Collegiate sports, and athletic scholarships in particular, have served as portals to higher education for generations of African-Americans who may have not otherwise attended college. That’s not the case for Latinos.
Hispanic men and women represented just 4.5 and 3.9 percent, respectively, of student-athletes in the NCAA during the 2008-09 academic year. Between 1999 and 2008, the number of Hispanics playing college sports grew at a glacial pace, from 3 to 4.2 percent, even as Hispanic students have become more prevalent on college campuses — 12 percent of students were Hispanic in 2007, according to Census data. Hispanics account for 15.8 percent of the U.S. population. Although lagging in college sports, Latinos are a rising power in professional sports; Latinos dominate boxing, soccer and baseball. Major League Baseball’s Hispanic superstars, such as Chicago White Sox outfielder Manny Ramirez and New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, rank among America’s highest-paid professional athletes. In June, the Memphis Grizzlies selected former University of Maryland guard Greivis Vasquez, the 2010 Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year, in the first round of the NBA Draft.
Despite their growing presence in sports, relatively few Latinos play sports in college, even in baseball and soccer where they are overrepresented at the professional level. The college sports with the highest percentage of Hispanic men were volleyball (12.3 percent) and water polo (7.3 percent), reflecting their popularity in California and Florida. For women, they were rugby (15.2 percent) and water polo (7.3 percent).
“Hispanics are the largest ethnic minority group in the country. However, the demographics of our [NCAA] member institutions do not reflect this growth in the student-athlete population,” says Mark Cabrera, a soccer player at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Scholars and sports personnel note specific structural, cultural and educational issues preventing more Latinos from using their athletic talents as a ladder to college.
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