Even though Title IX was passed 45 years ago, female college coaches have yet to achieve equity with men. Today, 60 percent of women’s college sports teams are coached by men, and 3 to 4 percent of men’s college sports teams are coached by women.
“For me, 45 years after Title IX, to see that 60 percent women’s teams are coached by men is just staggering,” said Dr. Richard Lapchick, TIDES director. “It doesn’t even make any sense that that’s possible.”
Lapchick has been tracking equity in sports since 2005 via TIDES’ NCAA College Sport Racial and Gender Report Card (RGRC). So far, 2016 was the worst year yet for gender and racial parity.
“As someone who has been involved in higher education for 47 years, it’s particularly disheartening,” Lapchick said. “I got into higher education all those many years ago because I thought it would be the ideal place where all things would be done with moral integrity and embracing different cultures. Obviously, that’s not been the case in terms of hiring practices in college sport.”
Hiring practices are worse in college sports than in other areas, such as professional sports, Lapchick added. TIDES also produces annual surveys of hiring practices in the NFL and other major sports leagues. The only area where equity in terms of gender and race is worse than in college sports is in sports media, “but that’s kind of in a different category,” Lapchick noted.
At the college level, virtually 90 percent of all men’s and women’s head coaches are White, and the same goes for athletic directors, faculty athletic reps and sports information directors.
