A composite profile of all 363 D-I men’s college basketball head coaches

The number of Division I men’s college basketball head coaches is tiny, roughly equivalent to the populations of small towns like Arroyo Alto, Texas; East Germantown, Indiana; Crows Landing, California; or Altamahaw, North Carolina. Not all head coaching positions are elite, necessarily, but the title itself is a scarce commodity.

Unlike small town populaces, however, men’s college basketball head coaches pretty much run to a type. Most obviously, as of 2022, such coaches are still all uniformly male.

Here are a few other distinguishing characteristics — demographic, professional and biographical — about the 363 men who will pace the sidelines, talk about “building a culture” and call a timeout or two this season.

Division I head coaches tend overwhelmingly to be new to their current job

Fully 31% are either in their first or second season at their present position. Indeed, a robust 61% of all Division I head coaches have been at their current stations for less than five full seasons.

This year, at least 53 head coaches are in their first season at their program. The new arrivals range in age from 35 (Jon Scheyer at Duke) to 74 (Fran Dunphy at La Salle).

At the other extreme in terms of tenure length is of course Jim Boeheim, who recorded his first win as Syracuse head coach during the Ford administration on Nov. 26, 1976. How long ago was that? Nearly a third (32.5%) of today’s Division I men’s head coaches were born after that date.

How long ago was that part two?

Boeheim’s second career win came the following night against West Virginia. One of the Mountaineers’ starters that evening was a 6-foot-4 senior named Bob Huggins.

While there’s undoubtedly pressure to win now at the major conference level, it’s also true that doing so brings a measurable level of job security. Six of the 10 longest-tenured head coaches ply their trades at major conference programs: Boeheim; Tom Izzo, whose first KenPom year at Michigan State was 1996; Mike Brey (Notre Dame, 2001); Leonard Hamilton (Florida State, 2003); Scott Drew (Baylor, 2004); and Bill Self (Kansas, 2004).

Keep in mind additionally that Mark Few has been at Gonzaga since KenPom year 2000. Of the 10 coaches with the longest current tenures, just three are found at what might be termed true mid-majors: Greg Kampe (Oakland, 1985); James Jones (Yale, 2000); and Randy Bennett (Saint Mary’s, 2002).

The profession does not lack for 50-somethings

The average birthdate of a current head coach is April 4, 1972. Coincidentally, this is the actual birthdate of Paul Mills, head coach at Oral Roberts. Congratulations, Coach! You, sir, are one statistically representative 50-year-old.

Naturally, the average age represented by one particular coach summarizes a vast range spanning every birthdate from Boeheim’s (Nov. 17, 1944) to that of Loyola Chicago‘s Drew Valentine (May 25, 1991). Your most seasoned major conference coaches are Boeheim, Hamilton (74), Miami‘s Jim Larranaga (73), Huggins (69) and Tennessee‘s Rick Barnes (68).

Conversely, the most youthful members of the major conference head coaching ranks are Scheyer, Florida‘s Todd Golden and Villanova‘s Kyle Neptune (both 37), Oklahoma State‘s Mike Boynton (40) and Minnesota‘s Ben Johnson (42).

Are head coaches, as a profession, growing older as the game generates more revenue and the perceived stakes become even higher? Possibly. We can’t know for sure until someone digs up average coaching ages for every season going back 100 years or so.

One crude shortcut is simply to look at the average age of head coaches who win the NCAA tournament. In the event’s first three years, for example, national titles were won by the precocious likes of Oregon‘s Howard Hobson (age 35), Indiana‘s Branch McCracken (31) and Wisconsin‘s Harold E. “Bud” Foster (34).

In later years, Ohio State‘s Fred Taylor (1960) and Indiana’s Bob Knight (1976) also won titles at age 35, but they were exceptions to an increasingly prevalent trend toward seniority. The average age of national championship head coaches by decade hit an all-time high of 57.8 years between 2010 and 2019.

Head coaches are still mostly white

According to data from the NCAA, 55 to 60% of Division I men’s players have identified as Black in every season over the past decade. At the same time, fully 70% of the men coaching Black players this season are white. Interestingly, the mid-major head-coaching ranks outside HBCU’s aren’t any more diverse than the population of coaches at the major conference level. (Those mid-major coaches are in fact significantly younger. Your average mid-major head coach will turn 50 this February. Conversely, the average major conference head coach has just turned 54.)

At the major conference level, Black head coaches make up 29% of the professional population. This represents a significant increase over 17% from just two seasons ago. Then again, Black head coaches once held down 30% of the major conference jobs for four consecutive seasons between 2003 and 2006.

And, there remain 12 major conference programs that have never hired a full-time Black men’s head coach: Duke, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan State, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Purdue, Syracuse, Utah, West Virginia and Xavier.

One proven way to become a major conference head coach is to be one at a mid-major

Athletic directors can be more inclined toward hiring assistant coaches in one carousel cycle or, say, NBA coaching talent in another. Over the long haul, however, these decision-makers tend to return to a tried and true method. In major conference hoops, this means hiring a mid-major head coach.

This season, 44% of major conference head coaches were hired directly out of the same position at a mid-major program. That figure far outpaces the number of coaches who were promoted into their current position from being Division I assistants (21%), those who moved over from other major conference head coaching gigs (20%), coaches who were hired while taking time away from the game (8%) or those who came to their current position directly from an NBA staff job (7%).

In summary, it’s possible the tiny population of college head coaches has aged even as it has become measurably, if haltingly, more diverse over the past half century. The churn rate across Division I is high, and mid-major head-coaching jobs are still the preferred credential for attaining the same position for a major conference program.

While hardly permanent, these tendencies are durable and require multiple hiring cycles to alter. Until then, the next hire at your program could well fit this profile.