Women's Leadership in American Sport: Progressing or Backsliding?
By Sheila Robertson, Canadian Journal for Women in Coaching

A common assumption by women in sport outside the borders of the United States is that, thanks in large part to Title IX, their American counterparts are upwardly mobile, moving in ever-increasing numbers into leadership positions as coaches, senior administrators, and, for the purpose of this article, athletic directors (ADs). However, speaking at the 2005 Congress of the International Association of Physical Education and Sport for Girls and Women, Dr. Nancy Lough, (NACWAA/HERS 2004 West graduate), then an associate professor of sport administration at the University of New Mexico and now associate professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas , surprised her audience when she said that, in fact, the number of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I women ADs is decreasing, that there is virtually no movement by women ADs from Division II and Division III schools to Division I, and, further, that the advancement of senior woman administrators (SWAs), the one position designated for a woman and that would logically be the most likely to prepare her to climb the ladder, appears stalled.

If we accept that AD is the highest position, with the highest status and the highest profile that a sport administrator can aspire to in American university sport, then there is value in examining the reality for ambitious women within the context of Nancy's remarks, which are based upon research by her, Dr. Heidi Grappendorf and Dr. Joy Griffin and reported in the International Journal of Sport Management.

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