Reply to I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes. "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Some of the frustration with "white privilege" in the athletic context is likely based on studies and books which used data that's quickly become dated. There is currently an over representation of white NCAA athletes, but the magnitude, rate of change, and self-selection tendencies by certain groups for different division levels might be different than what's been implied in some posts on this thread.

The percentage of NCAA athletes that are non-Hispanic white has dropped by an average of almost 1% a year for the past ten years at all three NCAA levels (8% total overall drop for each, which seems very unlikely to be due to chance). At present, white athletes across all divisions combined make up about 3% more than in the general population (62 vs 59.) Over that period, Black athletes have been steady and also higher than their general population figure (16% vs 14%), so the percentage lost by whites over the last decade has gone to other groups. If the trend continues, total NCAA white athlete representation will be lower than the general population sometime around 2026 or 2027. At present, the most clearly underrepresented groups would include Hispanic (7% athletes vs 19% for general population) and Asian (2% vs 6%.)

The percentage of white athletes is indeed higher at the D3 level (72%) than at the D1 (55%) where they already are underrepresented relative to the general population (59%). That difference is partly because the percentage of Black athletes is higher at D1 schools than at D3. An athlete already good enough to get recruited by a D1 school would receive even more interest at the D3 level if they chose to seek it. Black athletes are the only domestic group with a significantly larger share at the D1 level than D3 (20% vs 10%; Two or More Races also goes up but the numbers are much smaller, 6% vs 4%; of note, Intl is 7% vs 1%.) So it would appear it's more common for a given Black athlete than a given white one (or any other domestic group) to self-select D1 athletic scholarships and higher/pre-professional level of competition and greater institutional brand awareness (ie, universities tend to be better known generally) over going to smaller schools to have, on average, better access to professors and smaller classes. Also worth bearing in mind is that D3 schools will likely have the highest percentage of walk-ons.

None of this has anything directly to do with the false claim made in the title of this thread. LACs as a group might average ~15% recruits per cohort, but certainly not "40%+."

The NCAA offers a fairly thorough demographic database (it's updated through 22 despite the url saying 2018.) It doesn't separate out by recruit vs walk-on or by league, as far as I can tell.

https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2018/12/13/ncaa-demographics-database.aspx

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045222[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics