Hispanic Heritage Week: Brooklyn Latina Scores As NCAA Athletic Director
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NY1's coverage of Hispanic Heritage Week began with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and now ends with a Latina trailblazer from Brooklyn whose accomplishments led to a different court. NY1's Shazia Khan filed the following report.Working with student athletes in Brooklyn, Irma Garcia is living her childhood dream. As the athletic director at St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights, she is also living history, being the first and only Hispanic female to head a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I athletic program.
"I was totally surprised," says Garcia. "And the fact that I'm the first and I'm going to be 51 years old, I would think that there would be other women that would've held that title."
Born and raised in Williamsburg, Garcia is one of eight children born to Puerto Rican parents. Her love of sports began right at home.
"My brother and my sisters, we always used to play," says Garcia. "We played punchball, slap ball and being from Williamsburg, the Southside, we were just our own teams."
Garcia would stay in Brooklyn and go onto St. Francis College on a full basketball scholarship.
"When I played [the balls] didn't have these little grooves, so it was harder to hold. It was a men's ball, see how little my hands are?" says Garcia. "But I still got it, I still got that spin."
She returned to her alma mater in the late 1980s as the head coach of the women's basketball team.
After more than a decade on the courts, she made the leap into administration and eventually scored the title of athletic director in 2007.
The most recent survey finds that Garcia is one of only 27 women a NCAA Division I program, compared to 304 males.
"Having to be heard has been probably the hardest thing," she says.
Garcia oversees 19 athletic teams at St. Francis and makes it a priority to cheer at all the home games.
Besides being committed to her staff and students, she is also dedicated to her community.
"Most minority kids do not ask for anything. They hardly ask for anything, especially advice," she says. "So I feel it's one of my jobs to get out there and tell them what's out there for them."
When she's not working in the community, Garcia can be found working on her jump shot.
"But not in front of the kids," says Garcia. "They'll show me up and I don't like to lose."