Posted on Sat, May. 17, 2008

Worst NCAA football score ever: 5 % of coaches are black

D/FW AIRPORT -- Chances are 33 1/3 percent that the next president of the United States will be a minority.

The chances of a Division I-A football team going into the Election Year Season with a black head coach? Five percent (six out of 120).

Shameful. Embarrassing. Unconscionable.

Those were some of the words used to describe minority hiring during the final day of the College Football Forum on Friday.

Washington's Tyrone Willingham, one of six black coaches in Division I-A, was blunt in his assessment of hiring practices.

"In this day and age, it's a shame and an embarrassment," he said. "We've gone too long with the numbers the way they are. We have to change what we're doing. The good ol' boy network is alive and well."

In the NFL, thanks to the Rooney Rule, 15.6 percent (five of 32) head coaches are black. But even that percentage is... shameful. Embarrassing. Unconscionable.

Willingham believes NCAA legislation -- something such as the Rooney Rule requiring that minority coaches be interviewed for any head coaching opening -- is needed.

The problem is that the NFL is a professional league with 32 teams that can set their own rules. The NCAA membership is much more diverse.

Florida State President T.K. Wetherell pointed out that he's "not sure you can legislate morality."

"It's like the bar room scene from Star Wars," Notre Dame athletic director Kevin White said. "You have public schools, private schools, different rules and regulations in different states. I think it would be difficult to have something like the Rooney Rule in college athletics."

Progress in this area comes slowly. Houston hired Kevin Sumlin to become its new coach, replacing Art Briles. It was one of 18 coaching hires in the off-season and the only one to go to a black coach.

And Sumlin is the first black coach at a Division I-A school in the state of Texas.

Houston athletic director Dave Maggard told Rivals.com that he had no idea that hiring Sumlin was a seminal event. Maggard said he just "wanted a good coach."

Whether Maggard made a good choice won't be known until Sumlin proves himself in the won-loss column. Win enough games and skin pigmentation isn't an issue.

That's where minority coaches struggle. They need opportunities, not token interviews. Fifty percent of I-A college football players are black. Having 5 percent of the I-A coaches of the same color doesn't measure up.

"We need to find a way to get qualified minority coaches in front of the search committees, the athletic directors, the presidents," Willingham said. "It's not so much about hiring; it's about creating opportunities. And it's about hiring the right people."

Based on the discussion at the football forum, minority hiring in college football is a hand-wringing issue that produces more talk than action.

"The opportunity for African-American coaches is not as great as for other folks," said Kevin Anderson, the athletic director at the U.S. Military Academy. "Coaches need to get in a network and become recognized. That's what we need to develop.

"I can see open and honest dialogue, but the most difficult thing in this country is to talk about race."

But not as difficult as hiring minority coaches.

Minority coaches

The six African-American head coaches in Division I-A football teams for the 2008 season: