Date of Degree
2025
Degree Name
Ed.D. (Doctor of Education)
Department
Department of Counseling and Higher Education (CAHE)
Director
Gyant, LaVerne
Committee Members
Jaekel, Katy; Myers Caldwell, Katrina
Keywords
Black women, NCAA, head coaches, representation, Division I, systemic barriers, assistant coaches, student-athletes, lived experiences, leadership
Abstract
Black women serving as NCAA college head women’s basketball coaches have limited representation and opportunities especially at the most elite Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) level. In Division I FBS women’s basketball programs, White women hold 38% of the head coaching positions and Black women hold 22. This is troubling because women’s basketball rosters reflect a quantity of Black women assistant coaches (37%) and Black women student-athletes (46%) which exceed the quantities of their White peers, yet they fail to rise in equitable quantities into head coaching positions. There is no plausible explanation for the inequitable representation of Black women head women’s basketball coaches (BWHWBC) beyond historic systemic barriers.
This study examined the lived experiences of Black women serving as head women’s basketball coaches at the most elite NCAA Division I level, the barriers they encounter, and their recommendations for advancing Black women into leadership within college athletics. The history of women in college women’s basketball was examined through legislation, governing associations, college Division I leadership, and systemic barriers. Content analysis was the research methodology used to examine documents focused on the five Black women selected as participants for this study. The six themes which emerged from the study were (1) committed advocate, (2) family, (3) surrogate mom, (4) responsibility (5) belief system, and (6) relationship builder. Recommendations for future research and implications to my professional practice were discussed.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Publisher
Northern Illinois University
Rights Statement
In Copyright
Rights Statement 2
NIU theses and dissertations are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors, unless otherwise indicated.
Recommended Citation
Bernoudy, Monique, "THE WINNING COMBINATION: A STUDY OF THE EXPERIENCES OF BLACK WOMEN HEAD WOMEN BASKETBALL COACHES ON THE DIVISION I LEVEL" (2025). Dissertations of Practice. 72.
https://huskiecommons.lib.niu.edu/allgraduate-disspractice/72
