FBS Continues Diversity Failures

Two day ago I commented on Tyrone Willingham suggesting "Rooney Rule" for FBS schools to solve the diversity problem. Yesterday Pat Forde at ESPN looked into the diversity issue even further:

Bottom line: Of the few head-coaching jobs blacks get in college football, most are bad ones.

Outside of Randy Shannon, who just completed his second season in charge at Miami, there are no black coaches among the other 64 schools in BCS conferences. Those are the schools that offer the most money, the most exposure, the most prestige and the best chances to win. They just don't offer many chances to blacks

Ten jobs in BCS conferences have turned over heading into 2009. All were filled by white coaches, eight of whom have never been a head coach at the FBS level. Last year, all 11 BCS-conference jobs went to white men.

Forde doesn't give any suggestions on how to solve the problem, but then again he doesn't look at the root of it either. He not using his soap box well enough. Simply recognizing there's a diversity problem and as he said:

Ten jobs in BCS conferences have turned over heading into 2009. All were filled by white coaches, eight of whom have never been a head coach at the FBS level. Last year, all 11 BCS-conference jobs went to white men.

Meanwhile, black coaches are scrambling to take jobs in gridiron gulags like Las Cruces, N.M., and Ypsilanti, Mich. Of the seven programs currently headed by black coaches, four (Buffalo, New Mexico, Eastern Michigan and New Mexico State) rank in the bottom 20 of ESPN.com's freshly updated all-time Prestige Ratings.

Black coaches who have put in the work have two options. They can either take gigs at historically bad FBS schools or move onto the N.F.L. Jim Caldwell did both, as Forde pointed out. First, he attempted to turn bad Wake Forest program around and after lasting a seven years he became Tony Dungy's top assistant and eventually his replacement this year.

There's so much money coming from outside the athletic program. Boosters play a key role in hiring and schmoozing with prospective coaches. I agree with Willingham's original point. Courts will need to force the hand of administrations. These school, many of which are public institutations, receive federal and state funds and need to be held accountable.