The Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport at the University of Minnesota released its annual Women in College Coaching Report Card (WCCRC) in collaboration with WeCOACH. The goal of the Women in College Coaching Report CardTM is to document the percentage of women collegiate head coaches of women’s teams by gender and race over time. Data matters! Based on the numbers this year the new era of STEADY INCLINE for intercollegiate Division-I women sport coaches at the most visible, powerful institutions is firmly in place.
Data in the 12th year of the WCCRC points to some ‘firsts’ and some good news!
Based on the numbers this year the new era of STEADY INCLINE for intercollegiate Division-I women sport coaches at the most visible, powerful institutions is firmly in place.
• The percentage of women head coaches of NCAA D-I women’s teams increased for the seventh year in row and for the TENTH year in a row in the seven select conferences marking a decade of improvement.
• The percentage of women head coaches for the select seven conferences marked the
second greatest increase (1.4%), building off momentum from the largest gain to date in the 2022-2023 Report Card (2.3% increase).
• The percentage of women head coaches for all NCAA D-I conferences increased by the
largest margin (1.9%) in the history of the Report Card.
• For all NCAA D-I conferences
• the most institutional A grades were earned (29 of 362, 8%), and the fewest Fs.
• the largest number of sports earned an A grade this year (n = 7).
• University of Cincinnati has earned an A grade every year of the report.
• The percentage of women head coaches hired per year has more than doubled (51.9%) since we started the WCCRC in 2013 (25.8%).
• For three years in a row, a majority of positional vacancies in the select seven were filled by women.
• 2023-2024 marked the highest number of women coaches of color in the history of the report card (n = 308).
• The percentage of NCAA D-I women coaches of color increased from 245 (6.7%) in 2021- 22 to 308 (8.3%) in 2023-24.
To see the full report and which institutions, sports and conferences get passing and failing grades go to TuckerCenter.org.