whither chizik and kiffin?

For years, the National Collegiate Athletic Association and Division I athletic directors and university administrators have come under intense scrutiny and fire for their repeated failure to hire African American and other minority head coaches for their collegiate football programs. The Sports Law Blog has addressed the issue of minority head coach hiring on many occasions, including recently. Despite the rhetoric, scrutiny, criticism and venom, the NCAA, athletic directors and university administrators continue to ignore the call for equal opportunity. Athletic directors and university presidents continue to thumb their collective noses at critics in particular, but also, at the very athletes that power college football.

At this time, African American athletes comprise more than half of the scholarship players at the Division I college football level. In the professional football ranks, more than 70% of the athletes are African American. As things stand today at the collegiate level then, the 50% black athletes who play college football can expect a 5% chance that their head coach will be African American (six head coaches of the 119 head coach positions). In the National Football League, the 70% black athletes on NFL rosters can expect a 22% chance that their head coach will be African American (seven head coaches of the 32 head coach positions, including interim Mike Singletary).

This particular month (December 2008), the glaring issue of the failure of collegiate programs to hire African American head coaches has come under particular scrutiny. Auburn University drew a cacophony of protest when it hired Gene Chizik to replace Tommy Tuberville, despite Chizik’s extremely poor win/loss record at Iowa State and the “passing over” of Turner Gill who has resurrected a football program at the University of Buffalo (and is African American). Still, Auburn is not alone. High profile head football coach positions at Tennessee, Kansas State, Washington, Iowa State, Syracuse and Mississippi State have been filled by white head coaches, many of them unproven neophytes (Washington, Kansas State and Mississippi State replaced terminated African American head coaches). One writer termed these hiring decisions as a "laugh riot."

Floyd Keith, President of the Black Coaches Association, in exasperation, has begun exploring avenues to sue university administrations under Title VII for intentional race discrimination in hiring. Despite his work in developing the hiring “report card” and in motivating the NCAA to adopt a non-binding “Best Practices” memorandum that, similar to the NFL’s Rooney Rule, asks university administrations to interview at least one minority candidate for each collegiate head football coach opening, Keith remains discouraged at the refusal of NCAA member institutions to diversify the head football coaching profession.

To this reverberating call for change, inclusion, social justice and equal hiring, I would add the following points that have perhaps gone unrecognized during the course of this debate.

First, per William Rhoden’s piece in the New York Times, when asked to name the top five coaches that NFL athletes would most like to play for, four of the top five identified by the players are African American head coaches (i.e., Tony Dungy (1st place); Lovie Smith (2nd place); Herm Edwards (4th place); and Mike Tomlin (5th place)). This suggests several things: (a) when given the opportunity, black head coaches generally excel; (b) 70% of the athletes in the NFL are African American and those athletes clearly prefer playing for an African American head coach (see Rhoden); (c) African American head coaches relate in genuine ways to the modern athlete and take the mentoring role very seriously (see Tony Dungy, Lovie Smith, Turner Gill); (d) of the 32 NFL head coaches, only six at the time of the survey were African American and FOUR were listed in the top five as far as coaches athletes would prefer to play for; and (e) the "black football-playing majority must answer to a predominantly white power structure, which includes team executives and owners." (see Rhoden)

One dispiriting logical conclusion then, for those NCAA university administrators and athletic directors that refuse to hire minority head coaches, is that they are essentially telling their African American student athletes, that the athletes preference to be coached or mentored by an African American head coach is completely unimportant to the goal or mission of the institution. Athletic directors and university administrations, as per the usual, seem so beholden to the booster or the alum (the good old boy network), that what may be in the best interest of the athlete (and the program in the long term), is insignificant or even trivial. Again, Rhoden’s story indicates that African American athletes want to play for an African American head coach. Presumably, a coach that “gets” them, understands their challenges and wants to help them learn to develop both as an athlete and as a man. (see Tony Dungy). Only 5% of NCAA D.1 football programs have hired an African American head coach to mentor their more than 50% African American athletes.

Second, African American head coaches, when they are finally given the opportunity to be a head coach, are usually tasked with resurrecting or turning around failed or moribund organizations (see Tony Dungy—Tampa Bay Buccaneers; Lovie Smith—Chicago Bears; Romeo Crennel—Cleveland Browns; Marvin Lewis—Cincinnati Bengals; Turner Gill—University of Buffalo; Mike Locksley—University of New Mexico, etc.). This is typically not true for many white coaching hires (see Norv Turner—San Diego Chargers; Wade Phillips—Dallas Cowboys; Lane Kiffin—University of Tennessee; Gene Chizik—Auburn University; Urban Meyer—University of Florida etc.). For the white neophyte head coach, a solid underlying program or foundation is often in place allowing quick successes. For the African American head coach, a miraculous turnaround is often the order of the day (only Mike Tomlin’s hire by the Pittsburgh Steelers and Tony Dungy’s hire by the Indianapolis Colts can fairly be characterized as a hire into a solid situation).

Third, the latest trend in hiring head football coaches, the "coach-in-waiting" model, starkly and baldly circumvents both the Rooney Rule in the NFL and the Best Practices Memorandum in the NCAA. Essentially, stable programs like Florida State University, the University of Texas and the Seattle Seahawks, designate an assistant coach on staff, typically white (but not always, see Joker Phillips at Kentucky), that will become the next head coach when the current coach retires. Bobby Bowden will be replaced by Jimbo Fisher at Florida State. Mack Brown will be replaced by Will Muschamp at Texas. Mike Holmgren will watch Jim Mora, Jr., take over when he steps down this offseason. When affirmatively trying to level a playing field, selecting a "coach-in-waiting" simply rejects an equal opportunity hiring process and mocks the spirit of the Rooney Rule and the Best Practices Memorandum.

Fourth, the African American head coach must typically prove his mettle for decades as an assistant and interview for dozens of jobs before being given an opportunity to become a head coach. Tony Dungy was passed over for years before landing the Tampa Bay Buccaneer job. Marvin Lewis interviewed repeatedly for head coach opportunities. Apparently Turner Gill, who interviewed at Syracuse and Auburn this hiring cycle must continue to pay his dues before he will land the coveted BCS program head coach position. For Lane Kiffin, Steve Sarkisian and Gene Chizik, the dues that must be paid appear to be much different and their dues do not cost nearly as much. No matter how an athletic director or university administration justifies that differing cost, it is purely and simply unequal.

A call has been made for a Civil Rights Movement in hiring head football coaches. Apparently, without one, the NCAA and its member institutions will not do the right thing, which is to diversify its coaching ranks.*


* Thanks to Rob Dixon, 3L, West Virginia University College of Law for providing research and insight. Thanks also to Sheila Hassani, 3L, West Virginia University College of Law for research and source material.