In a small sports conference, he found a game-changer on gender equality
A year after the 50th anniversary of Title IX, lots of work remains to be done around equal opportunity in sports. Our writer found progress around a key role, that of athletic director, in an eight-school conference that doesn't always make big news.
College athletics is big business. That women have been slow to crack into one of its apex positions – that of athletic director – might not come as a surprise.
“There are 65 schools that make up the Power Five conferences,” says the Monitor’s Ira Porter, who covers higher education, referring to the big names you hear about on every sports show in every season. “Only five of them had women as athletic directors,” he learned from an NCAA report.
Then there’s the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC). On social media, Ira caught wind of the fact that this eight-school conference of historically Black colleges and universities did things differently.
Its female commissioner is the conference’s first, Ira says on the Monitor’s “Why We Wrote This” podcast. “And although she’s a trailblazer in her own right, she’s more excited about the five female athletic directors.”
“A lot of them feel like they’ve been preparing for this moment for years,” says Ira. All bring decades of experience, he says, “from coaching to being senior women administrators, to assistant ADs and now ADs.” They told him about being intentional in their own hiring, to maintain momentum.
“I think it’s a part of a much broader shift,” Ira says. “All the people that I spoke with,” he says, “they are looking forward to what can come of this.”
Episode transcript
Clay Collins: A year after the 50th anniversary of Title IX, which sought to address gender inequality in educational settings, there’s been progress, but there’s also a lot left to be done. One especially tough place for women to find representation: the job of athletic director, the leadership position in college athletics. Close to 45% of collegiate athletes are women, but only 15% of Division I ADs are women. And while that figure may more than double when you get down to Division III schools, advocates for change say it’s still a case of underrepresentation.
Ira Porter recently joined the Monitor to cover issues in higher education, and he recently wrote about an eight-college conference that’s modeling leadership in this male-dominated field.
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Collins: This is “Why We Wrote This.” I’m Clay Collins. Ira joins me today. Ira, welcome!
Ira Porter: Clay, how are you doing? Thank you for having me.
Collins: You wrote a remarkable story about quiet gains in one particular small conference. Can you talk a little bit about the genesis of the story?
Porter: Sure, sure. Clay. The name of the conference is the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, and it’s a conference full of historically Black colleges and universities. I first heard about the MEAC Fab Five from a social post, and it led me to the meacsports.com website, and that’s where I saw an article with this big, beautiful picture of these five women who they dubbed the MEAC Fab Five, after the early ’90s University of Michigan [men’s] basketball team. And so what that did was make me look into the issue more. I saw a report that the NCAA had released. And that’s when I found such large discrepancies in terms of women who were athletic directors, specifically in Division I sports. Also, I looked at the Power Five conferences, you know, the most profitable conferences that make billions of dollars each year. And there are 65 schools that make up the Power Five conferences, and only five of them had women as athletic directors.
One of the athletic directors that I spoke with as a part of the Fab Five, her name is Tara Owens, and she is the AD at University of Maryland Eastern Shore. She was very confident in her ability and in being in this space at the moment. But she also talked about the times when she was kind of like the only woman in the room. She knows that other women probably feel the pressure of all the eyes on them.
Collins: And in the MEAC, among the eight schools, there were five that were women-run, and also a female commissioner. Is that right?
Porter: That is true, yes. The commissioner, she is the first female commissioner of the MEAC. And although she’s a trailblazer in her own right, she’s more excited about the five female athletic directors. So she’s the one who coined the term “the MEAC Fab Five.” And I got a chance to speak with her about that.
Collins: Hmm. Obviously football is dominant at many colleges and universities. Why is that such a complicating factor in the AD position? And what else is at the root of this gender imbalance?
Porter: Many of the women that I spoke to for this piece talked about how football, because it was such a large driver of a lot of athletic programs that there was a fear, or discomfort, with women leading football programs because, you know, women had never played football. And in terms of money, specifically with the Power Five schools, it’s big business. But I think what is lost in all of this is that these are administrative positions, the athletic director. So it’s not like women have to suit up and go play football or even have had to do that in years prior.
