As the holiday season is officially underway, it is also time for the college football season to clean out a few coaches and look to start all over again. With that comes the hiring of new coaches.
You would think that when an athletic director starts to look around for replacements, he would have quite a selection to choose from. One would think.
That has not been the case recently. When you look at the numbers, they do not add up. With the 120 NCAA Division I schools that play football on that level, the numbers would indicate that black coaches continue to be excluded from the process.
The reasons are twofold. The Lapchick Institute has compiled some interesting numbers with respect to hiring practices of college football. I would say you might be surprised … only by the lack of improvement.
Going into the 2009 season, there were just seven black head coaches of 120 openings: the University of Buffalo, Eastern Michigan, Houston, Miami, Miami of Ohio, New Mexico and New Mexico State. With the exception of New Mexico and New Mexico State, all of these programs have been competitive, with Miami and Houston being nationally ranked. Buffalo last year under Turner Gill even went to a bowl game for the first time in over 40 years.
When you break down the make up of the athletes that play college football on this level, African Americans make up the largest number of participants in Division I, yet the head coaches make up lest than six percent. The candidates for the head coaching jobs are normally the defensive and offensive coordinators. Those numbers are not much better as black coordinators make up just 11 percent.
Athletic directors, as well as school presidents, are in the single-digit category as well, so there are not even enough people to be in a position to start to rectify the problem.
While this has become an annual problem, the excuses have an official and unofficial voice. The official word is that these candidates are under consideration, but in some cases the AD may have had a pre-existing relationship with another candidate. In other words, the “good old boy” network is alive and well.
The unofficial and “off the record” excuse is more troubling. For some of the higher profile coaches, such as Turner Gill at Buffalo and the very successful defensive coordinator at national power Florida in Charlie Strong, it has not been their ability to call plays on the field but the whispers of who they chose to marry that has been the hotter topic of discussion.
Yes, it is 2009 and interracial marriage is more prevalent now than ever before. However, the memo has not gotten around to everyone, as this has become a sticking point. Some schools have conveniently found a way to overlook their skill set with respect to calling plays only to question their play calling in selecting a wife.
While it may not be the presidents and athletic directors here, it is the perception that they have yet to find the guts to explain to the boosters and donors who are the financial life blood to these programs. The money that these people have cannot give them brains, hence the small number of African-American coaches in college football.
This year, it will be an interesting situation, as there will be some very good jobs available. Just when the Notre Dame faithful thought it was a good idea to fire Tyrone Willingham because he was graduating more players than any other coach in the school’s history and yet not winning enough, along comes their savior Charlie Weis. Weis will now have the worst home record in the history of the school and, oh yes, he has a worse record than Willingham as a coach. Nice going, Notre Dame.
Kansas has a problem. A big one. Have you seen their coach Mark Mangino lately? That is one problem. The other is he has violated the trust of his players by going public about the personal lives of some of his players. Throw in the racially insensitive remarks about a player and his family’s plight, and Mangino should be a straight up goner. There is no way he can stay under any circumstance.
With that said, this is a prime spot that some good coach can compete at. With Kansas having an African-American woman who is president, you have to hope that they find some of these qualified coaches that cannot get a whiff. If they put the same resources into the football program as they have the basketball program, then KU could be the next hot spot in the Midwest when it comes to college sports.
The bottom line here is that there are some really good black coaches who deserve a chance. If nothing else, a chance to fail like many of their white counterparts who have the market cornered on that feat only because they continue to get chance after chance for all the wrong reasons. The difference this year is there will really be some good jobs opening up in some good conferences where they can make a difference.
This is no longer about a black coach being on staff because he can relate to the black player and be in charge of recruiting the black player in the ‘hood. This is a about X’s and o’s, something that these men have worked hard at crafting. All they need is a chance.