Minority Recruiting

College Football Fumbles Minority Hiring

(AP) On this New Year's Day, an occasion traditionally reserved for a college bowl smorgasbord, the sidelines of nationally televised football games will be positively teeming with successful, respected and highly-compensated African-American coaches.

It would be nice to report this was the result of a newfound commitment to equal opportunity on the part of America's major universities. But it's not. Jan. 1 falls on a Sunday this year, and pro football has muscled its way in, pushing the bowls back a day.

This calendar oddity highlights the sharp contrast between the National Football League (NFL) — which, after years of blistering criticism, now has six black head coaches among 32 teams — and college football, where only five of the 119 Division I-A programs employ a black head coach.

The NFL is a commercial undertaking, built to a large degree on viewer consumption of soft drinks, light beer, fast food and big cars. Yet in minority hiring it's running circles around the universities, which are supposedly dedicated to more important ideals.

So what gives? The Black Coaches Association diplomatically cites a variety of factors. These range from unsophisticated searches to what it delicately labels "political" considerations.

Let's strip away the veneer: College football's record is the product of the subtle biases and outright racism that permeate the hiring process While it is difficult to point to a single university decision and argue that racist attitudes were pivotal, it is impossible to look at the aggregate numbers and conclude they were not.

The NFL's experience proves there's no shortage of talent. Half the league's black coaches will win their divisions this year. There's also a massive feeder pool. Half of all college players are black. Many enter the coaching ranks, but few are given the opportunity to lead. The tier below head coaches — offensive and defensive coordinators — had only 12 blacks in Division I-A when USA TODAY counted the numbers in 2002. No one has a current tally, which says something about indifference.

The booster clubs, big-dollar donors, trustees, state government officials and others who influence college athletics are largely white and, at best, disinterested.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has finally begun to tiptoe toward the problem. (Its actions are described in the opposing view below.) Even so, it's still far from the direct approach employed by the NFL and proven in other industries: Break through the old-boy network and give minorities a fair shot.

The NFL requires that each program with a vacancy interview at least one minority candidate. The NCAA does not even require that universities publicize who is being interviewed and who is playing a role in hiring.

Defenders of college hiring practices argue that the sport suffers from a lack of a central authority that could compel broad reforms.

There is some merit to their argument. The NCAA does not have the powers that the NFL owners have delegated to their commissioner. Yet the NCAA has been able to impose some uniformity on other fronts. Earlier this year, for instance, it adopted tough new academic standards for student athletes; they are not perfect. If the NCAA had national hiring standards, they wouldn't be either.

What would-be college coaches want is simple. It is the same as what they would want for their players: a chance to fairly compete and show the world what they can do.

The fact that they are denied that opportunity is a national embarrassment, and a marker of racism's lingering grip a half-century after desegregation began.