Access Discrimination in Intercollegiate Athletics Revisited: Examining Underrepresentation in the Division I Head Coach Pipeline

• In Event: Hilton Roundtable Session 18
  In Roundtable Session: Racial Scrutiny of Black Bodies in the Academy

Abstract

Non-white coaches are underrepresented in higher education, specifically Division I basketball (Cunningham, Bruening, & Straub, 2006). This study follows work by Cunningham and Sagas (2005) that examined one aspect of the college basketball coaching pipeline, the diversity of assistant coaches. Drawing on homologous reproduction (Kanter, 1977) and systemic racism (Regan, Carter-Francique, & Feagin, 2014) frameworks, the study uses descriptive statistics to address the five initial hypotheses and compares outcomes to those in 2005. Preliminary results suggest increases in the overall percentage of non-white assistant basketball coaches relative to 2005 but statistically lower than the hypothesized proportion of potential non-white coaches. Non-white assistants were underrepresented on the staffs of white head coaches (37%) but not on non-white head coaching staffs (63%).

Authors

• Derek A. Houston, Southern Illinois University - Edwardsville

• Alysha Anne Burgess, University of Oklahoma