When It Comes to ADs, There Appears to Be a Glass Ceiling
UNSCRIPTED
By Keith Edmonds
Ink Spot Contributing Writer
Being an athletic director takes abilities that are far-reaching in terms of administrative duties at the collegiate level, but even more at the secondary or high school levels. If you’ve ever been a head coach in any sport at the high school level, you understand that, depending on the sport, you are responsible for everything that occurs in your program.
Now take that position and apply it to every athletic program in the school — that's the athletic director's life. An AD oversees transportation, budget, facility usage, equipment, scheduling of officials, and athletic contests daily. This requires people who can not only multi-task but also understand how to interact with coaches who lead these respective programs.
The days are long, the nights longer.
And it's a job overwhelmingly directed by white males.
“The odds of us getting jobs at the same rate as our white counterparts are very slim. We will always have to be ten times more qualified in our credentials and experiences just to have a fighting chance to be interviewed than our white colleagues.” This quote, taken from Global Sports Matters, sounds all too familiar. The data bears this out. Incoming college ADs were white (77%) and male (88%) but for women the overall percentage of them being hired is 12% — a 4 basis point jump from the year before. The majority of women who were hired had NCAA coaching experience, which appears, unlike their male counterparts, to be a gender-specific prerequisite. Even more alarming is that historically black colleges and universities (HCBUs) accounted for 37% of black men and 36% of all minority hires in the past 10 years.
The lack of diversity among athletic directors is no better at the high school level. In our city, the Summit Athletic Conference consists of ten schools that compete at the high school level in anywhere from 15-20 sports each year in the state of Indiana governed by the Indiana High School Athletic Association (IHSAA). The conference has certainly been represented by quality minority coaches on both the girls and boy sides who have shown that they can provide quality leadership and represent their schools and communities with class and dignity. Yet, there is not a black or minority AD at any of the 10 SAC schools. Are they not applying, or not being given an opportunity?
Fort Wayne Community Schools is the largest school district in the state of Indiana. In its high schools — Wayne, Snider, South Side, North Side, and Northrop — there are over 10,000 students that deserve to see women and minorities in leadership positions.
I have spoken with coaches, teachers and individuals in the community who would jump at the opportunity to fill these positions as they open up, but they’re hardly (if ever) asked to interview, nor do they apply simply because they feel that the window of opportunity is small. Now please understand, the purpose of this commentary is not to disparage those that are currently serving as athletic directors in our area but more to highlight the fact that there is a huge imbalance in administrative structuring in this city and this should be discussed thoroughly.
In speaking with ADs in the area many have expressed their willingness to have an assistant athletic director alongside them to help shoulder the weight that comes with daily activities asked of this position.
I’m lobbying for this position to be considered as an inclusion in our area schools. You can’t deny, these positions are scarcely filled by minorities and this needs to be discussed more in-depth moving forward.
Sometimes, if you look closer there are diamonds out there that only need to be polished and allowed to shine with the brilliance that resonates from them. It’s an on-going battle nationally but even more so locally. It starts with the small step of “acceptance” then proceeds with the next step of “trust.”