Campuses increase female teams, coaches.(Newswatch)

Nationwide, more college women have opportunities to play on athletics teams than ever before, and schools are hiring women to coach them at an increasing rate.

Every two years since 1977, R. Vivian Acosta and Linda Jean Carpenter have tracked the number of women athletes, coaches and administrators in NCAA intercollegiate athletics. The women, who are professors emeriti at Brooklyn College of CUNY, spot trends and comment on women's voice in campus athletics.

Co-author Linda Jean Carpenter said the new survey results show promise. "Athletes now have more teams, more schools with women's teams and more opportunities to play," she told WIHE. "I am not distraught with numbers for athletes and coaches, but the numbers for athletic directors is troublesome, especially when only 18.8% of jobs in sports are held by women."

Participation: Although the average number of teams for women per school in 2004 has decreased slightly to 8.32 from the all-time high of 8.34 in 2002, there are more teams overall, 8,402 nationwide. That's up 270 teams from 2002; in the last six years, 1,155 teams have been added.

Soccer is the fastest growing sport for women. Now 88.6% of campuses offer it, compared with just 2.8% in 1977, when the survey started. Reasons for its growth are that it costs relatively little, carries a large roster, has many coaches available and is popular among young players who then come to college.

Most popular varsity women's teams for 2004 are in order: basketball, volleyball, cross country, soccer, softball, tennis, track/field, golf, swimming and lacrosse.

Coaching: Although the percentage of females who are head coaches of women's teams increased only slightly to 44.1% from the all-time low of 44.0% in 2002, the good news is that women are getting a much bigger slice of the pie among new hires.