In the last 50 years, the number of female athletes in college sports dramatically increased. However, women coaches are more underrepresented in women’s college sports than they were 50 years ago.
Currently at Elon, approximately 26% of non-volunteer coaches are women 一 double counting for coaches who are on staff with multiple teams.
At Elon female coaches in women’s sports make up just above 50% of all coaches and 44% of head coaches. Nationally, in Division I about 42% of head coaches for women's sports teams were female, according to the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sports.
As for men’s sports only one of the 28 Elon men’s varsity sports coaches is female: assistant track and field and cross country coach Laura Iguana, the coach for both men’s and women’s cross country and women’s track and field. In 2017, approximately 3% of men’s Division I head coaches were women, according to the NCAA.
Female collegiate coaches have not always been underrepresented in women’s sports. The trend started when Title IX 一 a law, which prohibits federally funded institutions from discriminating on the basis of sex 一 was enacted in 1972 and greatly increased representation of female athletes.