African Americans are Playing, But Not Coaching African American student athletes account for almost half the competitors in Division I college revenue sports (football and basketball). But African Americans make up less than 15 percent of the head coaches in those sports. Of the 25 football head coaching positions that were filled in the most recent off-season, only one African American was hired.
SOURCE: NCAA.org, University Sports Information Directors Original graphic by ERICA PINTO/Daily Bruin Web adaptation by MIKE OUYANG/Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Daily Bruin file photo Rev. Jesse Jackson, who spoke at UCLA in 1999 when this photo was taken, discussed last week the lack of African American head coaches.
By Vytas Mazeika
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Rev. Jesse Jackson discussed with NCAA officials in Indianapolis last week the lack of African American coaches at the Division I-A level in college football and other sports.
Currently, five of 117 Division I-A college football head coaches are African American. Within the past year, just one of 25 new openings was filled by an African American.
“There’s no shortage of black coaches; there’s a shortage of opportunity,” Jackson said. “Every year they come up with white coaches, some not even 30 years old. And you’ve got Black coaches with 10, 15 years experience who never get the opportunity.”
Jackson also discussed what he called the exploitation of athletes who do not share in the increased revenue of college sports and a call to discourage schools from playing in bowl games where the confederate flag is flying.
Gail Dent, assistant director of public relations for the NCAA, categorized the meeting as informative and a good opportunity to hear Jackson’s viewpoints on topics pertaining to the NCAA.
“We hope that the sharing of ideas such as in a meeting like this will bring about change in the future,” Dent said.
“Both parties want to see the numbers (of African American head coaches) increase. But from our standpoint, we’re still in a situation where you can’t force the schools to hire anyone, and I think Rev. Jackson also agreed with that.”
At UCLA, one of the top athletic schools in the nation, Jeanette Bolden, the women’s track and field head coach, is the only African American out of 20 head coaches.
Betsy Stephenson, an associate athletic director at UCLA, said though the athletic department is sensitive to diversity on campus, the primary goal is to hire the best person for the position, and that is determined by the coaching resume and experience.
“I think it’s fair to say that whenever we have a head coach opening, we do a national search,” Stephenson said. “We look for the best possible candidate and we have made a concentrated effort at identifying ethnic minority candidates when we’ve had coaching vacancies.”
Ten out of 40 full-time assistant coaches at UCLA are African American. Stephenson said the coaching staff should be looked at in general rather than singling out the head coaches, and that assistant coaches gain training toward becoming head coaches.
Many are still skeptical about the amount of African American candidates considered for coaching positions, including Grambling State University football head coach and former Super Bowl Most Valuable Player Doug Williams.
“We should have the same opportunity as everyone else to succeed,” said Williams, who, after coaching four years at a Division II-A institution, has yet to be called for a job opening in Division I-A. “If we don’t (succeed), that’s life. But give us a chance.”
Jackson agreed with Williams.
“Blacks should at least be in the interviewing process,” he said. “You’re not always going to win, but democracy doesn’t guarantee success. It guarantees opportunity.”
When San Jose State University hired Fitz Hill earlier in 2001, he became the one African American head coach hired out of 25 vacancies this past year and only the fifth out of 96 in the last five years in Division I-A.
As an assistant at the University of Arkansas for 12 years, Hill said recruits react differently to an African American head coach making a pitch.
“The subconscious, or the cognizant makeup, often tells you that a head football coach at a predominantly white institution is a white male,” Hill said. “You have to make them draw away from that normal frame of reference that they think about when they think about a head football coach.”
In the Pac-10 Conference, one out of 10 football head coaches is African American and nine out of 171 total head coaches are African-American, including five out of 10 in men’s basketball. No single school has more than one African American head coach – probably not enough when compared to participation rates of student athletes, said Jim Muldoon, assistant commissioner of public relations for the Pac-10.
Muldoon said because today’s football coaches are promoted from assistants to coordinators before getting the shot at a head coach position, there is a need to get African American coaches in the “pipeline.”
With the NCAA and conferences unable to mandate institutions and schools in personnel decisions, Muldoon said the Pac-10 has made efforts to identify minority candidates and make institutions aware of them.
The Pac-10 is one of the founding sponsors of The Level Playing Field, a database aimed to assist in the identification and selection of African American football coaches.
Members on TLPF advisory board include Stanford University head coach Tyrone Willingham – the only current African American football head coach in the Pac-10 – and current Minnesota Vikings and former Stanford University head coach Dennis Green.
According to Muldoon, TLPF database is progressing slowly, while the Pac-10 tries to introduce it to other conferences and organizations.
Currently, there’s no timetable for a revision of NCAA policies regarding the hiring of African American head coaches. Dent said that after meeting with Jackson, no definite changes or decisions were made, though there was talk of future meetings.
Until then, Jackson said he will continue to propagate his message: “It’s a cultural habit that is illegal, for them not to even consider black coaches during the hiring process.”
With reports from Scott Schultz, Daily Bruin Senior Staff.