Inequalities in the NCAA

2021 will always be a year to go down in history for the NCAA Women’s March Madness Tournament. After being canceled last year due to the global pandemic, the players were amped and ready to compete. However, there were significant gaps in the gender equality of the men’s and women’s tournaments. Despite these inequalities, however, for the first time, two black women were head coaches at the same time during the Final Four. 

Over the course of the tournament, multiple players and coaches posted on social media regarding the severe inequalities between the men’s and women’s tournaments. Colin White, a college basketball fan, stated “I saw a few things floating around social media”. Sedona Prince, a forward for the Oregon Ducks, posted multiple Tik Tok videos exposing the unfair treatment of the female teams. She showed the difference between the huge men’s weight room and the tiny space they were provided. They were given one set of dumbbells, some yoga mats, and a single stationary bike. Sedona also brought attention to the food and gift bag differences. The food given to the women’s teams was all prepackaged while the men’s teams had big buffets. The men’s gift bags had enough items to fill a bed while the women’s had enough to fill a drawstring bag. 

Lynn Holzman, NCAA vice president of women’s basketball, and Dan Gavitt, senior president of basketball for NCAA, both apologized for the situation but failed to offer an explanation of how it happened in the first place. They also claim that the attention was not brought to their attention until the explosion of social media posts.

While this issue brought a lot of negative attention to the NCAA, there was a positive part of the tournament. A historic mark was made when two black female head coaches made it to the Final Four. South Carolina’s Dawn Staley and Arizona’s Adia Barnes were the two coaches and they both were former WNBA players. Staley was appearing in her third Final Four game while it was Barne’s debut. Staley expressed to the press “there are so many Black coaches out there that don’t get the opportunity because when the AD’s don’t see it, they don’t see it – they’re going to see it on the biggest stage of a Friday night, that two Black women are representing two programs in the Final Four, something that has never been done before”. Former college basketball player Jeff Mann expressed “it shows that there are potential color barriers that are breaking when it comes to any college basketball program” when he was asked about the representation in this tournament. The support of this community is undeniably there when it comes to the representation of race. 

South Carolina faced Stanford but lost 66-65 while Arizona faced UConn and won with a score of 69-59. Arizona moved onto the final game but was, sadly, beaten by Stanford 54-53.