Black Coaches in NCAA Football
Black Coaches in NCAA Football, lets take a look at the current situation in College Football during Black History Month.
First we have an article written by SECfan and published on our sister site; The College Football Voice.
We have updated the article a bit, which is an indication of the positive change NCAA College Football is heading towards!
February is black history month and it only seems appropriate on a college football blog to address some positive changes occurring at the collegiate coaching level. With the departure of Mississippi State’s Sylvester Croom last season, the NCAA division 1A found itself with only 3 black head coaches out of 119 programs; Miami’s Randy Shannon, Buffalo’s Turner Gill and Houston’s Kevin Sumlin.
It appeared that while boosters and program directors were more than willing to have black assistant coaches, few programs seemed comfortable turning the keys over to a man of color. Even when they did, all too often it was an awkward affair as witnessed with the clumsy firing of Tyrone Willingham at Notre Dame. Fortunately, as Bob Dylan would say, times they are a changing.
Turner Gill has been promoted to a major program at Kansas. Former Florida assistant coach Charlie Strong is the head honcho at Louisville. Mike London is the head coach of Virginia. East Carolina has Ruffin McNeill, and Joker Phillips is captain of the ship at Kentucky. Willie Taggart also went from running backs coach to a head coach, returning to Western Kentucky to head up the Hilltoppers. Yes: Alma mater. And finally, Larry Porter went from LSU running backs coach to Memphis head coach. Porter is also going back to his Alma mater.
In less than a month the amount of black head coaches has more than doubled. Obviously more can be done but considering how long it has taken to see this type of progress, it truly is remarkable.
Many will ask, “Why does it matter”? Some may even question blogs like this one saying that pointing out a person’s race is, in itself, racist. I would argue otherwise and give you an example why. It is crucial for people of all races to see black men and women in leadership roles. This alone destroys negative stereotypes.
As an example I will refer to comments I heard while living in Kentucky in 1997 after Tubby Smith was hired to take over the basketball program at UK. It was not uncommon to hear comments like “Adolph Rupp would be turning over in his grave”. Tubby was judged harshly and even his successes (including a national championship in 1998) where often attributed more to Rick Pitino’s recruiting than to Tubby’s coaching.
Sadly, one of the biggest detractors of Tubby was my own brother in law, and many of his comments where based solely on Tubby’s race which is why I found it ironic that while discussing Joker Philips he was almost giddy. He discussed how Joker was the right man for the job and how much Rich Brooks had relied on him over the past few years. Then he went on to discuss how concerned he was that Charlie Strong was taking over at Louisville, one of his bitter rivals, because he is a “helluva coach.” Not once in the conversation did race come up. He was just an Eastern Kentucky boy judging a man based on the strength of his character and not the color of his skin, just as Martin Luther King Jr. requested so long ago.
- SECfan
Tony Dungy Weighs in On the Topic
It’s only been a little over a year since Tony Dungy retired from being head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, but that doesn’t mean he’s resting on his laurels. The former Super Bowl winning Head Coach has been doing quite a bit of speaking engagements and promotion of his books.
But one thing Dungy also wants to do is help the growth of Black coaches in College Football;
“To think that you would have a Black president of the United States and two Black men who have won Super Bowls before you would have a Black head coach in a top-20 school is hard to believe,” Dungy told the New York Times. “It doesn’t make sense. The baffling thing for me is that you can have African-American professors at these schools, you can be the head of the department, you can be the basketball coach, you can be the track coach, but you can’t be the football coach. How are we going to change that? I don’t know.”
Although Dungy wants to help in changing the culture of hiring practices at the Collegiate Level he understands why the practices are the way they are. In the NFL, the owner of the teams is the ultimate authority, at Universities; the schools have people to answer to, their Alumni, and therein lies the problem.
“Colleges are result driven, but the difference is that when [Steelers owner] Dan Rooney decides to hire Mike Tomlin, he doesn’t have to worry about any ramifications other than people buying tickets,” Dungy said. “The athletic director and the president at the University of Minnesota, they get Mike Tomlin’s name and their response is: How’s this going to affect donations? How’s this going to affect alumni relations? How’s this going to affect a whole lot of other things? That’s the pressure, that’s why it’s difficult, that’s why it is different. I don’t know how you change that unless an institution makes a moral stand and says, ‘We’ve just got to be a strong enough force that we’re going to do what’s right and if it does cost us a $12 million library, we’ll make up for it.’ “
Black Football Hall of Fame’s First Inductees
Walter Payton, Jerry Rice, Deacon Jones and Eddie Robinson, the former Grambling coach, were among the first class inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta. The hall was established last year by James Harris, a former Pro Bowl quarterback, and Doug Williams, the most valuable player of Super Bowl XXII.
HAPPY BLACK HISTORY MONTH