AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2007 > October > 12 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USTomlin’s OK for NFL, but …
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Given the report card released this week by the Black Coaches Association — including the “F” assigned to the arrogant bosses at Georgia Southern for the second consecutive year, universities are continuing their hiring process from the 19th century when it comes to football coaches.
Sorry if you’re into optimism, but most of these universities aren’t likely to reach at least the 20th century in this regard anytime soon.
Not that they care.
Georgia Southern athletics director Sam Baker told the AJC this week that his university refused to cooperate with the BCA, because the letter the organization sent asking his university to describe its search process for a new football coach was “pretty threatening.”
To quote some of that “pretty threatening” letter: “We hope Georgia Southern University will be committed to reflecting diversity and inclusion.” And, “We trust this letter will open a direct line of communication for further dialogue relevant to serious candidates.” And, “We offer the capability to advertise this or any athletic-related opening via the BCA Web site.” And, “We appreciate and respect your commitment to diversity and inclusion in intercollegiate athletics.”
Threatening? Yeah, just like this is encouraging: Only seven of the 119 coaches at the Division I-A level are African-Americans. Worse, the BCA spent last year giving the name of an African-American candidate to three universities that would have been a perfect fit. Just one of those universities bothered to contact that African-American candidate who wasn’t hired, of course.
Well, not by a university. That African-American candidate eventually became only the third head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers since 1969. His name is Mike Tomlin, a charismatic 35-year-old with a decade worth of success at the college and pro level, and whose Steelers are surging at 4-1.
Yet Tomlin wasn’t good enough for a university.
Any university.
When it comes to this historically blatant exclusion of African-Americans from college football jobs, there are several schools of thought. You have mine, and then you have a popular thought represented by Paul Hewitt, the deep-thinking Georgia Tech basketball coach who also is the BCA president.
Here’s my thought: Power. It’s about a slew of non-minorities refusing to relinquish any of the power they’ve had forever. In their minds, they might lose all of that power forever. Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder, the late NFL analyst, spoke for many two decades ago, while giving his reason for the lack of African-Americans as coaches and decision-makers in sports. “There’s not going to be anything left for the white people,” Snyder said. “I mean, the players are all black.”
As for one of Hewitt’s explanations for it all, fear.
“It’s the fear of the unknown,” Hewitt said. “There are people in different areas of the country, for whatever reason, who don’t think that a black man can do the job. If they sat down and talked to them, they might say, ‘You know what? We might have something here.’ “
Exhibit A: Hewitt, beginning his eighth season with the Yellow Jackets after former Tech athletics director Dave Braine took a chance on some guy from someplace called Siena College. There have been five postseason trips for Hewitt’s Jackets, including a spot in the championship game of the Final Four.
In fact, heading into this season, the 326 basketball teams at the NCAA Division I level have an all-time high of 76 African-American coaches. Not long ago, college basketball was as woeful regarding African-American coaches as college football.
What happened? “You know, he doesn’t like to hear this, but it’s John Thompson,” said Hewitt, referring to the former Georgetown icon, whose Hoyas came just a sloppy pass away from a national championship over North Carolina in 1982. “I think athletics directors and schools saw that, with John making the Final Four, and by giving black coaches a chance, schools could start bringing in talent, and you have to have talent to win. You can draw a timeline from back then to today.”
So maybe there is room for optimism here. Then again, maybe all of those universities just lost Tomlin’s resume.
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