One Step Forward, 2 Steps Back?

According to a new report, more women play college sports than ever before, yet the number of women in administrative and coaching positions in athletics departments continues to be low, Libby Sander writes on The Chronicle’s Web site:

While opportunities to play college sports continue to expand for women, as they have consistently over the 31-year history of the study, the growth in women’s representation at the highest levels of the administrative ranks has been much slower, the data show. Twenty-one percent of college athletics directors are women, according to a report describing the latest findings in the study, “Women in Intercollegiate Sport: A Longitudinal, National Study.” That figure is the highest percentage since the mid-1970s but reflects an increase of only 2 percent since 1998.

And a long-term decline in the proportion of women serving as head coaches of women’s teams also persists: The latest update found that 43 percent of women’s sports teams had a female head coach, the second-lowest rate in the study’s history. Before the passage of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, more than 90 percent of women’s teams were coached by women (The Chronicle, May 4, 2007).

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