based, not school based, and there isn’t any reason why we can’t begin to think of an alternative model if we want some of those activities to be available to other schools,” he said. “We need to work with high school federations and other organizations to see if we can have programs sponsored that might get a lacrosse or field hockey stick into kids’ hands or get kids into a swimming pool, on a golf course or a tennis court or wherever it might be for students to participate.”

Sports ethnicity

The percentage of participants who are white (non-Hispanic), by sport:

*Non-resident alien participation exceeds 10 percent in men’s and women’s ice hockey and men’s and women’s tennis.

Source: 1999-00 to 2003-04 NCAA Student-Athlete Ethnicity Report.