Gender equity in two‐year college athletic departments: Part II

Abstract

In a series on college sport that appeared in the New York Times in the spring of 2007, the power of athletics to create a brand image for four-year colleges and universities was demonstrated in a slide show that displayed only the pompoms of seven mystery schools. The challenge for the reader so inclined was to identify the school on the basis of the colors alone. With that mere suggestion, the names of the nation's powerhouse athletic programs-Florida, Penn State, Notre Dame, Tennessee, North Carolina, Michigan, and Alabama-were evoked easily and, well, shall we say, with a bit of fanfare (Kahn, 2007).In contrast, no such comparable fanfare accompanies discussion of athletic programs at two-year institutions. As writer Robert Andrew Powell (2007) pointed out, "Intercollegiate athletics at junior colleges . . . are largely anonymous, followed mostly by recruitniks and other talent obsessives" (n.p.). As resonant as that depiction of community college athletics is, it belies the complexity of the sensitive ecosystem within which athletic programs in two-year institutions exist and obscures the factors that shape two-year athletic programs across the nation.Reflective of this unique status, Karen Sykes, president of the NJCAA, commented on the tenuous position that athletic programs occupy in twoyear institutions in comparison to their secondary and four-year counterparts, in testimony before the U.