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Home > 27 Year Study Shows Progression of Women in College Athletics

27 Year Study Shows Progression of Women in College Athletics

Women in Intercollegiate Sport: A Longitudinal, National Study Twenty Seven Year Update 1977-2004

Published: June 8, 2004

We hope you will enjoy having a copy of the latest update from our longitudinal national survey, now in its 27th year. Among many other things, the 2004 data show continued participation strength among women in the nation's intercollegiate athletics programs. The data also continue to show a depressed representation of women as head coaches and as head administrators of their programs. Feel free to make copies of the summary, but please make sure to cite us and to leave the copyright notice intact.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us at the email contact link above or Acosta/Carpenter, Post Office Box 42, West Brookfield, MA 01585 or, contact the National Association for Girls and Women in Sport (NAGWS) at 703-476-3450 or nagws.org.

Sincerely,

Linda Jean Carpenter, Ph.D., J.D.
Professor Emerita, Brooklyn College

R. Vivian Acosta, Ph.D.
Professor Emerita, Brooklyn College

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Executive Summary
R. Vivian Acosta - Linda Jean Carpenter

Overview of Findings

• Participation Opportunities for Female Athletes
  Nationwide, more college women have more athletic teams available to them than ever before.
  
• 8.32 teams per school is the average offering for female athletes in 2004. The 2004 number of 8.32 is near the 2002 all-time high of 8.34 and far exceeds the 1972 (year Title IX was enacted) number of a little over 2 per school and the 1978 (mandatory compliance date for Title IX) number of 5.61 per school.
  
• Although the 2004 average number of 8.32 teams offered on each campus is slightly lower than the all-time high of 8.34 in 2002, more schools in 2004 offered women's athletics programs. Therefore, in 2004 female collegiate athletes had a total of 8402 teams available to them at the nation's NCAA schools.
  
• In the two-year period of 2002 to 2004, 270 new women's teams were added. In the last four years, 2000-2004, there have been 631 new teams added and in the last six years, a total of 1155 new women's teams have been added.
  
• The ten most frequently found college varsity sports for women are in rank order: basketball, volleyball, cross country, soccer, softball, tennis, track/field, golf, swimming and lacrosse.
  
• Soccer exhibits the greatest growth of any sport in the last 27 years. It is now offered for women on 88.6 % of the campuses while in 1977 it was only found on 2.8% of the campuses. Soccer has increased 40 fold since.

Status of Women as Head Coaches

• 44.1% of the coaches of women's teams are females, very slightly up from 44.0% in 2002 and down from 45.6% in 2000, which was also down from 47.4 in 1998. 2004's 44.1% is close to the lowest representation of females as head coaches of women's teams in history.
  
• When Title IX was enacted in 1972, more than 90% of women's teams were coached by women.
  
• In 2004, there are 8402 head coaching jobs of women's NCAA teams. Females hold 3704 of those jobs, an increase of 127 jobs held by females from 2002. However, males have filled more of the new jobs than women. Of the new jobs created since 2002 men filled 143, sixteen more than women obtained.
  
• Even though over half of women's teams are coached by males, very few females serve as head coaches of men's teams. The percentage of females among the coaching ranks of men's athletics remains under 2% as it has been for the last 3 decades. In 2004 17% of colleges have at least one female head coach of a men's teams and 28% have a paid female assistant of a men's team. Most of the teams having women among the coaching ranks are those which typically practice with their female team counterparts such as tennis and swimming.
  
• Female athletes in Division III are the most likely to have a female coach (46%), closely followed by Division I with 44.9%. Among the 10 most popular sports, field hockey and lacrosse teams are the most likely to have a female coach with 96.6% and 86.2% respectively. Softball, at 64.8%, and basketball at 60.7%, follow next.

Status of Women as Assistant Coaches

• Women hold 57.2% (up from 55.1% in 2002) of the paid assistant coaching jobs within women's NCAA athletics programs.
  
• Women hold 5273 of the 9215 paid assistant coaching jobs in 2004. In 2002 women held 4781 of the 8619 paid assistant coaching jobs for women's teams. The 4781 jobs held in 2004 by females is an increase of 492 jobs held since 2002. In 2004, males hold 3942 paid assistant coaching jobs in women's athletics. So, in 2004 there are more paid assistant coaches for women's teams and a greater percentage of those jobs are held by women.
  
• Women hold 52.9% of the unpaid assistant coaching positions on women's teams (up from 46.4% in 2002.)

Status of Women as Sports Information Directors

• 978 NCAA institutions have full time Sports Information Directors. In 2002 the number was 854. In 2000 the number was 856 and in 1998, there were 786 SIDs.
  
• 12.2% of the full-time Sports Information Directors are women, virtually the same percentage as in 2002 (12.3%). The highest percentage of female full time Sports Information Directors (14.5%) is found in Division III.
  
• Less than 4% of NCAA schools lack a fulltime Sports Information Director.
  
• 11.6% of Division I Sports Information Directors are female.

Status of Women as Athletic Trainers

• 972 (up from 703 in 2002) institutions have full time head Athletic Trainers. In 2000 the number was 915. This variation in numbers may be due to the fluidity of schools contracting out their training needs.
  
• 30.0% (up from 27.8% in 2002) of the full time head Athletic Trainers are females. The highest percentage of female head Athletic Trainers (38.9%) is found in Division III. and the lowest percent (20.3%) is found in Division I.

Status of Women as Administrators

• When Title IX was enacted in 1972, more than 90% of women's programs were directed by a female head administrator. Today, only 18.5% are.
  
• The 18.5% of women's programs directed by a female represents an increase from 17.9% in 2002. In 2000 the figure was 17.8% and in 1998 the figure was 19.4% .
  
• No female at all, at any level, is found in the administrative structure of 17.8% (down from 18.8% in 2002) women's athletics programs.
  
• Division I contains the fewest programs lacking a female in the administrative structure (6.3%) with Division II at 30.2% and Division III at 18.8%. Division I averages 5.11 administrators and thus there are more jobs with which to include females. However, the disparity in the inclusion of females from Division II to III cannot be due to the size of the administrative staff because both divisions are quite similar in size (Division II = 2.46 administrators, Division III = 2.44 administrators).
  
• The average NCAA athletics program employs 3.32 administrators of whom 1.15 are female.
  
• There are more female college presidents of Division IA schools than there are female athletic directors in Division IA programs.
  
• There are 3356 administrative jobs in NCAA programs offering women's athletics in 2004 (up from 3210 jobs in 2002).
  
• In 2004, women hold 34.6% of the administrative positions (down from 40% in 2002). In terms of jobs rather than percentages, in 2004, females held 120 fewer administrative jobs than in 2002 but 162 more jobs than four years before in 2000.
  
• Division I includes the smallest percentage of programs with a female Athletic Director (8.7%). Division II includes 16.9% and Division III includes 27.5%.
  
• The absolute number of female athletic directors is 187 up by 11 from 2002. There were 171 in 2000 and 188 in 1998. Thus, in the past 6 years, because there has been an increase in the number of programs for female athletes but the absolute number of female athletic directors has remained static, there has been a loss in the presence of a female voice in the athletic directors' offices of NCAA schools.

Background
The architecture of sports for females in the United States has changed considerably since the enactment of Title IX in 1972, which prohibited sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funds.

The 1970s
A year or two before Title IX's passage 16,000 college female athletes participated on varsity teams. They did so without scholarship assistance, with very little institutional financial backing for coaches, uniforms, travel, locker rooms, medical assistance, or athletic training. They either drove themselves or rode in drafty school buses to away games. During competitions, they wore generic pinnies (cloth vestlike creations) over white shirts and shorts to denote to which team they belonged. Their seasons were short; women were not expected to have the stamina needed for full length seasons. On the other hand, the short seasons made it possible for many of the athletes of the day to play on more than one varsity team each year. They played hard, competed with heart, practiced in ill maintained ‘women's gymnasia', and were generally unrecognized for their efforts and accomplishments.

In 1971, the AIAW (Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women) became a model and a new voice in the structure of collegiate sports for women. The AIAW became the advocate for high level competitive opportunities for the nation's female collegiate athletes. When the AIAW was a few months old and still trying to formulate its policies, Congress passed Title IX on June 23, 1972.

With the passage of Title IX, a massive growth in participation took place. In contrast to the massive growth in participation, leadership positions such as coach, athletics director, and official, previously held most frequently by females, became more often occupied by males. Despite the presence of anti-sex discrimination legislation, no concomitant increase in the representation of female leaders in men's athletics took place.

The 1980s
The 1980s saw many changes including: (1) the demise of the AIAW when the NCAA took over women's athletics and (2) the effects of historic lawsuits and legislation concerning the application of Title IX's jurisdiction to college athletics. The Title IX caselaw of the 1980s helped define the reach of Title IX's jurisdiction. By 1980 the number of varsity teams for women on college campus grew from a 1972 average of 2.5 to 6.48. By the end of the 1980s the number had grown to about 7.2. The growth continued even in the face of Title IX's loss of jurisdiction over collegiate athletics and physical education programs for four years as a result of the 1984 United States Supreme Court decision in Grove City College v Bell.

1988 saw the end of the negative impact of the Grove City decision when, over presidential veto, Congress passed the Civil Rights Restoration Act (CRRA) which, by clarifying the meaning of the word ‘program' in the one sentence law known as Title IX to mean ‘institution wide' rather than ‘sub unit'.

The 1990s
In the 1990s, additional lawsuits provided more knowledge concerning Title IX and focusing more on the enforcement of Title IX rather than its jurisdiction. In 1992 the Franklin v Gwinnett unanimous United States Supreme Court decision determined that punitive and compensatory damages are available to the successful plaintiff in a case involving intentional violations of Title IX. Other cases determined that access to opportunity could be measured by meeting any one of three methods included the much debated ‘proportionality prong'.

The 2000s
Cases in the courts are exploring the applicability of Title IX jurisdiction to the conference, associations, leagues and even the NCAA itself. Much of the focus on Title IX in 2002 and 2003 centered around the loss of men's ‘minor' sports at the hands of administrators who sacrificed them rather than restructure the favored status of budgets for ‘premier' men's teams, most frequently football, in order to meet the mandates of providing access to both male and female students to the benefits of athletics.

Several lawsuits as well as a much heralded federal commission resulted in a reaffirmation of the long existing regulations and policies of Title IX plus promises for more vigorous enforcement efforts on the part of the Office for Civil Rights. We believe that the goal should be greater participation for both males and females.