Four-down territory. That’s where NCAA administrators find themselves in the push to diversify intercollegiate football’s head coaching ranks.

While programs in the Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) have been favorite targets of media and concerned organizations such as the Black Coaches Association, the lack of head coaches of color is an issue at every level of NCAA football. The ensuing pressure and the resulting attention to the issue — and a sincere desire by administrators to see progress on the diversity front — has produced many creative strategies for attacking the problem.

The NCAA Men’s Coaches Academy is one of those initiatives. Launched in 2003, the academy has helped produce two of the five current ethnic minorities leading Football Bowl Subdivision teams. Further, those associated with the program — particularly those who have facilitated sessions and interacted with participants — praise both the initiative and the coaches it serves.

The stated aim of the academy is to assist ethnic-minority football coaches who desire to secure a head coaching position. The program is administered by national office staff and overseen by a consortium of the NCAA Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee, the American Football Coaches Association, the BCA and the NFL. The academy is divided into two prongs — the Men’s Football Coaching Academy for coaches with at least one to eight years of experience and the Expert Football Coaching Academy for participants with at least eight years of experience.

The application process is competitive. Class size for both academies is limited to 25. Each academy is held once a year — the Men’s in June and the Expert in May.

Charlotte Westerhaus, NCAA vice president for diversity and inclusion, says the academy represents a connection of the talented and the talent seekers.

"Athletics directors and coaches are keen on and responsible for bringing the very best talent to their campuses," she said. "They want an opportunity to meet talented individuals, and their expectation is that the connection can be made through this program."

An inside perspective

Westerhaus said the value of the academy is two-fold: It allows qualified football coordinators and assistant coaches to meet some of the best head coaches, athletics directors and search-firm representatives, and it gives those coaches, athletics directors and search firms the opportunity to get acquainted with gifted coaches of color who are interested in advancing their careers.

Tim Weiser, director of athletics at Kansas State University who has experience facilitating academy sessions, said the program allows individuals to understand how prospective employers make decisions — an element he believes makes the academy a rich experience.

"I look back on my career and wish that I would have had an opportunity to hear a president, for example, or a consultant who would talk about what it is that schools look for when they hire an athletics director. I think it’s very beneficial to have somebody talk about what they look for and what they respond to," he said.

The networking was valuable to Columbia University-Barnard College Director of Athletics M. Dianne Murphy, who after serving as a facilitator at the Expert Academy this summer hired academy graduate Norries Wilson as the university’s head football coach. One of the greatest values of the program, Murphy said, is that it gives participants a chance to set aside the X’s and O’s and focus on the other necessary and equally important elements associated with administering a football program — such as managing personnel, budgeting, dealing with boosters and fund-raising. It also offers coaches the opportunity to learn from each other.

"It gives them an opportunity to understand that athletics directors aren’t always looking for X’s and O’s, but for all the other things that head coaches are expected to do," she said. "Sometimes you’re so focused on getting your work done that you don’t have time to reflect. You don’t have time to reach out and learn. This gives them that chance."

Lingering perception

For all the glowing reports the academy has generated from participants and facilitators alike — and despite the success some of its graduates have experienced — at least one troubling concern lingers: that the program is somehow preparatory or that it merely caters to coaches who need more help being coaches.

Westerhaus isn’t sure of the source of the misconception, though she said it could come from the use of "academy" in the program title or perhaps from the school-like structure of the initiative. Regardless, it is a charge to which she and others object.

Westerhaus said that in reality, athletics administrators and head coaches involved with the academy have not only become convinced of the abundance of qualified minority candidates, but they also have become more committed to doing what they can to plug those individuals into potential openings.

Grant Teaff, executive director of the AFCA, stressed that the NCAA Coaches Academy is really about being prepared. He described the quality of coaches who have participated in the program as extraordinary.

"I believe deeply that preparation is the key to success and opportunity," said Teaff. "It doesn’t matter if you’re black, white or Asian. If you’re working extra hard, no matter what the venue, to try to prepare yourself, that’s what counts. It’s not a perception that you need help. It’s a perception that you are doing something extra to try to prepare yourself."

Further, Teaff said he doesn’t believe that administrators look at their participation in the academy as anything other than positive. To that point, Kansas State’s Weiser, who earlier this year hired Expert Coaches Academy graduate Ron Prince as the Wildcats’ head football coach, said seeing coaches so actively engaged in managing their careers indicates how sincere they are about being a head coach.

Wally Renfro, senior advisor to NCAA President Myles Brand and a facilitator for the academy, said the fact is that everyone needs to be introduced to the subtle areas for which they may never receive training.

"It isn’t always enough to know the X’s and O’s," Renfro said. "There’s a lot more to it at the Division I level. This is a program designed to go beyond the skill level that it takes to coach on the field. It does that but also addresses those areas that are a little more subtle and sometimes for which there is a lack of training unless you have a mentor or someone who is willing to help you through it."

Membership effort

The NCAA academies aren’t the only networking opportunities for aspiring head coaches of color. Similar relationships among assistant coaches and coordinators and athletics administrators are being built through outreach efforts such as the "meet-and-greet" initiative sponsored by the Pacific-10 Conference.

Now in its fifth year, the program is designed to help athletics administrators and coaches become better acquainted with potential head coaches and to give assistant coaches insights on how to prepare for an opportunity. The guest list includes ethnic-minority assistant coaches and coordinators along with league ADs and other head coaches.

The first three years of the program featured a dinner, but this year league officials expanded the event to include an afternoon session to allow for more open discussion and dialogue. To ensure that athletics directors are well prepared, assistants’ resumes are collected and distributed before the event.