Another thing is, most of these women, they were senior women administrators. That title, it’s the highest position in athletics specifically designated for women. And it came right out of Title IX. And most of the women that I spoke to were at some point senior women administrators, before they became athletic directors. And they were doing a lot of the work. They just didn’t have the title.
Collins: You’re pretty new to the Monitor, Ira. How did reporting this story merge your own background and interest with the Monitor’s approach of looking at the values behind the news?
Porter: Yes, I started in December. I am a full-time higher education reporter. And at the Monitor we do a really good job at framing our stories around values. So for this one, it was clearly about equality, women taking up space, storming the gates. And I think also it goes along with gains that women have made in academia, as far as being like school presidents or deans. And I think this is kind of like looking toward the future in what women hope to become more regularly.
One of the cool things that I got to do was travel to a basketball game at Delaware State University. They were playing another MEAC rival. And it was a doubleheader between men and women’s basketball teams. And I got a chance to just see the atmosphere that this athletic director curated, not only the basketball game, but alumni, fans, the band, the majorettes. And just kind of like the celebration of the culture and the teams, everything from like the booster club that was close to reaching a financial goal for the season from concession stands. It really gave me a sense of how she interacted with players and coaches. And the president of the university was there. And just the support that they put into the program. I thought it was eye-opening.
Collins: You had direct access to several of these new ADs, the members of the Fab Five. What did you pick up on in terms of their personas and their motivations?
Porter: I’ll say that a lot of them feel like they’ve been preparing for this moment for years. All of them have probably at least two decades or more of experience in collegiate athletics, from coaching to being senior women administrators, to assistant ADs and now ADs. They talked about being very intentional about the staff that they hire. One woman in particular, the athletic director for Delaware State University, her name is Alecia Shields-Gadson. And she talked about having like transformational leadership, empowering the people who work under her. But setting a tone for them moving forward with things that she wanted to get done.
Collins: These gains for women are coming from within, as you say, a conference of historically Black colleges and universities. Does that compound the win, in a way, that it’s a leadership role for HBCUs too?
Porter: I think so. When we talk about a part of the national conversation over the last couple of years with funding, and everything that came out of the George Floyd protests, people are paying more attention to HBCUs. You see Deion Sanders. He was previously the coach at Jackson State University, which is an HBCU. And he brought up a lot of attention, a lot of eyes to that program and sponsorship and partnerships. And I think other HBCUs wanted to capitalize on that. And I think this is just another showcase of just being progressive.
Collins: Hmm. When we talked off mic, you talked about this being a movement and getting more of the national spotlight, more sponsorships, better facilities. It feels like the NCAA is taking notice. Is this more than a one-off victory for diversity and equity, this small league at the AD level?
Porter: I think it’s a part of a much broader shift. All the people that I spoke with for this [story], they are looking forward to what can come of this. And even if you look at the report that the NCAA released, they talked about the increase in female athletes in championship sports. They talked about an increase in female coaches and athletic directors. I think they would acknowledge that there is room to grow, but I think this is looking forward to what could be.
I’m reminded about the 2021 women’s basketball tournament, when the player Sedona Prince, from Oregon, posted a video of the women’s workout facilities and it was just like a one-bar weight rack. And she juxtaposed it with the men’s basketball workout facilities. And [that] looked like [the facility of] a professional basketball team. Once that hit social media, the NCAA had to quickly fix that. And I think they’re paying more attention to that. If you look at women’s basketball, if you look at the Final Four last year, when you talk about the number of eyes watching, the popularity of players. and I think it’s growing and I think it’s, this is just another part of it.
Collins: Thank you Ira, for talking about this great early contribution of yours to the Monitor. And welcome to the Monitor team.
Porter: Thanks for having me.
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Collins: Thanks for listening. You can find more, including our show notes with links to Ira’s work, at csmonitor.com/WhyWeWroteThis, or wherever you listen to podcasts. This episode was hosted by me, Clay Collins, and produced by Jingnan Peng. Tim Malone and Alyssa Britton were our engineers, with original music by Noel Flatt. Produced by The Christian Science Monitor. Copyright 2023.
