NCAA Diversity

This assignment deals with issues of diversity and the college sport workplace. In March of 2009, the Racial and Gender Report Card: College Sport was released (Lapchick, 2009). In describing the overall trends in the report, Dr. Richard Lapchick commented, “This report documents not only a lack of overall progress in college sport but a decline in both racial and gender hiring practices in key positions” (Frederick, 2009, ¶ 2). Some of the key findings include the following:

•    100% of FBS conference commissioners were White men.

•    Excluding HBCUs, all of the 30 Division I conference commissioners were White.

•    Whites held the overwhelming percentage of athletics director positions in NCAA institutions (90% in Division I; 92% in Division II; 97% in Division III).

•    The level of diversity within the AD position at FBS institutions has continued to improve and is better than that found in Divisions I, II, and III. Within FBS institutions, 13.3% of ADs are people of color.

In a longitudinal study that has been monitoring hiring trends for women employees in athletics departments for more than three decades, it was found that the year 2008 marked the highest representation of female athletics directors (21.3%) since the mid-1970s, but that there was a slight dip in 2010 (19.1%) (Acosta & Carpenter, 2010). At the same time, the representation of women in the coaching ranks remains low. Only 20.6% of all head coaches of college teams are women.

According to Quarterman, Dupree, and Willis (2006), female intercollegiate athletics directors face challenges associated with personnel, budgeting, and, at the Division II level, the “old boys’ network.” African American men and women face numerous sociocultural and structural barriers to careers in athletics administration. As Abney (2007) pointed out, in 2001–2002, the number of athletics administrators at non-HBCU institutions was 19,352. Of that number, only 2.6% were African American.

As future athletics administrators, how would you work to diversify your management team and coaching staff? How would you work to make the culture of your athletics department more inclusionary?  How does this commitment impact the financial stability of the intercollegiate athletics department? 

Remember to use proper APA formatting and all writing should be in third person.  Make sure to include the title page and reference page.  If APA format is not followed, a point deduction will occur.  Provide at least 3 references for the assignment.

2 Page Minimum