Eli Wilson. Head Coaching Diversity in College and Universities Across America

History and Background

The state of college athletics right now has never been crazier, with multimillion dollar deals being signed by players, major buyouts for head coaches, and millions of dollars in revenue. College sports has one of the biggest platforms in the United States, therefore, it is important that we pay attention to what is being represented to everyone throughout the country. The head coaching sphere is a massive market, for a small group of people.

The diversity of head coaching is a massive topic that could be covered in length. Starting with the history of black head coaches in specific because this is the most prominent minority group in head coaching positions therefore has the most research done on it. The first Black head coach in FBS college football history was Willie Jeffries. Willie was hired by Wichita State a predominantly white school. He went on to coach at 2 HBCU’s (Historically Black College and University) after his stint at Wichita State. Wichita State no longer sponsors a football program. The first ever black head coach in NCAA Division I history was William J Robinson. He coached at Illinois State from 1971-1975. Robinson retired from coaching in 1975 to be a scout for the Detroit Pistons where he helped find generational talent that led to 2 championships in 1989 and 1990. Robinson was offered the head coaching job of the Pistons by the GM but ultimately turned down the position.

Now we can talk about women in the coaching industry, as they are also a minority in the coaching sphere. In 2022-23 the number of women coaches for women’s sports was at 41%, while the number of women coaches in men’s sports is at 6%. The glaring number out of these statistics is the number of black women in coaching though these numbers. According to ESPN, there are 399 black women coaches in women NCAA sports teams, compared to 3,760 white women, and 5,236 white men. This is a glaring difference when it comes to race in this situation. As there is only 3% of the total women in coaching to be black, and 83% of them to be white.

Looking at different sports in general, starting with college basketball, when we look at the total statistical count of the percentage of black and white athletes in the sport, according to ‘Frontiersin’ in college basketball, the share of Black athletes was 64.3% between 2007 and 2010. This is interesting because the percentage of black head coaches in college basketball is only 9%, while White head coaches account for 67%. I think this is interesting because it shows the amount of disparity between the people playing the sport vs the people being asked to lead and to coach it. This can be a complicated problem because the backgrounds of these kids being different than a middle-aged white man, whereas a black man would have grown up or had an at least similar experience in most situations. Not always, but in most scenarios they would have had a situation of something similar.

When you look at the scope of the United States the total percentage of the black population is according to the Office of Minority Health is 12.1 %. This stat becomes very interesting after you compare it to the total percentage of the athletes in certain sports as listed above with basketball being almost 6 times the amount of percentage when it comes to total players in the sport. This disparity can be helped in different situations, sticking with basketball in this scenario by hiring former players. Some of the major colleges in the USA have started hiring former players as coaches who have been assistants or coaches at smaller schools, and this is leading to a growth in the percentage of black head coaches, simply because of the likely hood that the former player is 64% chance to be black.

According to Associate Press, women hold 41.2% of all head coaching jobs in division 1, 2, and 3. They also hold 50.3% of assistant coaching positions for women’s teams. Compared to the other sports and gendered sports, this is encouraging to see that they are at least above 50% in their own sports, this is growing and improving the more our society expands and gets better at promoting equality and equity. Another interesting statistic to see is the total number between all three major divisions in the three major sports. This is that white people make up 70.6% of men’s basketball head coaches, 96.8% of football head coaches, and 92.8% of baseball head coaches. Another interesting fact about women in particular is that collegiate baseball only has ONE full-time employed woman coaching. Her name is Beth Woerner, and she is an assistant coach at Lebanon Valley College (LVC).

Overall, I think the stats and interesting points made show that the disparity between college coaches is very visible but also it shows a very interesting variability between the total population of certain minorities in the USA compared to the total number of athletes in the sport in discussion. I think the disparity is closing between all aspects including women in coaching, but also the number of black coaches because of how many people of those sports play the sport, it would just naturally start to row, which I think we are finally seeing progress. I think it is important that we see the decline in dominance of one race or ethnicity coaching and start to see the representation for the people playing the sport as well as coaching it.

Sources

Email me at ew1159@msstate.edu with any questions.