Barkley blisters old school’s hire

Gene Chizik deplaned at Auburn-Opelika Airport on Sunday night to find some 200 fans waving pompom, a host of cheerleaders and Mayor Bill Ham, who presented him with the key to the city.

A day later, it was Charles Barkley’s turn.

Having strongly recommended that his old school hire Turner Gill as Auburn’s first African-American football coach, Barkley blasted the Chizik hire as short-sighted at best and, at worst, racially motivated.

“It’s a comment on Auburn. It’s a comment on the state of Alabama,” Barkley said Monday night. “I just feel sadness because you know what people think of the South and Alabama, things like that. And you just hope that at some point that people are going to say we’re going to change this. Or it’s just going to stay status quo.”

Ten days after Tommy Tuberville’s surprise departure from the school after 10 seasons, Chizik was officially presented at a campus news conference Monday afternoon. Tigers athletics director Jay Jacobs, who closed the deal to bring him from Iowa State, praised Chizik as tough-minded and demanding.

“I know that we have found the right fit for Auburn,” Jacobs said in a statement.

But while initial reaction to the hire ran cooler within the Auburn community, Barkley took it personally. Following Tuberville’s departure, he called Gill, who has had a strong three-year run at Buffalo, to discuss the vacancy. In three years, Gill transformed Buffalo from one of the nation’s worst programs into the Mid-American Conference champion.

Barkley subsequently went on radio and television in Alabama to push Gill’s candidacy. “He is a hell of a coach,” Barkley said. “I never want them to just hire a black coach just because he’s black. I wanted them to hire a black coach for two reasons. No. 1, Turner Gill can coach his [butt] off. But also, with those [top-flight] coaches who are in the SEC now, we need a recruiting tool to bring to Auburn. We do need that.”

Jacobs quietly went about interviewing at least eight and as many as 12 candidates for the job, including TCU’s Gary Patterson, Tulsa’s Todd Graham, Ball State’s Brady Hoke and Georgia assistant Rodney Garner, an Auburn graduate. Only Gill and Garner are black.

Chizik was interviewed late in the process. A former member of Tuberville’s staff —- he was defensive coordinator for Auburn’s 13-0 season in 2004 —- he now must regularly compete against a strong stable of SEC coaches. In his two seasons at Iowa State, his only experience as a head coach, Chizik went 5-19.

“They didn’t expect anybody to call them out on it,” Barkley said. “But they don’t have the guts to say to me, ‘This guy is a better coach than Turner Gill.’ Ain’t no way they can say that with good conscience.”

Of the 119 programs that comprise Division I-A football, only four schools employ African-American head coaches: Buffalo, Houston (Kevin Sumlin), Miami (Randy Shannon) and New Mexico (Mike Locksley, hired Dec. 8).

Barkley said he discussed Alabama politics, race and sports history with Gill. He also dismissed that Gill’s mixed-race marriage should have been an issue and he wonders now if in the final run, Gill ever had a chance.

“I don’t know the answer to that,” he said. “But I got to tell you, if you just put their resumes side by side, it’s not even fair.”