119 Division I-A Head Coaches. Seven are Minorities.
 

Seven minorities overall but six are African American. After the recent musical chairs of college head coaches again no minorities have been hired. Some weren't even interviewed. Is it time for the NCAA to implement a "Rooney Rule" or is the college game so different, so entrenched in the "good old boy network" that it just won't work.

Thoughts, comments on this?

Some links on the issue.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?...ncf&id=3057982
http://www.blackathlete.net/artman2/..._Coaches.shtml
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/27/rol...tin/index.html

100% agreed, i dont see color in any sport, especially if you want to succeed. you take the man that is the best for the job, period. college boards arent idiots, they need to hire the best because that is the way the university makes money. if youre a big football school, you hire the best football coaches. same w/ every other sport. to hire someone who is of a different race because of predjudice is not a factor. a higher learning institute needs to make money like any other business. hire the best and you'll be teh best.

I'm a man of color myself and I can't help but see color. It's in my face daily and I can't act as if everything is fair across the board.

Marvin Lewis got his job as head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals because of the Rooney Rule. He got the interview because of the rule. And he management discovered that he did indeed fit their organization. It's not that they should hire every minority they see but at least grant a job interview.

There are things called tryouts. I've played sports and if you can make the team regardless of what color you are you will be on that team. I've yet to see a coach turn cut a white, Latino, Asian basketball player that can play. A coaches job is to win to put the best team on the field/floor. At least at my schools most who tried out were black. And the majority of the guys on the team were black. Not what I'd call a shocker.

Getting back to the point at I don't see why giving a job interview to minority coaches is a bad thing. Not hire, not give out jobs, but I don't see the harm of the Administrative Director take an hour to speak to one the 25% of minority assistant coaches in Division I-A.

i see nothing bad abaout giving an interview to a minority at all, as long as he/she is deserving of the position. any coach, black, white or purple deserves an interview as long as it is warranted. Giving uneccessary interviews to minorities, just becasuse of color, is not right. if you deserve teh job because of credentials and ability is another story. if you're a minority and are deserving, you'll get the job no matter what.

IMO, there may be more caucasion candidates that are better for positions but that doesnt mean that profiling or racism is involved.

Of course, the people who apply should be qualified. There is no reason for the A.D, to waste his time on someone who isn't qualified. I don't see the harm in interviewing a qualified minority applicant. It's just that when you look at it, there are six black NFL head coaches out of 32 teams. Yet six black head coaches in Division I-A out of 119 teams. That's a very telling stat.

well i agree with you Severn, it is a stat. Stats change every second however. IMO, as time goes on and more and more minorities get into coaching, the more minority coaches there will be. The fact of the matter is that there are way more caucasion coaching candidates compared to minority coaching candidates. once THAT field is leveled out, there will be more of an even ratio. you cant expect an even reation of coaches to minority coaches when there are only 2 to 3 black coaches for every 10 white coaches.

i think that the coaching situation is right in major sports, you just have to lood at the availability of one race to the other.

like i said, quanity brings quality. there are more white coaches than black. there are more unquality white coaches available than unquality black coaches. if we see more minority coaches, we'll see more permanent minority coaches.

I'm sure you're referring to football here because 25% of the male basketball coaches are minorities which is an almost exact mirror of the US population (74.7% white and 25.3% Minority).

Now, this brings up an interesting question. Should these numbers reflect the population of the area where the school is located or reflect the student body's ethnicity? I'm not sure.


These numbers are fundamentally skewed in favor of the minorities making the claims. The reason I say this is that these numbers do not reflect coaching staff, AD's, etc. The head coach's job is just more visible.

Personally, I think affirmative action destroys the world of competitive promotions. I love the theory, it just doesn't work. It screws over some very capable people based on their ethnicity. In turn, creating an atmosphere of discrimination.

I ask you this, in the list of 114 "Historically Black Colleges", how many of those schools have white head coaches? How many white students? Would the world be in an uproar is there were an actual list of "Historically White Colleges"?

I personally see no point in implementing a Rooney Rule in college football or any sport for that matter. In theory it sounds nice. Make sure at least one minority coach is interviewed for every job. However, I am of the opinion that no one should be forced to hire or even interview anyone for a job solely based on their skin color.

Now there are plenty of great coaches out there. Some of them happen to be white, some black, and some Hispanic. So why not let the schools decide who they think would be a good fit for their program and if it happens to be a minority then so be it.

I know allot of this has been brought on recently by Texas A&M only interviewing one man and then giving him the job. That man happened to be white. Well maybe it's just me but so what. They had already decided that Mike Sherman was there guy and they hired him. They have recruiting to think about and if they have already decided on someone I say why make them waste time on a candidate that they do not plan on hiring anyway. Not to mention wasting the minority candidates time on a job interview for a position that has pretty much already been filled. I just think that if a minority is the best man for the job then he will be hired bc after all every school's #1 goal is to win.

Not so much in this case as it hasn't really moved much from 2004. It's fluctuates but it's still settles to six-seven jobs. That's not progress and we're not there yet as a society where we don't need some kind of Rooney rule. Again I see no harm in interviewing someone new instead of the usual college football game of musical chairs that head coaches play. It's the same guys getting hired over and over.

Another example of the Rooney rule at work(in Pittsburgh, ironicly) is Mike Tomlin. When Cowher left it was obvious to everyone that one of the coodinators would be hired. I believe that they interviewed Tomlin as part of the "rule" and were so impressed with what he brought to the table that he was hired as head coach.
To me the Rooey rule is about getting your name out. For example, say Carolina fires John Fox at the end of the season, and they know for a fact that they want Bill Cowher, and that he is available. The Panters should still interview minority canidates, b/c if they like what they hear, the canidate could get an assistant coaching gig, or maybe word gets around to a team like the Chargers or the Rams, and they hire him. That scenerio is assuming the coach in question is the best man for the job. It's all about exposure, every individual should earn the oppurtunity they are given.