College Football: No more excuses, time to hire more black head coaches

Until the root cause is examined and rooted out, nothing will change. The Big 12 is one of the worse perpetrators of this lack of diversity. 

The root cause of the lack of African-American coaches in major college football–and most of college football for that matter– is both institutional and systemic in nature.

Historically white institutions, white university presidents usually hire white athletic directors who usually hire white head coaches. Behind these decisions is the support of predominately white donors, boosters and regents. Those issues are masked behind excuses like, “there aren’t enough African-Americans who want to go into coaching,” or “African-American coaches don’t have enough experience.”

When those excuses seem inadequate, you then hear, “we prefer to have coaches that are coordinators first,” or “we’d like coaches that have experienced coaching offense and defense.” The truth behind hiring a head coach is simple; it does not matter how extensive the hiring process is; hiring a coach is a crapshoot.

Consider these hires:

•  Pete Carroll (USC) When then-Athletic Director Mike Garrett hired Carroll in 2000, Carroll was fired by the New England Patriots. Not only was Carroll fired by the New England Patriots, but Carroll also was not the Trojans’ first choice. USC targeted Mike Belotti (Oregon), Dennis Erickson (Oregon State), Mike Riley (San Diego Chargers) and Sonny Lubick (Colorado State). The hire was met with some grumblings by the administration and those holding the purse strings. However, Carroll led the Trojans to the best era of football since John McKay.
• Jeremy Pruitt (Tennessee) Like Carroll, Pruitt was not the first choice of Athletic Director Phillip Fulmer. Mike Leach, David Cutcliffe, Greg Schiano and Kevin Steele were among the candidates who turned down the job in Knoxville. Unlike Carroll, Pruitt’s tenure has not gone as well. Pruitt is 16-19 in three years with one bowl win.

Neither Carroll nor Pruitt were college head coaches before they were hired, and Pruitt had never been a head coach on any level. Before going to Los Angeles, Carroll had a marginal NFL coaching career, and Pruitt had been a coordinator for just three years before getting the Volunteers job.

Universities want candidates to be coordinators…right?

As great a job Larry Johnson has done with the defensive line at Ohio State or even the admirable job Odell Haggins did at Florida State after Willie Taggart was fired, they would never be considered for head coaching positions.

Haggins was interviewed for the FSU job after a groundswell of support. Mike Norvell was ultimately hired. The reasoning with position coaches like Johnson and Haggins is they’ve never been coordinators.

Consider these hires:

Dabo Swinney: When Clemson promoted William Christopher Swinney to become the head football coach at Clemson, Tommy Bowden had just gotten fired. Swinney must have wowed the Clemson brass in the interview. At the time of the promotion, Swinney was recruiting coordinator and receivers coach. Swinney had never been an assistant coach or coordinator. Not only did Swinney get the job, but he also got time to learn how to win and ingrain his culture.

Ed Orgeron: Orgeron was not LSU’s first choice. The Tigers wanted Tom Herman, who ended up going to Texas. Though Orgeron had head coaching experience –first as an interim at USC, then at Mississippi– Orgeron was a coach and never a coordinator. Orgeron failed miserably at Mississippi, yet the Louisiana native got another chance with LSU.

So what’s the real reason? 

Revisiting the initial premise, the root cause is institutional. The lack of black administrators among these large institutions is worse than the lack of black head coaches. Among the 65 Power Five schools, only five employ black athletic directors and two employ black presidents.

There is no information about black donors; Universities do not keep that demographic information, and black donors –if there are any– have not spoken out about this issue.

In the Big 12, the last black head coach was Charlie Strong, and none of the current athletic directors have ever hired a black head coach at any school. “We need to be held accountable for that,” said Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby.

The issue comes down to racial bias. That is not to say that University presidents are racists, but race is a subtext to the issue. Athletic Directors want who they want and universities are not held accountable for hiring or interviewing black coaching candidates. The NCAA imposes its will on everything else; why not this? Maybe they are afraid to look in the mirror.