The Real Civil Rights Crisis in Sports: College Football Head Coaches

I imagine a large percentage of coaches start out as graduate assistants. So magic trick #1 is to increase the number of black athletes who graduate. Magic trick #2 would be to incentivize GA positions for black college grads who might want a higher salary and/or less risk upfront (given economic background, and/or the stigma of a low-paying, non-white collar job). Incidentally, there are less head coaching positions (117) available than there are annual draft positions (7 x 32 = 224 annually); and both entail massive financial investments (six- or seven-figure salaries, a million-plus dollars in athletic scholarships), so should either one really be subject to affirmative action, especially since it's pretty much on its legal deathbed?

Perhaps the best thing that can be done is already in effect; ie sports pages lamenting it, and letting the presumably image-conscious people in power factor it into their decision.

 

That's an interesting point about the assistant coaches. I wonder if the number of black assistant head coaches has increased over the last 5-10 years. If so, you'd think that's a sign that things are improving. If not, that's a different story. Unfortunately, it's a time-intensive process. Except for a few rare exceptions, most head-coaches probably spend 10 or more years as assistants. So if there weren't a lot of high-level black assistant coaches 10 years, there wouldn't be nearly as many quality head coach candidates out there right now. However, if the assistant ranks have started filling with black candidates, that's a good sign for the future. I wonder how many Def and Off Coordinators right now are black.

 

Calling this a civil rights crisis is a major stretch, but there is obviously something wrong. 7 coaches out of 117 is amazing, especially when you look at the NFL. IMO, the NFL's "interview one black candidate" policy hasn't had much to do with coaches getting jobs. It just seems to me the NFL has a more merit based reward system than college football and the management culture is a lot different than college football.

I don't know exactly what can be done about it other than to vividly keep pointing it out.

BTW, you forget about Karl Dorrell at UCLA, which can certainly be considered a high profile program.

 

I don't know about that considering
for years the knock on Black Coaches was a lack of experience
then
Last year you had a bunch of black asst Coaches with experience
then they switched to going with NEW and Different
guys who had only been Def/Off Coords for *1* season got Head Coaching
Jobs over Black Coaches that have been there for years were over looked
now because they were part of the 'old system'
it was might convient.
out of 9 jobs available . .. 1 went to a black candidate
that was promptly fired after one year were the org gave him no help
and I do beleive he was the last one hired
[almost like they gave him the job just to quell the attention it was getting
but .
I guess I'm a conspiracy theorist]

when in doubt change the rules/trends/etc

Rocket River

 

The skills needed to coach are totally different than the skills needed to be a player. Running a 4.4 forty and squatting 600lbs really won't help as a coach. To craft a policy that equates the % of blacks coaching to the % of blacks playing is highly flawed. We've had this argument before many times.

 

Blacks in general lack the necessary skills to be football coaches? That's awesome.

 

Not at all. The point is that a much greater % of the population *has* the skills needed to be a coach, as compared to needed to be a player. A lot of people can create an offensive scheme. Very few people can jump 40 inches in the air and run 40 yards in less than 4.4 seconds.

 

The percentage of blacks coaching doesn't even equate to the percentage of blacks in the country. Even if it did, coaches don't come from the overall popluation pool but rather a smaller pool of ex-players at some level of football which blacks would appear in at a much higher percentage than they appear in the population. Your logic is the one that is flawed.

 

So blacks have the "skills" to coach in the NFL but not so much in college. Oh, I get it now. I didn't realize the skillsets were so much different. Why don't you explain exactly how they are different?

Besides, nobody is insisting on equating percentages of coaches vs. players. That has nothing to do with this discussion so why bring it up? I couldn't care less about a prior argument on another topic. The percentages aren't equal in the NFL and nobody is complaining about the NFL.

Let's stay on topic. There is a large culture difference in college football vs. the NFL and only blind mice and drunk skunks can't see it.

 

Another skill that may have an unfortunate impact on the opportunity for a black coach to get hired is a college coach's ability to shmooze with rich white guys (donors). That inability to "fit in" is partly what led to Mackovic's dismissal.

 

Not to nitpick, but UCLA's head coach Karl Dorrell is black and while they not supergood, they still in the PAC-10 and did beat USC this year.

 

Oops, sorry I just noticed that was pointed out, thanks.

 

One more comment, Dorrell's the longest tenured black coach in D1 cause Willingham got canned (more like screwed by ND) before his gig in Washington.

 

OK. I made the mistake of trying to bring this up in a roundabout way. This is what I meant earlier by saying "the NFL has a more merit based reward system than college football and the management culture is a lot different than college football."

Shmoozing donors and rich, vocal, controlling alumni has everything to do with the topic. The skillset of coaching college football (recruiting included) doesn't have anything to do with it. Many of the best recruiters in the country are black assistant coaches working for white head coaches.

I don't believe in blaming race or culture for many things at all, but I dare someone to logically explain what's going on here and exclude discriminatory culture as a component.

 

Sylvester Croom has been at Miss. State for a few years too (though he could be fired any day)

 

its the same old story, no experience, no job, but cant get experience if noone will hire you in the first place. Only way I can see racism in here is that maybe there is a large amount of colleges in predominantly white areas. Not sure how strong that hypothesis is though.