At no time in the history of the NCAA and college sports has it been more important than now for all facets of intercollegiate athletics to join forces in addressing complex and sometimes confounding issues. A potential success story in that regard is the NCAA's work on academic reform, where different constituencies have undertaken a unified effort to increase student-athlete academic performance. I expect that effort to produce profound results.

Success has not been as swift, however, with another complex issue -- that of diversifying the coaching and athletics administration ranks. Men and women of color simply are not being hired in head coaching jobs or administrative positions in intercollegiate athletics in an equitable way.

Excluding historically black colleges and universities, there are only 29 African-American males in athletics director positions in all divisions. Out of nearly 14,000 head coaching positions in all divisions -- again, excluding the HBCUs -- there are but 737 African Americans. The numbers for black women are even worse. There are only three African-American female athletics directors and only 165 black women who are head coaches at non-HBCUs.

In head coaching positions, there has been some progress in Division I men's basketball, with more than 90 African Americans in top spots, but in football, there are only four black head coaches at non-HBCUs. Since 1979, there have been almost 400 head coaching vacancies in Division I-A football. Black coaches have been selected for only 21 of those positions, with 15 of the hires coming after 1990. There never have been more than four Division I-A black head football coaches at any one time.

Numbers for Hispanic coaches in all sports also are poor. As of 2002, only 38 Hispanic coaches were among the more than 2,500 head coaches of men's teams, and just 38 were among the almost 3,000 coaches of women's teams. Most of those were in soccer, baseball and tennis.

This is not progress.

There currently are 16 NCAA-funded programs to develop candidates among ethnic minorities and women for positions in intercollegiate athletics. The most recent initiative is the NCAA Coaches Academy, designed specifically to improve diversity among head football coaches in Division I-A. I expect that effort, with assistance from the Black Coaches Association and the American Football Coaches Association, to yield results.

But if we are going to attack the problem of diversity among head football coaches in any meaningful way, we have to strike at the heart of the problem. In my opinion, that is the hiring process.

Here is where the highly competitive nature of intercollegiate athletics generally -- and football in particular -- has served inclusiveness poorly. The emphasis on winning and the competition for proven coaching talent has created a risk-averse environment where minorities are locked out of the top positions.

We must work with college presidents to develop clear guidelines for searches. Colleges and universities must do a better job of identifying the available pool of talented individuals and then embrace a search and hiring process that gives minority coaches a fair chance.

Universities have learned how to undertake searches for senior academic administrators and faculty that include diverse pools of candidates and, increasingly, fair results. Of course, these academic search processes are not perfect, and sometimes highly qualified candidates are passed over; but, by and large, they are reasonable and -- importantly -- considerably more likely to lead to diversity in appointments than the current approach used for athletics departments.

Representative search committee

There are differences between academic and athletics searches. Academic searches, even for a university president, rarely command the national press attention as does one for a head coach at a major Division I-A school. Moreover, an academic search ordinarily follows the academic calendar, meaning that it could require nine months or more for completion. By contrast, athletics searches are conducted far more quickly. The reasons are the desire to protect the candidates from press exposure, and to assure that the enrolled and recruited student-athletes are not left leaderless.

Nonetheless, despite these differences, searches for head coaches and athletics directors, and perhaps a few other athletics positions, can be significantly improved by modeling them, within reason, on academic searches. Doing so will greatly improve the chances to identify and attract more talented and more diverse final candidates.

First, there should be a representative search committee that should include faculty members (probably the faculty athletics representative), university administrators and athletics department personnel. It might be helpful to include an external member -- for example, a knowledgeable alumnus or retired senior athletics administrator. It also would be advantageous to include a student-athlete. There should be persons of color on the committee. The committee should not include the president or members of the Board of Trustees.

Second, the search committee should make every effort to identify leading candidates, most especially minority candidates. This is the approach taken in successful senior academic searches. The athletics director's direct input is essential at this and succeeding stages of the process.

Third, the search committee should personally interview the leading candidates. The committee should determine whether each candidate can succeed in the local environment in three major areas: fielding highly competitive teams, focusing on the academic success of student-athletes, and representing the university well to its many and varied constituencies.

Patience a priority

The search committee also should undertake a full due-diligence review of each candidate. It is not necessary to engage an outside consultant in searches for head coaches and athletics directors, but it can be useful. A good search consultant -- and they are not all good -- can help identify candidates, including candidates of color. They can be helpful in the due-diligence segment of the search; in fact, this is the area in which they can be most helpful. A good search consultant also can assist in the final negotiations with the selected candidate.

Fourth, the search committee should recommend to the president a short list of several candidates. The current practice in head coach searches sometimes involves the AD recommending a single candidate to the president. The president should meet with each of the candidates on the short list whom he or she considers viable. The president should consult in depth with the AD if it is a coaching position; the athletics director needs to work closely with the president, but it is the president's decision to make. Once the president has chosen the best candidate, he or she should recommend the final candidate to the Board or directly make the appointment, depending on the procedures for appointment at the institution.

This approach puts the president in the crucial decision-making position. It identifies who is responsible for the appointment and it clearly specifies the point of accountability. The current approach tends to defer responsibility, and as history has shown, that leads to appointments that lack diversity. Too much of a tendency exists to restrict the pool of candidates to a small network of known individuals. I have confidence that the presidents are likely to move beyond this small network and make appointments that take into account a wide range of factors.

This new approach will automatically lengthen the search -- but it should not take more than three to four weeks to complete. That is sufficient time to do the job properly. Here the process differs from academic ones.

Colleges and universities at the Division I level must end the practice of hiring over an abbreviated time period -- sometimes as abbreviated as a weekend -- and begin hiring in a way that includes a diverse pool of candidates and with a process that permits developing talent, not just cannibalizing the talent from other programs.

There is no guarantee, of course, that this new approach will yield a more diverse group of head coaches. Moreover, even if it will do so, it may well take time to reach this goal. In many cases, the pressure to win too readily tempts hiring the known coach or the "name" coach quickly to calm boosters and alumni who fear talented recruits will jump ship if a high-profile coach isn't immediately in place.

Such uneasiness is understandable, but I firmly believe that modeling major athletics searches on those for senior academic administrators, including the president being the primary decision maker and point of accountability, has a far better chance to yield a diverse group of head coaches than the current approach. This point pertains not only to head football coaches, but other leadership positions within intercollegiate athletics.

This is a problem that can be solved. It requires commitment to the principle of building diversity. The talent among African-American men and women to lead and produce winning programs is clearly present. The challenge is installing a search process that yields the appointment of the best person while assuring full opportunity for men and women of color.

Myles Brand is the president of the NCAA.