The NCAA has come a long way in its diversity efforts. That was clear enough from the wide-ranging racial, divisional, sport, administrative and coaching backgrounds of the men and women populating the standing-room-only crowd at Friday's inaugural NCAA Symposium on Women of Color in College Athletics.

But one of the resounding messages from symposium panelists and participants was that work clearly remains.

During her opening remarks, Tennessee State Athletics Director Teresa Phillips said the goal of the gathering was to open minds, share ideas and understand different approaches to help break through the glass ceiling and generate more opportunities for all women in intercollegiate athletics.

"We already cracked the glass, but we've only just tapped it and there are still some jagged edges," she said.

Moderated by Texas head women's track and field coach Beverly Kearney, the half-day event focused on three areas: fostering leadership in athletics administration and coaching, providing insight into campus and cultural issues affecting student-athletes, and addressing perceptions and realities of Title IX for women of color.

Through a mix of personal stories, reflections, facts and statistics, panelists issued a call to action and offered ideas and strategies for addressing a critical issue within the intercollegiate athletics enterprise -- how to encourage, support, attract and retain women and student-athletes of all backgrounds.

"This is an inclusive event," said Kearney.

To that point, panelist Denee Rivera-Barracato, assistant athletics director at Adelphi, focused her comments on the growing Hispanic population and strategies for reaching out to potential student-athletes within that community. Other panelists dealt with ways of attracting student-athletes of color to nontraditional sports and the impact of Title IX on student-athletes of color.

Sage Steele, a commentator with ESPN, said continued efforts to recruit and retain individuals of color and place them in decision-making positions are necessary to spur a change in the ways females of color are portrayed in the media. She noted just five sports broadcasters who are women of color and said only 1 to 2 percent of the 600-700 resume tapes the network receives are from ethnic minorities.

Symposium attendees also participated in roundtable discussions generating best practices related to the program's three areas of focus. Those ideas will be shared with the NCAA Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee along with a full report of the day's proceedings.