SO MUCH WOKENESS, SO LITTLE WINNING.

Longtime sports scold Richard Lapchick is back, with a familiar wheeze.  "College sports not living up to the ideals of social justice and equal opportunity."

Brace yourself, it's the usual nose counting and box ticking.

I find myself disappointed each year when we release the College Sport Racial and Gender Report Card (RGRC). I knew that I wanted to work toward creating more opportunity for women and people of color in professional sport. Somehow, I naïvely thought that college sports would take care of itself. So here we are more than five decades later as we release the 2021 College Sport Racial and Gender Report Card, published by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) at the University of Central Florida. It is embarrassing that of all the report cards we do, college sports consistently has some of the worst results. This year was no exception.

I cavil at the bundling of "diversity" with "ethics" although the mind contemplates the dilemma of a sports program that ticks a lot of diversity boxes and yet is one under-the-table bonus away from the death sentence.  That, however, is too adult a problem for elderly activists, who think that nose counting is a prima facie argument for implicit biases or something.

The failure starts at the top of the athletic departments: 82.3%, 89.9%, and 90.5% of athletic directors at Division I, II and III, respectively, were white. And 71.6%, 68.1% and 61.3% of athletic directors were white men.

The pipeline for the AD positions is almost nonexistent for people of color. At the associate athletic director level, white people held 84.0%, 87.3% and 90.7% of these positions in Divisions I, II and III, respectively. White men hold 58.0% of associate athletic positions in Division I, 51.5% in Division II, and 47.9% in Division III.

In addition, the senior woman administrator position is held by an overwhelming majority by white women, who represent 79.0%, 85.1% and 91.0% of these positions in Divisions I, II and III, respectively.

The horror!

At Northern Illinois University, there are plenty of noses of color to count.  Enough, apparently, for an award (if not for a gold star from that institute for diversity and ethics).  "Northern Illinois University (NIU) athletics won the NCAA and Minority Opportunities Athletic Association's Award for Diversity and Inclusion for the second time."  It's apparently easier to work at winning diversity awards than it is to, oh, win games.

In 2013, NIU established the Diversity Integration Group (DIG) in order to “discuss ongoing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts and participate in DEI actions.”

“Diversity, equity and inclusion are woven into the fabric of NIU’s athletic department,” the NIU athletics site states.

DIG members include athletic coaches, administrators, student-athletes, a coordinator for undocumented student support, and directors of the Center for Black Studies, Gender and Sexuality Resource Center, and Latino Resource Center.

The university’s hiring practices are focused on racial and gender diversity as “NIU is the only Football Bowl Subdivision school led by a female president whose director of athletics, head football coach and head men's basketball coach are all African American," the NCAA states on its website.

They're losing enrollment, and faculty and staff job actions have become a feature of late.  Apparently, though, repeating at this diversity award doesn't even involve setting those beginning of the season goals.

DIG chair Courtney Vinson told Campus Reform that the group’s goal was “never to win the award.”

“The goal for us is always to make sure we are creating environment spaces for our staff and our student-athletes and our coaches that aren’t riddled with bias,” she continued. “Like we want people to be their authentic selves.”

“The award is icing on the cake,” Vinson concluded.

Maybe winning a few games ought to be more of a value. Women's volleyball put the latest iteration of the freak flag as their social media avatar, then barely made the conference tournament, and bowed out after one game. They used to be better.  The basketball teams?  There's a lot of diversity, inclusion, and equity virtue signalling on social media and during games, and the ladies are still making the grade.  Conference tournament appearances?  Not so much.  But Richard Lapchick doesn't worry about the winning.  "Those seeking change must push harder to keep the momentum created by the racial reckoning. Our voices need to be amplified, and our messages for diversity and inclusion to become operating principles in our athletic departments and at the NCAA headquarters."  Maybe "mediocre teams" qualify under the rubrics of diversity and inclusion.