The statistics surrounding Division I men’s college basketball, discussed in the previous article, were insightful. What was interesting with the data regarding Division I men’s college basketball coaches is that while head coaches of color are severely lacking in relation to student-athletes of color, this is not the case with assistant coaches. For assistant coaches, nearly 48% were black, and almost 2% were mixed race. For head coaches, less than 28% were black, and a fraction of a percent was mixed. These numbers are interesting because it shows that people of color are more highly represented in assistant coaching positions, which are in their very nature inferior to the head coaching jobs.
The coaching position on a team with the most power and influence is the head coaching position. Representation at the assistant coaching positions is excellent. Still, it shows a more profound issue in Division I men’s college basketball. The problem is that people of color aren’t attaining the highest position of power as much as whites are.
How Many Programs Have Black Coaches?
According to an article by FiveThirtyEight in March 2021, only 13 out of 77 major men’s college basketball programs were led by black coaches for the 2020-2021 season. Additionally, none of the “blue bloods of college basketball,” including Duke, North Carolina, Kansas, and Kentucky, have a black coach. None of these schools has ever hired a black head coach, except for Kentucky, which has hired one black coach in the past. Out of the top 25 winningest programs in Division I men’s college basketball, only two are led by black coaches currently. Perhaps one of the worst displays of the lack of diversity in college basketball head coaching is that the Pac-12, the most competitive conference in the west, has 0 black head coaches: all of them are white men.
Why Is There Such A Lack of Coaching Diversity?
The NCAA has been pushing for more diversity of coaches over the past few years. But increasing the level of diversity with coaches in men’s college basketball doesn’t seem to be something that can or will happen overnight. According to an article by NBC Sports, the issue of diversity is more profound than simply coaching: it’s the entire athletics department at many of these universities. The article mentions how a significant complaint that coaches of color have is the lack of diversity in the hiring process. This is because since people tend to hire people who look like them or can relate to more, if a sporting director is white, he is probably more likely to hire a white head coach or coaching staff. To break through this pre-existing barrier of entry that coaches of color typically face, black coaches must take more challenging jobs than their counterparts to prove themselves. Once they’ve proven themselves to have what it takes, they are then considered to be hired for “top-flight” positions.
How Is the Coaching Diversity Problem Being Addressed?
Some conferences are moving in the right direction in diversifying their coaches. For the powerhouse conference of Division I men’s college basketball, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), 5 out of the 15 head coaches were black, which is not great but it’s a good starting point. Also, according to The Athletic, more than half of the head coaches hired during the hiring cycle following the 2020-2021 season were black, which included seven new head coaches at the power-conference level, 51 schools hired new head coaches, and of those 26 were black.
While the push for diversity in Division I men’s college basketball coaching is helping to bring change for the better to the sport, there is still much to be done. There are 350 universities, divided into 32 conferences, that make up Division I men’s college basketball. While most of them lack coaching diversity, evidence suggests that the future looks brighter. Hopefully, there will be a change in the foreseeable future with the continued spotlight on the lack of black and other minority coaches in the league, especially at the most competitive programs.
