College Paper Reports on Pay Gap in Coaching

Earlier this week the AAUW released a report on the post-graduation pay gap between men and women. According to the report, women earn 80 percent of what men make just one year after college. 10 years after graduation, women are earning 69 cents on the dollar compared to men's salaries.

Perhaps it was the AAUW report that inspired a sports writer for the student newspaper at Ball State to do a little salary comparison of his own. Using the university's public filings under the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act, he calculated the average salary of a male head coaches (including those coaching women's teams) at $121,752, compared to the average salary of female coaches, $81,195. Furthermore, assistant coaches of men's team average $63,306 a year, twice as high as the $33,073 that women's team's assistants make. (He doesn't report whether male assistant coaches are included in the average for women's teams assistants, though.)

This is yet another dimension to the gender gap in coaching we've been blogging about lately. Fewer qualified women are likely to apply for coaching positions if they can only expect to earn 50 to 66 cents on the dollar. They're better off in other jobs, where they can at least expect 69 to 80 cents on the dollar!