Overall picture bleak
Based on the latest Black Coaches and Administrators’ 2008 hiring report card, “it is easier to become a head football coach in the NFL, a head basketball coach in the NCAA, a general or commissioned officer in the United States Army than it is to become a (Division 1) football coach.”
So says Floyd Keith, the organization’s executive director.
“It’s out of sync,” he said of major college football’s aversion to hiring black head coaches. “That, America, is just not right.”
The BCA study concludes that more people of color are being interviewed for positions in Division I football, but more hirings have not been a result.
“The message in this report is that the process (of interviewing minority candidates) is being followed, but the poor hiring results continue,” Keith said.
Of the 31 head coaching vacancies for the 2007-2008 seasons, four people of color were hired, according to the report card. That brought the total number of black coaches entering the 2008 season to six.
University of Washington coach Ty Willingham has resigned and Kansas State’s Ron Prince has been told next week’s game is his last. That would leave just four black coaches at the Division 1 level.
Fantastic four
There is this bit of good news on the Division 1 coaching front n the four remaining black coaches all have solid futures.
With a dramatic 43-40 road win over Akron last Saturday, head coach Turner Gill’s University of Buffalo Bulls moved to 6-4 on the season and made them bowl eligible for the first time since moving up to Division I-A football in 1999. He has pretty much single-handedly built the school’s program from nothing to something real.
A win at Bowling Green on Friday Nov. 21 would clinch Buffalo’s first outright MAC East title. The win was UB’s fourth straight victory, the first time it has won four in a row since the 1996 season.
“I’m proud of our football team, these guys played hard and didn’t give up, said Gill, who was the conference Coach of the Year in 2007.
“This game here is really what our program is all about for the future because we can now build on this big time. We’ve done it now…we went through a lot of ups and downs in the game and we finished, so I think this is going to take us a long way, for the future, for the now and forever.”
In Houston, Kevin Sumlin took over a once powerful program that had become a Conference USA doormat.
That changed in a single season, with the Cougars moving to 6-4 and 5-1 in conference with a 70-30 thrashing of Tulsa. The teams are tied for the conference lead.
“Some of our guys, who had been role players and are now starters, really stepped up for us tonight,” Sumlin said of his team’s landmark win.
Then, he sounded like the kind of coach more teams need.
“We still had too many personal foul penalties and, for lack of a better words, stupid penalties, things that did not make any sense. I thought our energy level was really good and our guys played hard. As long as we keep our energy high and protect the football we have a good chance to win.”
Randy Shannon is leading his alma mater, the University of Miami, from troubled times on and off the field to respectability.
In a nationally televised knock-down-drag-out game last Thursday night, the Hurricanes held off Virginia Tech 16-14. The win moved “The U” to 7-3 and 4-2 in the Atlantic Coast Conference Coastal Division. Shannon’s team is tied with North Carolina for the division lead with a tough road game tonight at Georgia Tech. With his team headed to a bowl game and off-field antics at a standstill, Shannon is becoming a big-time success.
After becoming the Southeastern Conference’s first black head coach five seasons ago, Sylvester Croom is on the hot seat. After a humbling 32-7 loss to top-ranked Alabama last Saturday, the Bulldogs fell to 3-7 and 1-5 in the SEC n that’s good for last place.
But Croom took over a team that was a laughing stock and took it to 8-5 and a bowl game in 2007.
Should he lose his job following the 2009 season, there are many Division 1 schools that would snap him up almost instantly.