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

While on the college level . . I am not as knowing
but
On the NFL Level
Last year when they had 9 openings
they gave the jobs to people who had less than 5 yrs
experience as an OC/DC . . hell I think one of them only had
one year as an OC/DC

How do you explain that?

Rocket River

 

Recruiting and fundraising are your big differences. I also think college sports tend to have a whiter, older, more female and more rural fan base than their pro equivalents; this is especially true in college basketball, where there are more (American) white athletes and less young black millionaires than in the pros.

 

There are a few black coaches at high profile schools as some have been named already. I haven't seen Miami's new coach named yet and he probably has the most high profile job of any of them.

 

As stated earlier, the recruiting argument is totally bogus, IMO.

Fundraising? So you are saying most of these programs need upgraded facilities so fundraising by the coach is a priority when making a hiring decision? Don't think so. On occasion, maybe. The vast majority of the time, nah.

 

you must be kidding. its not just fundraising for your program, the headcoach is on the frontlines of fundraising for the university. you don't think a school like Oklahoma's overall donations go up when the school is happy with the coach. the coach is the biggest the lobbyist on campus sometimes.

and that's not arguing that blacks don't have these skills. its just that the coach has a lot more responsibility than coaching at big time programs.

 

Sure, if we honestly think Barry Switzer was a good tactitian. Or that the I-formation was the forefront of coaching innovation and technique in the mid-to-late '90s, when the Huskers used it to win three national championships.

Fundraising is important also in that the coaches salaries are often largely paid, indirectly, through alumni groups: at least I hope it is, especially at the pubic universities. The fundraising contribution often dictates what kind of coach they can afford to keep, and whether or not they would pay to buy a bad one's contract out while paying enough to hire a better one (how 'bout that sound fiscal management, eh? How much is that Nobel-prize winning physicist getting paid, again?)

I would also concede that blacks aren't inherently worse at recruiting (Alvin Brooks securing Rashard Lewis at U of H, despite being bad enough to be rightly terminated that same year, proves that); but I go back my earlier claim about college football's whiter fan-base and submit that that somehow ties into the recruiting/fundraising issues; if the program is big and rich enough, then coaching decisions probably end up being more "democratic" in college than in the pros.