Recent media coverage of the latest NCAA report on ethnicity and gender representation in intercollegiate athletics did not include important context related to the overall data.

While the percentage of black coaches of men's football and basketball head coaches increased 76 percent during the last decade (12.7 percent to 22.4 percent), those data include figures from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). When excluding HBCUs (an important distinction with these data), the increase is much smaller. In fact, the percentage of black coaches of men's football and basketball head coaches increased only from 8 percent to 9.7 percent. And the percentage of black females coaching non-HBCU teams increased only from 7.7 percent to 8.7 percent.

Head coach data indicate that overall, black representation in both men's and women's teams has remained stagnant. The increase in the percentage of black head coaches of both men's and women's teams has been minimal since 1995-96 with virtually no increase from the 1995-96 report. Men's and women's revenue sports show the largest increases in the number of black head coaches. However, nonrevenue sports do not show that same increase and in some cases are decreasing.

Vice President, Diversity and Inclusion