Jackson calls for coaching diversity

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.