College Sports: A Work in Progress

Each fall, Charmin Smith, head women’s basketball coach at University of California, Berkeley, welcomes three other Black female Division I head coaches and their teams to campus for the Raising the B.A.R. (Basketball Activism and Representation) Invitational. She rebranded Cal’s annual tournament to reflect a focus on social justice and equity.

Dr. Aaron Goodson“It’s really important that we see Black women in this position of leadership as head coaches in our sport,” says Smith, who is co-chair of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee. “In my tournament, you’re always going to see four Black females leading their teams. We also highlight things they’re doing in their own communities and on their campuses to promote social justice.”

Smith acknowledges that much progress has been made since she was a student-athlete at Stanford University in the 1990s — notably DEI divisions in athletic departments — but most athletic staffs don’t reflect the student-athlete populations. “We still have an industry in which the people making the hires are predominantly white males,” she says.

Action taken

While there has been steady advancement over the past 40 years, the murder of George Floyd in 2020 has proven to be a seminal moment that has propelled student-athletes, coaches, and administrators to face issues of race and racism in college sports. As the Black Lives Matter movement mobilized after Floyd’s death, Black student-athlete groups were formed around the country that openly stated their issues and insisted that administration recognize their concerns.