Last week, the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport released its 14th annual Women in College Coaching Report Card, giving insights into the state of the women’s collegiate coaching environment.
According to WeCoach, the 14th edition of the report card marks the first time since the inception of the study that there has been a slight decline in the percentage of women head coaches. In the 2024-25 academic year, 47.7% of head coaches were women, but in 2025-26, that number dropped by 0.2% to 47.5%. The last time there was a decline in this data was 2013.
Related: The ‘Women in College Coaching Report Card’ Finds Positive Trend in Career Landscape
The study includes 1057 head coaching positions at 94 member schools of the largest seven Division I conferences. Along with tracking the percentage of female head coaches, the study also examines coaching turnover, evaluates the percentage of women coaches by sport and provides the institution with an overall grade based on female representation.
In 2025-26, a majority (33%) of universities earned a ‘D’, indicating that 25-39% of total head coaching positions at that institution were filled by women. However, seven schools came out on top for female coaching representation: Michigan State University, University of Cincinnati, University of Washington, UCLA, Penn State, DePaul University and UCF.
Of women’s sports that were most likely to be coached by women coaches, acrobatics and tumbling, wrestling, lacrosse, softball, and field hockey earned an ‘A’, indicating that 70% or more of those positions were filled by women. Other sports like cross country, track and field, ice hockey, and swimming, scored lower grades in the report, showing a higher percentage of male coaches in those positions.
The full report also broke down statistics by conference, barriers to female coaches of color, and race-based coaching turn over.
In its conclusion, the Women in College Coaching Report Card identified a culture of surveillance and control, biased hiring, and leadership double standards as obstacles against growing the number of female college coaches, as well as an overall shifting collegiate sports environment.
Data for the 14th edition of the Women in College Coaching Report Card was collected between Nov. 14 to Dec. 23, 2025 by analyzing data from the seven largest Division I conferences, including the Big Ten, Pac 12, ACC, Big 12, SEC, Big East and American.
