Every February the accomplishments of blacks in sports ““
trailblazers like former Bruins Arthur Ashe and Jackie Robinson,
and football players like the NFL’s Marion Motley and college
football player Chester Pierce ““ draw attention.
But look just to the right of the gridiron, to the sideline
where men in headsets run the show and the picture remains
surprisingly pallid.
Despite the fact that black players compose a majority of
Division I-A football, blacks hold only four of 117 Division I-A
head coaching positions. On Dec. 19, UCLA’s Karl Dorrell
joined Notre Dame’s Tyrone Willingham, San Jose State’s
Fitz Hill and New Mexico State’s Tony Samuel to form a
fraternity they would prefer was a little less exclusive.
“I think the opportunities are getting better and
I’ve proved that this year,” Dorrell said.
Although awareness has grown over the past few years, it took
the success of Willingham last season to focus national attention
on the issue. The former Stanford coach made news when he became
the first black coach of any sport at Notre Dame. He then surprised
the nation by taking the mediocre but storied 5-6 program in 2001
“back to glory” at 10-2 last year.
Yet change has been slow in coming. Dorrell’s hire brought
the count back to four, the same as it was in 2002 before Michigan
State’s Bobby Williams was fired.
“If we average one more hire a year, it will get better
because there is so much attention on it,” Dorrell said.
“I think progress is when, hopefully next year, there are
five instead of four, then six, then seven. My goal is
progress.”
“If it continues to stay at four, obviously we are not
getting that point across,” he added.
Thus far, that point has clearly been lost. In the entire
history of Division I-A football, there have only been 17 black
head coaches. Of 348 head coaching vacancies between 1982 and 2002,
17 ““ or 5 percent ““ went to blacks, according to the
research of Hill, who did his doctoral thesis on the issue.
The statistics have not improved either. Between 1996 and 2002,
six of 109 positions went to blacks, or roughly the same 5
percent.
The picture does not get any prettier at the Division I-AA level
where there are no black head coaches at 103 non-historically black
colleges.
“Awareness is the biggest issue,” Dorrell added.
“Now it is on the table. They are starting to build
regulations on it within our profession.”
According to an NCAA study, 21.2 percent of assistants and 16.6
percent of graduate assistants are black. In a sense, these numbers
support the idea that the pool of minority candidates is small.
However, those sheer numbers translate to a sizable pool. In 2000,
there were 251 black coaches at varying levels. In a survey done by
Hill, 8.2 percent of black coaches had interviewed for head
coaching positions while 34.4 percent of 889 white respondents
had.
“I think one of the biggest issues is familiarity,”
said UCLA offensive assistant Jon Embree, who is black. “The
people that do the hiring aren’t familiar with the
candidates. Second, until recently, lack of African-Americans in
the position hasn’t been highlighted.”
Embree went on to point out the most troublesome challenge to
equal opportunity: the fact that the hiring process is entirely
subjective.
“Things need to be equal,” Embree continued,
“(Current Washington and former Colorado head coach) Rick
Neuheisel didn’t need to be a coordinator (to become a head
coach). But if Karl Dorrell hadn’t been a coordinator, would
he have gotten the opportunity?”
UCLA running backs coach Eric Bieniemy echoes Embree’s
sentiments.
“I do think you have to get your first start. Black
Americans don’t have head coaching experience,”
Bieniemy said.
As a result, the same pool of head coaches is recycled. Yet the
the recycling process seems to color code as well. The NFL’s
first black head coach, Art Shell, has never been offered another
head coaching position since his run with the Oakland Raiders from
1989-1994, where he had a 56-41 record and three playoff
appearances.
“If you are a black head coach, it is best that you
perform,” Bieniemy said. “Or suffer the
consequences.”
The NFL has employed five black head coaches in the history of
the league. Art Shell, Dennis Green, Tony Dungy, Herm Edwards and
Ray Rhodes have advanced to the playoffs 20 times in 29 full
seasons.
As Black History Month draws to a close, NFL teams have hired
one black coach, Marvin Lewis at Cincinnati, joining Edwards of the
New York Jets and Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts as the only
current black head coaches in the league. February also saw the
controversial hiring process of the Detroit Lions, who plucked
former 49ers coach Steve Mariucci. According to current NFL
guidelines, teams must interview a minority candidate during their
search.
“The Detroit Lions gave mere lip service to the
agreed-upon minority hiring process, treating it almost as if a
nuisance to their hiring of Mariucci,” NFL Players
Association Executive Director Gene Upshaw said in a statement.
“The minority candidates were never given a fair chance to
interview.”
“A lot of times with black head coaches, you get one
chance,” Embree said about the situation at the college
level. “If you don’t make it, you don’t get to be
like (Arizona coach) John Mackovic and have four or five
chances.”
UCLA’s staff is aware that there’s pressure to
perform well for the school and to open the kind of opportunities
for others that Willingham had opened for them.
“The success of Tyrone Willingham helped Karl Dorrell out
a great deal,” Bieniemy said.
The mystery remains why blacks are so underrepresented as
coaches in football and not basketball. In the NBA, 34 percent of
coaches are black compared to 10 percent of NFL coaches. However,
the very fact that the situation is different may give hope that
change is possible.
“I don’t know what the issue is in football,”
Bieniemy said. “There are plenty of black males playing the
game so you’d think you could find a coach.”
“It makes no sense.”