The purpose of this study was to identify college choice factors that are most important in track-and-field student athletes' choice to attend a HBCU. This study employed a three-fold approach: a) to expand research on track-and-field student athletes into the broader dimension of student college choice, b) to initiate an exploration of the factors that influence the college choice decisions of student athletes competing in track-and-field at HBCUs, and c) to develop a college choice profile by institution type. The instrument used was the Student Athletes College Choice Profile Survey (SACCPS) and was originally developed by Gabert, Hale, & Montalvo (1999). Independent variables in this sample were gender, conference, scholarship versus non-scholarship, and amount of scholarship for the track and field student athletes. Dependent variables were the 24 different factors narrowed into three factor categories used as influence factors related to college choice, those factor categories were academic, athletic, and personal. A total of 22 (100%) MEAC school teams and 12 (60%) SWAC school teams responded. There were 42 HBCU men and women track and field teams that were hand delivered and mailed questionnaires, 34 teams participated in the study for response rate of 81%. The overall response rate was 65%(N=385) for the research project, 2 usable surveys were returned yet did not indicate respondent's gender. The types of quantitative analysis used were inferential and descriptive statistics. Descriptive statistics identified were ranking, means, and standard deviations while the inferential statistics technique used was the multivariate analysis of variances (MANOVA). The results indicated there were differences between gender and academic college choice factors. There were many factors that influenced track and field student athletes. The top factors were: opportunity to play, degree program, academic support, college head coach, location of school, chance to travel, athletic traditions, campus social life, athletic facilities, and position coach. This study indicated that for track and field student athletes all three choice factors categories were very important in there college choice process, of an HBCU. Therefore coaches, administrators and recruiters may be able to better plan well balanced recruiting strategies to attract high quality student athletes.
