Leaders at Football Powers Still Mostly White, Male

The people in charge of Football Bowl Subdivision teams, institutions and conferences are “overwhelmingly” white and male, but at 19, the number of minority head coaches reached a record high in the 2011 season, according to a new study from the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport. “Even though there was progress toward diversity, we can hardly say we are close to looking like America when it comes to who is leading college sport,” said Richard Lapchick, the institute’s director and principal author of the report. Of the college presidents at the 120 institutions, 90.8 percent are white and 81.7 percent are male. Among athletics directors,  88.3 percent are white and 95.8 percent are male. Commissioners of the institutions' conferences are all white and male. In total, 91.2 percent of the 365 campus leadership positions accounted for in the report are filled by white people. Seventy-five percent and 84.2 percent of the college presidents and athletic directors, respectively, are white men (only three presidents are minority women). In contrast, black students make up the majority -- 52.1 percent -- of the athletes playing football for the colleges.