ESPN's "OTL" Examines Minority Coaches In College Football
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New Mexico's Mike Locksley Is One Of Four
Black Head Coaches In College Football FBS |
Yesterday's edition of ESPN’s “Outside The Lines” examined the lack of minority coaches in the college football bowl subdivision. The town-hall-style conversation included Michigan State Board of Trustees Chair Joel Ferguson, Black Coaches Association Exec Dir Floyd Keith, Univ. of Central Florida Institute for Diversity & Ethics in Sport Dir Richard Lapchick, Univ. of New Mexico coach Mike Locksley, Univ. of Houston coach Kevin Sumlin, ESPN.com’s Mark Schlabach, Ohio State Univ. AD Gene Smith and NCAA VP/Diversity & Inclusion Charlotte Westerhaus. There currently are just four African-American head coaches and only six minority head coaches among the 119 FBS teams, something Sumlin called “really alarming.”
HIRING PROCESS: Sumlin said the hiring process in college football "is entirely different than the NFL." Sumlin: "In the NFL, you have an owner or family or GM, you know who you’re dealing with. Many times in college football, a head coach does not know who’s going to hire him.” Ferguson said athletic directors often "are the figurehead, because the president and boosters are the ones who make the decision (on hiring a coach). So when you have a number of programs that aren’t doing well, they want instant success. Therefore, they want to get a coach who’s already had success, and that eliminates individuals who really have the ability because ... they’re not accepted and that’s a real problem.” Meanwhile, Smith said of the release of a list of “acceptable standards” by Division I ADs about hiring coaches and whether penalties should be put in place for teams who don’t follow the guidelines, “It would be difficult to put that in place. ... At the end of the day, we have to be more diligent and we have to network."
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Keith Calls Lack Of Minority
Head Coaches A Serious Issue |
TACKLING THE ISSUE: Keith said the fact such a conversation is taking place "says that we need to inoculate this problem. We’ve got to eradicate it because we have a serious issue and everybody’s skirting past it. " Lapchick added, "We need to look at going to Congress with an Obama administration and have them look at the issue because that puts pressure on these schools.” But Westerhaus said, "The focus has opened it up. More African-Americans are being interviewed, but right now we really need to look at hiring. The focus needs to be on why more hires are not occurring.” Meanwhile, Schlabach recounted a story where after Tommy Tuberville was forced to resign from Auburn and Buffalo coach Turner Gill, an African-American, was rumored to be in the running to replace him. Schlabach said two SEC coaches told him Gill "will never get that job and I said, ‘Why,’ and they said, ‘Because he’s married to a white woman'" ("Outside the Lines," ESPN, 12/14).
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