“Go get it.”

That was Karl Dorrell’s plan once he got what he calls a “truthful” opportunity – an interview motivated by genuine interest at UCLA.

“Once I got my foot in the door, my strategy was that I wanted to put everything on the table about who Karl Dorrell is and what he is all about and what he could do for this program,” he said.

The difference between a truthful opportunity and a token interview, however, is key to making a change in the under-representation of blacks in head coaching positions in football.

“They look at interviewing a minority candidate either as an affirmative action issue – in other words, I have to look at a minority candidate as one of the candidates, but deep down I’m probably not going to head that direction. Or there is the other side of it, that I am looking for the best guy for the job, whoever he is and there is a certain criteria that you look for.”

The problem of under-representation of blacks in head coaching positions in both the NFL and college football is now widely acknowledged, but consensus on how to address the problem is harder to find.

While UCLA chose to hire the best candidate possible, there are no hard and fast rules to pass on to other schools. The NCAA has no guidelines on the issue, so the process is entirely subjective and varies from school to school.

“It is hard (to make guidelines),” UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero said. “What the NCAA should do is focus on providing access and opportunity, to create a cognizance of the need to look at minorities. A lot of it comes from education.”

Guerrero, one of three Latino athletic directors in Division I-A, was a part of the Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee (MOIC) at the NCAA for six years.

On the MOIC’s recommendation, the NCAA is forming a Coaches Academy to be launched in 2004 featuring workshops on interview preparation, networking, resume building, media training, and booster relations. The Academy will also include an executive mentor program matching minority coaches with head coaches, athletic directors, and conference commissioners.

“I think the networking could help,” Dorrell said. “It’s not an issue of there not being qualified candidates out there. It is an issue of getting those qualified candidates a chance to meet people who can be a big influence in some of these decisions.”

Ultimately the problem goes to the top where the entirely subjective decision is made: only 25 of 944 athletic directors at non-historically black colleges are black.

“Those people have to feel comfortable saying this person is the best candidate for this position,” Guerrero said. “Color can’t be an issue.”

The NFL has taken a more regimented approach, mandating that teams interview minority as well as white candidates. However, the guidelines are tough to enforce and there is always the risk that minority candidates are being used for only token interviews.

The Black Coaches Association made its own plan of action to promote opportunities for blacks by increasing public awareness, developing recruiting and retention programs for minority coaches, promoting coaching as a career path to student-athletes, creating a hiring report card, establishing a “BCA Fellows” program for mentor relationships, and organizing a political advocacy group.

One of the BCA’s more unique ideas is to create a market brand and apparel promoting the issue, i.e. “Don’t Play Where You Can’t Coach.”

“Am I the poster boy? No,” said Dorrell who is currently the only black coach at his alma mater. “I am just a happy former Bruin glad to come home and get a chance to make a mark on the institution and football program that has done so much for me.

“That is what is so great about our history here,” Dorrell continued. “We have always been on the cutting edge of making controversial decisions with the black athlete here – as early as the thirties – so for me coming back home I don’t have a feeling that I am in any special case that is unprecedented at UCLA.”

UCLA could nonetheless be setting a precedent for other institutions.

“I felt (Dorrell) was ready to take that next step,” Guerrero said of hiring a first-time head coach.

“Every hire is a leap of faith,” Guerrero added. “No one was born a head coach. No one was born an athletic director. Someone had to take a chance on me.”

Perhaps Notre Dame’s Tyrone Willingham, another of the four black head coaches in Division I, has the simplest plan.

“There is no magic. Hire them,” he told Fox’s Best Damn Sports Show Period! last week.

“The qualified candidates are there. Hire them.”