Women in Coaching: The Representation of Gender throughout NCAA Division III Head CoachingStaff

Science Center, Bent Corridor

The purpose of this research is to record more accurate information on the numbers of female head coaches for National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III women’s teams, and to note which institutions and sports lack in female head coaching staff. As Title IX nears its forty-fifth anniversary, the collegiate sports world still lags in female coaching leadership. A recent longitudinal study by Acosta & Carpenter found that in the entire NCAA, 55% of all women’s teams are coached by men, but only 4-6% of men’s teams are coached by women. Most studies on gender equity in coaching focus on Division I athletics as a result of the prestige and funding afforded to their programs. However, Division III is the largest and most diverse division with the most competing institutions and athletes, giving researchers a glimpse at what the smaller numbers in Division I do not reveal. The findings of this report ultimately seek to establish a baseline in the numbers of female head coaches for Division III women’s teams in order to support future research. Data collection took place by visiting each of the 440 institution’s athletics homepage and tallying the number of female head coaches for each sport in the 2014-2015 seasons. This research is unique in that it focuses on the numbers of female coaches in each individual sport, which will allow further research into understanding why certain sports are bereft of female head coaches and what can be done to retain and even increase these numbers.