Most of America’s professional sports leagues went for generations without a respectable effort towards diversifying player rosters, coaching staffs or executive teams. Because of their negligence, the world’s most popular sports – soccer, tennis, golf and baseball – have few African-Americans competing at world-class levels. The world is beginning to train athletes to excel in the popular American sports of football and basketball, and the United States is just beginning to dedicate resources and training to the same goals in the country’s less-popular team and individual sports.

Historically black colleges can and should be at the forefront of that movement towards diversity and excellence in these sports.

HBCUs were at the center of the golf world this weekend, as the PGA hosted its annual minority collegiate golf championship in Port St. Lucie, FL. Bethune-Cookman swept the Division I men’s and women’s championships while Lincoln captured the Division II team title in a field of more than 20 HBCUs from the NCAA Division I and II ranks, and the NAIA. This championship, along with Major League Baseball’s Urban Invitational, are two of the biggest and most exclusive outreach efforts to help build talent and capacity at historically black colleges in non-revenue bearing sports.

Why are professional leagues in golf, baseball and bowling making so much outreach to historically black colleges and universities? In a word – diversity. The PGA, PBA and MLB are all about trying to generate different faces and voices in these sports to draw bigger audiences and more revenue. They are taking cues from NASCAR, which has implemented programming to specifically recruit sport and administrative talent directly from historically black colleges and universities. 

Outside of a few schools and communities, golf has yet to catch on as a major athletic option for African-Americans. Costs of playing and a lack of courses and instructional opportunities for youth in many HBCU cities and towns are the biggest factors, with the same being true for baseball. Bowling is more affordable and easier to practice, but isn’t drawing black athletes in droves.

To their credit, HBCUs are taking great advantage of the push from these leagues, despite the strain these sports place on football and men’s basketball to fund them and the lack of attention they bring to an athletic program. With the University of Maryland Eastern Shore as an exception, as a two-time NCAA national champion and five-time women’s bowling champion in the last six years, HBCUs haven’t exactly emerged as mid-major powerhouses in non-revenue bearing sports.

But these programs present the best opportunities for HBCUs to produce professional athletes, which means solid recruiting and marketing value in the short-term, and if the athlete is good enough, financial benefit in future years. Not to mention that these sports bring more diversity to the HBCU campus, within the HBCU context – a much-needed element of awareness building and cultural evolution if HBCUs will thrive in the years to come.

Some HBCU alumni get upset that many of the better athletes in the non-revenue sports are white or non-black, but a winning team goes a long way in building racial harmony. HBCUs can have both, and with a commitment to fundraising and corporate networking with these sports in mind, they can shape a new future in benefit of their campuses, and athletic goodwill throughout the world.