Wikipedia #5/Wikipedia #6 Assignment
editThese are additions I am planning on making to the "Race and sports" article. Specifically the sections "Participation and performance disparities," "black athletic superiority," and "Positions of power: coaching and administration."
Participation and performance disparities
editParticipation
editNCAA sports have mirrored the trends present in American professional sports. During the 2005-2006 season, black males comprised 46.9 percent of NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and 58.9 percent of NCAA Division I basketball.[1] The NCAA statistics are important because there is a strong correlation between percentage of black athletes within a sport and the revenue generated by that sport. For example, University of North Carolina's 2007-2008 men's basketball team (the team was 59% black relative to the 3.7% black population of the institution as a whole) generated $17,215,199 in revenue, which comprised 30 percent of the school's athletic revenue for the year.[2] . Given NCAA rules prohibiting the payment of players, some have come to see the structure of NCAA athletics as exploitative of college athletes. Some believe that since black athletes comprise a high percentage of athletes in high revenue college sports (FBS football and Division I Men's basketball),that they are the biggest losers in this arrangement. Billy Hawkins argues that "the control over the Black male's body and profiting off its physical expenditure is in the hands of White males."[3] His position refers to the fact that a very high percentage of Division I universities are controlled by white administrations, and thus prosper greatly from the free labor produced by the revenue sports that are heavily populated by black athletes. This claim is substantiated by statistics, such as the fact that during the 2005-2006 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament, games started and minutes played for black athletes were over double that of their white counterparts, with 68.7 percent of scoring in the tournament coming from black players.[4]
Graduation Rates
editDespite the high rate of participation in the NCAA amongst black athletes, the rates of on-court success have not necessarily translated to the classroom. A racial divide has come to exist in terms of graduation. A University of Central Florida study of 2011 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament teams indicated that only 59 percent of black players graduated, a stark contrast to the 91 percent of white players who completed their undergraduate studies[5] As poor as the overall numbers are, they can be much more alarming at the individual level. An example of this is the Kansas State men's basketball program that graduates 100 percent of its white players and only 14 percent of its black players.[6] The other main NCAA revenue sport, FBS football, has endured similarly glaring graduation discrepancies between white and black athletes. The 2011-12 TIDES report on bowl-bound FBS teams found that the average Graduation Success Rate for white football student athletes is 81 percent on bowl-bound teams, while standing at only 61 percent for black student athletes.[7] Moreover, 26 percent of the bowl-bound schools graduated less than half of their African-American football student athletes, while not a single school graduated less than half of its white student athletes.[8]
Racial prejudices, discrimination, segregation, and integration
editPositions of power: coaching and administration
editSimilar to the discrepancy between participation and leadership of blacks in American professional leagues, NCAA sports also have had a similarly low percentage of administrators and coaches relative to the number of athletes. For example, during the 2005-2006 academic year, high revenue NCAA sports (basketball and football) were comprised of 50.8 percent black student athletes, whereas only 17.1 percent of head coaches in the same high revenue sports were black[9] Also, in the same 2005-2006 year, only 5.5 percent of athletic directors at Division I "PWIs" (Primarily White Institutions), were black.[10] Terry Bowden, a notable white Division I football coach, suggests that the reason many university presidents won't hire black coaches is "because they are worried about how alumni and donors will react."[11] Bowden also refers to the "untapped talent"[12] existing within the ranks of black assistant coaches in DI football. The data backs up this claim, with 26.9 percent of DI assistant coaches during the 2005-06 year in men's revenue sports being black[13], a notably higher percentage than of head coaches. In terms of administrative positions, they have been concentrated largely in the hands of whites. As recently as 2009, 92.5 percent of university presidents in the FBS were white, 87.5 percent of athletic directors were white, and 100 percent of the conference commissioners were white[14]. Despite these statistics, black head coaches have become more prevalent at the FBS level. As of 2012, there are now 15 black head coaches in FBS football[15], including now 3 in the SEC, a conference that did not hire its first black head coach until 2003[16].
References
edit- ^ Hawkins, Billy (2010). The New Plantation: Black Athletes, College Sports, and Predominantly White NCAA Instiutions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 95.
- ^ Hawkins, Billy (2010). The New Plantation: Black Athletes, College Sports, and Predominantly White NCAA Institutions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 112.
- ^ Hawkins, Billy (2010). The New Plantation: Black Athletes, College Sports, and Predominantly White NCAA Institutions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 143.
- ^ Hawkins, Billy (2010). The New Plantation: Black Athletes, College Sports, and Predominantly White NCAA Institutions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
- ^ Gordy, Cynthia. "The Real March Madness: NCAA Graduation Rates".
- ^ Gordy, Cynthia. "The Real March Madness: NCAA Graduation Rates".
- ^ Lapchick, Richard. "Keeping Score When it Counts: Assessing the 2011-12 Bowl-bound College Football Teams; Graduation Rates Improve; Racial Gap Persists".
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(help) - ^ Lapchick, Richard. "Assessing the 2011-12 Bowl-bound College Football Teams; Graduation Rates Improve; Racial Gap Persists".
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(help) - ^ Hawkins, Billy (2010). The New Plantation: Black Athletes, College Sports, and Predominantly White NCAA Institutions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 141–42.
- ^ Hawkins, Billy (2010). The New Plantation: Black Athletes, College Sports, and Predominantly White NCAA Institutions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 141.
- ^ Hawkins, Billy (2010). The New Plantation: Black Athletes, College Sports, and Predominantly White NCAA Institutions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 141.
- ^ Hawkins, Billy (2010). The New Plantation: Black Athletes, College Sports, and Predominantly White NCAA Institutions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
- ^ Hawkins, Billy (2010). The New Plantation: Black Athletes, College Sports, and Predominantly White NCAA Institutions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 142.
- ^ Scott, Kevin. "Tennessee's Hire Shows Racism is Alive and Well in College Football".
- ^ Miller, Ted. "Opportunities for black coaches on the rise".
- ^ Habib, Daniel G. "The Road Ahead: Sylvester Croom's arrival at Mississippi State just starts another journey".