USA Today ran an editorial on Friday criticizing NCAA member schools for not hiring more black coaches, and a reply of sorts by Charlotte Westerhaus, the NCAA’s “vice president for diversity and inclusion.”
The editorial was titled:
College football fumbles minority hiring
Equal opportunity? For black coaches, those words ring hollow.
I can’t say how they ring for black coaches, but I can, and hereby do, say that USA Today‘s own claim to favor “equal opportunity” rings hollow. Note, for example, the core of the edit’s argument:
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.
This is a remarkable, and remarkably revealing, assertion. If “subtle biases and outright racism … permeate the hiriing process” at the 1250 member institutions of the NCAA, surely it shouldn’t be “difficult to point to a single university decision” that was determined by these “subtle biases [or] outright racism….”
This edit’s position calls to mind the infamous dim business man who lost money on every sale but hoped to make it up in volume.
Alas, the NCAA’s response to this charge is no better than the charge itself, accepting as it does both the premise and the conclusion. Thus Ms. Westerhaus writes:
No one in higher education or intercollegiate athletics can believe that diversity hiring of head football coaches in NCAA Division I-A is anything but a dismal failure. The numbers speak for themselves and have for decades….
The NCAA also established the Office of Diversity and Inclusion in August and hired me to head the office and address various diversity issues….
…. The crucial and salient bottom line is this: The process to ensure equitable and diverse hiring is broken. Our attention must be focused on fixing it, and results should be the only measure of success.
Both the editorial writer and the NCAA agree that neither racism nor bias in the hiring process explains the low numbers of minority coaches. They share the assumption that the unacceptably low number of minority coaches is itself, even absent any conscious or unconscious racism (unconscious racism?) in the hiring process, the definition of racism. “Underrepresentation,” in this view, is racism.
Since discrimination, in this all too popular view, is not the problem, “equal opportunity” is not the solution. Wherever “numbers speak for themselves,” what they say is, “Forget ‘equal opportunity.’ Hire/admit/promote more minorities!”
Both USA Today and the NCAA should say what they mean and stop trying to pretend that they favor “equal opportunity.”
It the NCAA was really interested in diversity, it would study the statistics much more closely. Both Hispanics and Asian-Americans are underrepresented as both athletes and coaches at NCAA institution. Also, black male athletes are massively overrepresented as scholarship athletes versus white males.
It you want to look at why the number of black coaches does not equal the same percentage as the number of blacks playing football at Florida State, the NCAA should look at abscence of blacks in Division IAA, II, and III football programs and the low graduation rates of black athletes.
John writes:
>>>”Both the editorial writer and the NCAA agree that neither racism nor bias in the hiring process explains the low numbers of minority coaches. They share the assumption that the unacceptably low number of minority coaches is itself, even absent any conscious or unconscious racism (unconscious racism?) in the hiring process, the definition of racism. “Underrepresentation,” in this view, is racism.”
The editorial writer and Charlotte Westerhaus also make pains to illustrate that qualification is NOT the issue, and provide examples illustrating such. One of the arguments anti-affirmative action types often make is the meritocracy scenario, where the most qualified applicant should be chosen for a position regardless of race. Given the statement by the editorial writer that the hiring process for college athletics is not objective:
>>>”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.”
When we have an HONEST recognition of old-boy networks and entrenched, self-replicating white patronage, perhaps everyone can come to this debate on “fair hiring” with clean hands.
–Cobra
A good example of “entranched, self-replicating … patronage” is found in the next post:
“The theory seems to be that blacks should support Mfume because he’s black … and white’s should support Mfume because he’s black.”
Dom
I wonder where the idea that there are many qualified black coaches comes from. Black football players have the next to lowest graduation rates of any group of athletes. Many head coaches at the big time programs get their start coaching at Division IAA schools like Youngstown St, Georgia Southern, etc. Not exactly the kind of schools that appeal to up and coming black coaches. Espeically considering that the two all black conferences, The SWAC and MEAC have, on average, the worst sports programs in the NCAA.
Superdestroyer writes:
>>>”I wonder where the idea that there are many qualified black coaches comes from.”
If you believe that “qualified” means former football players, that’s one thing. Let’s look at a real example of an assistant coaching position available at UNLV. What are their requirements?
>>>”Minimum Qualifications: Bachelor
Cobra,
I did not say that there were no qualified black coaches. However, if you look at the Demographics of those who would choose to go into coaching. If a school like Tennesse graduates almost no black football players but schools like Georgia Southern, or East Tennessee state does graduate many less talented, white football players, then what do you think is going to happen to the candiate pool?
How many black football players at Floida State or Miami are going to be graduate assistants to gain the necessary experience to begin to move up the coaching ranks?
Superdestroyer writes:
>>>”I did not say that there were no qualified black coaches.”
No, you said…
>>>”I wonder where the idea that there are many qualified black coaches comes from.”
If the qualifications for being a football coach, according to Division I job listing, is a Bachelor’s Degree and holding a previous job in coaching for 3-5 years, then given this statistic…
>>.”
Cobra,
If you apply a normal statistical distribution you could easily expect to find the distribution of coaches that you described. 20% of the entry positions leads to 4% of the top positions. Just remember that for every position to move up, a black asssist coach has to beat out several white coaches.
In reality, the black coaches get a hiring the benefit in that every team needs a couple of black coaches in order to recruit black players (See Mitch Albom’s “Fab Five”).
Yet, you would argue that 20% of the entry positions should lead to 20% of the top positions. That distribution cannot be achieved by racial quotas.
eyes darted between Biffs mask of anger and Eileens tear streaked onlihe casinos Biff suddenly noticed Martys stare He scowled at him .