Executive Director Donna Lopiano outlines the multiple barriers faced by African-American girls and women today and offers an agenda for change.
By Donna Lopiano
We all know there is still no gender equity in sport. Statistics reveal that:
- less than 35% of all high school athletes are women
- less than 34% of all college athletes are women
- male athletes receive $179 million more in athletic scholarships each year than their female counterparts
- collegiate institutions spend 24% of the athletic operating budgets, 16% of their recruiting budgets and 33% of the scholarship budgets on female athletes
- less than 1% of all coaches of men's teams and less than 46% of all coaches of women's teams are female
The African-American female is in double jeopardy. She is discriminated against by her gender. She is discriminated against by her race. African-American females represent less than 5% of all high school athletes, less than 10% of all college athletes, less than 2% of all coaches and less than 1% of all college athletics administrators. This data is scanty and old so the situation may be worse.
We also know that the African-American female, like the African-American male, is a victim of sport discrimination and positional stacking within sports. Her participation is restricted to basketball, track and field and the least expensive sports. Within those sports, she is underrepresented in skill/outcome control positions. She is seldom the setter in volleyball or the point guard in basketball.
We know she is almost non-existent in officiating and behind the 8-ball if she coaches because she has few if any assistant coaches and lacks recruiting dollars and other basic financial resources required to be a successful coach.
As an elite athlete, she is without speaking engagements, endorsement opportunities and sponsorships.
As a female and an African-American, she, as a sportswoman, has been neglected by the feminist movement and the civil rights movement because sport has been seen by feminists as either frivolous or reflective of a male model that should not be emulated.
Yet we know that sport participation is critical for the African-American and other females:
A high school girl who plays sports is less likely to be involved in an unintended pregnancy; less likely to be involved in drugs and more likely to graduate from high school. As little as two hours of exercise a week on the part of a teenage girls can reduce her lifelong risk of breast cancer. Girls who play sports are more confident, have higher self-esteem and better body images. They are less likely to be the victims of peer pressure.
I'm a politician and the real subject of this talk is to focus on what has to be done to engineer change.
1. We must acquire and maintain baseline data -- material that can be used as an annual report card.Within the National Collegiate Athletic Association, each of the 50 state high school athletic associations, the National Association for Intercollegiate Athletics, the National Junior College Athletic Association and within every national sport governing body we must know participation by gender and race and within race by gender. We must know employment and salary data by gender and race and within race by gender. We must know racial participation by sport and and position.
We must know the number and dollar value of endorsements of minority and white athletes and within race by gender.
We must count the number of photographs and column inches of coverage by race and gender and within race by gender.
We must issue a report card and use the tools of media pressure and public embarrassment to create an environment for change. Discrimination cannot be allowed to hide in the closet and go unnoticed and uncriticized.
2. We must adopt and publicize a national agenda to address racism in sport.We must have a national summit and create a national agenda that is endorsed by all participating organizations -- an agenda that includes many of the items I will subsequently discuss.
3. We must press the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) and the national sport governing bodies (NGB) it recognizes and controls to fulfill their obligation under the 1978 Amateur Sports Act which promised a commitment to grassroots sport for everyone and no discrimination on the basis of race, gender or physical handicap.We cannot allow the USOC and the NGBs to only support elite athletes. There must be balance. There must be an investment in our children. There must be an adherence to the value of diversity. There must be a sport for every kid and a kid for every sport -- without regard to gender or color. This is not the case today.
4. We must press within our communities for the adoption of community service as part of every curriculum.We cannot afford sport for everyone unless older players help younger players.
5. We must insist on search and employment committees of diverse composition for every leadership position in sport.White males will continue to hire white males unless we help them with our networks -- the networks of women and the networks of men and women of color.
6. We must insist that the NCAA and other organizations who give grants refuse to fund any organization that does not have a program in place to address issue of racism in sport.7. We must develop and distribute a guidebook for principals, superintendents and college presidents that explains how they can address racism in sport.We must explain how racism occurs in recruiting. We need to explain the importance of support structures and other factors contributing to retention. We have to teach people how to recognize common practices that contribute to gender and race discrimination. We must show leaders the hows of affirmative action to increase qualified female African-Americans -- from camp/clinic coaching personnel hiring to mentoring programs that target athletes for sport career programs.
8. There must be a program on the agenda of every coaches association convention program on what coaches can do to eliminate racism.We must increase the coaches' awareness of discrimination in recruiting, the practice of stacking and sport discrimination. We must offer them practical solutions -- from hiring camp coaches/counselors to summer camp scholarships for African-American youth in sports they don't traditional play to hiring females for men's sport camps to mentoring one African-American coach prospect each year.
9. We must utilize public service announcements, posters and television to combat the invisibility of African-American women in sport. We must celebrate her image.10. We must present a program to the Conference Commissioners' Association specifically defining actions they can take to combat racism in officiating.We can do better in the selection of announcers and officials for televised conference championship events. We can do better in conference-controlled officiating training and selection programs.
11. We must target African-American women physical education majors and varsity sport participants and make them fill out applications for job banks.There must be personal contact and encouragement to have this happen. We cannot forget that minorities do not trust that the system will change. We must personally place our qualified candidates in the job market. They are there.
12. We must meet with political organizations and feminist organizations to educate them to the issues and how they can help African-American women in sports.13. We must use and support highly visible media tactics.14. We must pull up our own after us. We must personally act to mentor someone.15.We must identify and confront organizations that are not doing well.16. We must use the guilt of professional organizations that are currently exploiting African-American athletes to help African-American men and women by producing public service announcements and financing seminars and workshops and setting examples.17. We must be sure that every coaches association and sport organization has a standing committee or interest group to create the agendas for change. These are the groups that can gather data and keep report cards.In short, we must act. Each of us must do what is easy for us to do. Be a mentor. Make and organization establish a standing committee. Good politic is criticism immediately followed by solutions and action. Let us criticize, let us propose solutions and let us act.