While much attention has been paid to ensuring that the coaching staffs of men’s college and professional sports teams reflect the diversity of the teams they lead, a review of the racial composition of women’s collegiate basketball coaches reveals a surprising and disturbing lack of diversity.
Among the most glaring findings:
- There are no Black women head coaches in most of the nation’s premier conferences, such as the Big Ten Conference.
- While the Atlantic Coast Conference has more Black head coaches than White ones, there are no women among them.
- The Pacific 10 Conference and the Big East Conference each have only one Black head coach.
- With the recent departures of Pokey Chapman at Louisiana State University and Carolyn Peck at the University of Florida, the Southeastern Conference now has no Black women head coaches.
The findings beg one question: How can such a disparity exist in women’s college basketball when other sports and leagues are falling over themselves to address diversity? To much fanfare, two Black head coaches faced off in Super Bowl XLI, a first for the league. Black head coaches have paced the sidelines in men’s college basketball for decades, and in the ACC, Black coaches outnumber White ones 7-5. No other league boasts such a proportion.
Most experts say the situation for Black women won’t change without aggressive action by NCAA leaders. Many point to the NFL’s Rooney Rule as an effective model. Named after the legendary owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the rule requires each NFL team to interview at least one minority candidate during any head coaching search. In a similar vein, most college teams participate in the Black Coaches Association protocol, whereby they agree to at a minimum interview potential Black head coaches.