Pacific-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen said the initiative came from discussions among the league’s athletics directors about ways to expand and enhance the hiring of ethnic-minority coaches.

"When directors must hire a head coach, they are under pressure to do so a timely manner," Hansen said. "Under those conditions, it helps to know a number of qualified minority assistant football coaches who can be immediately considered."

The program features athletics directors and current ethnic-minority head coaches who provide candidates with different perspective on how to prepare for head coaching positions.

While none of the assistants has advanced into a head coaching post, Hansen said the athletics directors are confident the endeavor will pay dividends soon.

"The directors have been impressed with the program to the extent that they continue to do it after four years and we’re planning to do another one next spring," he said.

Others have taken the Pacific-10’s lead. The Minority Coaches Forum, for example, is an effort developed by the commissioners from the six Bowl Championship Series conferences that helps athletics directors and ethnic-minority assistant coaches from different conferences become more familiar with each other.

Now entering the second year of a proposed six-year commitment, Ed Stewart, assistant commissioner for football and student services at the Big 12 Conference, said the day-and-a-half-event will host two to three coaches from each league. "From what I understand, it was well received last year by participants — not only the coaches, but the athletics directors and commissioners," he said. "Everyone thinks this is a positive thing."

Westerhaus said those and other grass-roots programs complement the NCAA Coaches Academy and that more can, should and will be done.

"The academy is just one prong of a multifaceted approach to enhance the hiring of head football coaches of color — and a successful one, at that," she said.

Teaff agreed, noting an influx in these types of training efforts since he took over at the AFCA.

"We have made a concerted effort to create programs that will develop and train our coaches," he said. "We’ve emphasized giving our minority coaches opportunities that they might not have had previously. The NCAA along with our association and the BCA have come up with some of the best development and educational programs I’ve seen to prepare candidates to become head coaches."

With the advent in 2004 of the Black Coaches Association’s Hiring Report Card, more public attention is focused on the way institutions hire coaches and administrators. The report card grades institutions on the quality of their search process, including the diversity of both the candidate pool and the people making the final hiring decisions.

Joe Castiglione, athletics director at the University of Oklahoma, believes so much in the report card that he provided an afterword for the second incarnation, published in 2005. Castiglione’s institution likely will find itself graded in the next edition since it recently filled a men’s basketball coaching vacancy. Oklahoma hired Jeff Capel this spring after a high-pressure search, much of it conducted in the public eye.

Searches for coaches, especially a high-profile position such as a men’s basketball coach at a major university like Oklahoma, can be difficult to manage. The pressures that stakeholders apply to hire a big name quickly can cause institutions to abandon a well-intentioned plan that would otherwise attract a diverse candidate pool.

Castiglione said establishing a thorough process for hiring early — including identifying the final decision-makers — and committing to it throughout the time it takes to hire someone is essential to ensuring that a diverse candidate pool is considered.

"Sometimes in the difficult world in which we operate, the pressure that comes along the way can influence points at which the search process gets challenged, and that’s why it’s so important to remain diligent," Castiglione said. "You can still move forward in an efficient manner without being hasty."

In Oklahoma’s case, the university compiled a diverse pool and made a thoughtful decision in two weeks —-a decision that resulted in an African-American being hired. But Castiglione said the beauty of the search process was not that it produced an African-American coach but that Oklahoma officials felt they hired the best candidate.

Chuck Neinas, president of the search firm Neinas Sports Services, said other institutions can replicate Oklahoma’s efficiency by having a roster of qualified candidates for any position — regardless of the potential for a vacancy — available at all times.

Neinas said the pressure to hire the right candidate quickly comes from a variety of sources, but most notably the media. Sometimes the pressure is intense enough to cause an institution to either abandon a well-considered plan or cause either a candidate or an institution to reconsider.

"People rush to judgment and rush to conclusions, and it can ruin a search if the names of candidates are leaked," Castiglione said. "We all wish we could run these searches in a more conventional way. It would make it easier on all parties. But if we’re involved in a high-profile search ... it’s just impossible. There’s too much media intervention and scrutiny — too much pressure comes to bear on the candidates if their names become public."

That pressure can be enough to lead institutions to take what seems to be a quick and easy route without exploring a variety of possibilities.

"Sometimes it causes people to go with a sure thing, or what they think is a sure thing, and not be diligent enough to look and see what else might work," Castiglione said. "For whatever reason, they feel like they have to take a shortcut and move beyond some of the objectives that a process provides."

Castiglione advises institutions that are about to embark on a search to determine who will make the ultimate decision and who will be involved in the process immediately after a position opens. Those people then will be responsible for ensuring that a proper process that includes a diverse candidate pool is followed.

Ultimately, as more attention is brought to the issue of diversity and inclusion in coaching, Castiglione said he believes institutions are being more conscientious in their hiring processes.

"I do believe that more and more we see people’s diligence shining through," he said. "There is a right way to go about this, and it’s fair, open and inclusive. Regardless of the candidate who is selected, people can go back and critique that process and find that it was followed properly. The right intentions and the spirit of inclusion have been embraced. More institutions are following that path."

Neinas agreed and said that he seldom conducts a search for an institution that isn’t keenly interested in including minority candidates in the process.

Castiglione said institutions have no reason not to conduct an inclusive search.

"A process, if properly put in place, will work to the institution’s advantage regardless of the person hired. That’s why I really don’t understand why people give up too soon," he said. "I haven’t heard one compelling reason that would make me think a process that embraces inclusion should not be used. They’re just excuses people provide. A search can take on all kinds of personalities, but it doesn’t mean the process has to be compromised."