The Prevalence of Black Females In College Sports: It’s Just An Illusion
If you had a chance to watch the NCAA women’s basketball championship in April, you probably noticed that 80 percent of the starters for Rutgers and Tennessee were non-White. Don’t be fooled into thinking this apparent diversity is representative of collegiate sports, because the prevalence of Black females in Division I sports is just an illusion.
http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_7384.shtml
June 6th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
As a coach at a racially diverse, large suburban public high school, the females in our sports program mirror this trend. Basketball, track and cheerleading almost exclusively African-American while our other 10 girls sports team are predominately caucasion. The issue as I see it is to break the stereotype that there are only certain sports that black athletes will participate. We also see the same trend with our boy\’s sports teams. We very aggressively recruit African-American students to participate in all our sports teams, but have not been successful. Find a way to increase participation at the entry levels of high school sports and you will see the college numbers change. The girls who have gone against the trend have had outstanding high school careers and many have gone on to compete in college.
June 20th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
I agree on some parts of Dr Gill story, but also disagree on some. His facts are very true about female racial un-balance among university athletes, but beyond that, story has no merit. Forcing athletes to join certain sports, so that some quotas can be filled is simply irrational. Process of self-selection or freedom to choose is the basis of democracy. Dr Gill’s example reminds me of University caffeterias across the country, or church’s Sunday morning services - where both show that many people of different race choose to “sit” among people of their own color, again, by choice.
Providing egual opportunity via Title IX for male/female athletes is as far as NCAA should go. A number of female athletes did/do benefit from it, but it is not NCAAs place to promote Title IX to a specific race. This, perhaps, should be left for their parents, coaches, teachers, pastors, etc…As Adam Smith said - do not undermine the power of invisible hand.