A description of Indiana high school varsity head coaches by salary, gender, sport, and school classification

Studies at the collegiate level have shown that there has been a gap in coaching as it pertains to salaries and gender. These studies show that more often the coaches of women's sports are paid less than the coaches of men's sports. They also show that the number of females coaching women's sports appears to be declining. Few studies could be identified when looking at the same issues at the high school level. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to provide a current profile of head varsity coaches at the high school level with respect to salary, gender, sport, and school classification.Questionnaires were sent to 100 randomly selected Indiana high school athletic directors, 25 from each of the four Indiana High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) sport classes. This survey was limited to the following six sports: boys' and girls' basketball, boys' wrestling, girls' volleyball, boys' baseball and girls' softball. All participants in this study remained anonymous and data received were destroyed upon completion. Subjects were also allowed to drop out of the study without penalty. The results of the questionnaire were presented using frequency and percentages and were presented according to (1) salary, (2) gender, (3) sport, and (4) school classification.Sixty-one percent of the athletic directors responded overall giving usable data on 344 coaches. The results indicated that the average age for coaches was 39.1 years old. The coaches also averaged staying in their same coaching position for 6.4 years and had 12.5 years of experience. It was also reported that 70% of the coaches were teachers.Results indicated that the female coaches made an average of 12.1% or $558 less than male coaches across all sports surveyed. Results also indicated that the coaches of boys' basketball ($6,204) were the highest paid, as they made $2,824 or 45.5% more than the coaches of girls' softball ($3,380) who were the lowest paid coaches. Furthermore, Class 4A coaches made $1,973 or 3 5.7% more than Class IA coaches.When dealing with coaching opportunities, the results indicated that the overall percentage of male head coaches was 75% while the percentage of female head coaches was 25%. Results also indicated that 100% of the coaches for boys' sports were male while 52% of the coaches of girls' sports were male. This indicated that there was no cross-over coaching for female coaches coaching boys' sports.