New Study Finds A Decline In

By WELCH SUGGS
© Chronicle of Higher Education Bulletin
Tuesday, May 2, 2000

There has never been a better time to be a female athlete in college sports, but women apparently believe that there has never been a worse time to be a coach. According to a new study, fewer women, on a percentage basis, are coaching women's teams now than at any point in the past 23 years.

Women represent only 45.6 percent of the coaches of women's teams in the National Collegiate Athletic Association in 2000, according to the latest edition of a longitudinal study by R. Vivian Acosta and Linda Jean Carpenter. The two former professors of physical education, who recently retired from Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, have studied trends in women's sports since 1977.

By comparison, women made up 58 percent of coaches in 1978 and 47.4 percent in 1998, according to the study. Women represent less than 2 percent of the coaches of men's teams this year, as has been the case throughout the study's history. On the other hand, there are more women's teams in the N.C.A.A. than ever before. The study found that N.C.A.A. members now offer an average of 8.14 women's teams, including an average of 8.87 at Division I institutions, 6.62 at Division II institutions, and 8.45 at Division III institutions. In 1977-78, colleges fielded an average of only 5.61 teams for women. The study did not include numbers for men's teams.

The decline in the percentage of female coaches is troubling, Ms. Carpenter said, because young women need role models in leadership positions. "Athletics is such an intense part of an athlete's life that when role models appear in context, they can have quite a positive effect," Ms. Carpenter said. "It's also disturbing because there's not any concomitant increase in the representation of women in men's programs." Furthermore, athletics directors are not hiring very many female coaches now.

The study found that there have been 534 head-coaching jobs created for women's teams since 1998, and that 80 percent of those openings have been filled by men. However, athletics directors say they are not entirely to blame for not hiring women. Often, when they advertise for a women's coaching position, they point out, few if any women apply. According to Ms. Carpenter, part of the reason is that women coming out of college have far more career choices now than in the 1970's. "In the 70's, women's opportunities to work outside the home were teaching and nursing," she said. "Now, the world of employment opportunities is much more open to women, so women are making choices based on a bigger menu. I think we need to work harder for children to see coaching as a viable employment opportunity."

The number of female athletics administrators has nearly doubled since 1988, from 528 to 998. However, women still represent only 34 percent of all athletics administrators at N.C.A.A. institutions, up from 29 percent in 1988. Ms. Carpenter said there were more female university presidents in Division I-A than female athletics directors. Only 9.5 percent of full-time sports-information directors are women, and 25.5 percent of full-time athletics trainers are women.