Study: College sports trail pro leagues in diversity hiring

A diversity report for racial and gender hiring across college sports found overall improvement yet still reported grades lagging behind the professional ranks.

Wednesday’s report card from The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) at Central Florida assigned an overall C-plus score, a B for racial hiring and a C-plus for gender hiring. The report examined a range of positions including leadership at the NCAA headquarters, conference commissioners and head coaches based on data from the 2018-19 season.

The numeric scores in each category were the highest since researchers revised the grading scale for the 2015-16 report to account for changing national demographics. But lead report author and institute director Richard Lapchick noted in the report that the grades trailed those of professional leagues reviewed in other TIDES studies such as the NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer and WNBA.

“When you see those numbers for athletic directors, associate athletic directors across all three divisions, head coaches of men’s teams, head coaches of women’s teams - those are the positions you tend to look at most in terms of leadership positions in college athletics,” Lapchick said in an interview with The Associated Press. “The whiteness of those positions is striking and has remained striking.

“I mean, it’s better than it was when we started doing it. But it’s not overwhelmingly better.”

The study reported that 85% of head coaches in men’s Division I sports were white, with that figure increasing in Division II (86.9%) and Division III (91.1%). Those numbers were similar on the women’s side at 83.2% in Division I, 85.5% in Division II and 91.2% in Division III.

The figures for Division I men’s basketball offered a more specific example, with blacks filling 23.6% of headcoaching positions but representing 53.2% of the players.