National Collegiate Athletic Association
NCAA News Archive - 2007
« back to 2007 | Back to NCAA News Archive Index
BCA flunks 10 schools' football hiring efforts
|
By Leilana McKindra
The NCAA News
The NCAA News
In a tradition that is becoming as synonymous with fall as the sport it seeks to modify, the Black Coaches and Administrators released a football hiring report card October 9 showing that the coaching ranks still don’t reflect the diversity of student-athletes in the sport.
The BCA issued 11 A’s to Division I Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision schools for their hiring processes last year, but the 10 F’s were the most in the report’s four-year history.
Thirty-three schools (21 FBS and 12 FCS) were included in the 2006-07 study. Nine FBS institutions received A’s and four earned F’s, while two FCS institutions were awarded A’s and six received F’s. Two institutions automatically earned failing grades because they did not return any of the requested data.
In addition, five FBS schools earned B’s, two received C’s and one was awarded a D. Two FCS institutions received B’s, one a C and one a D.
Last year’s football hiring cycle produced only two hires of color in 33 opportunities. There currently are seven ethnic minority head football coaches at FBS institutions and five in the FCS.
Grades were based on five areas: communication with the BCA or the NCAA Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee; diversity of the hiring committee; number of candidates of color provided with an official interview; time frame of the search and hiring process; and adherence to the institution’s affirmative action hiring policies.
The number of schools that have been graded in four years reflects the movement in the head coaching ranks. More than half of the Division I football programs (117 of 218) have been graded — 54 percent of FBS and 50 percent of FCS institutions, One FBS institution and 14 FCS schools have been graded twice in that four-year span.
BCA Executive Director Floyd Keith said while the hiring report card has made practices more transparent and accountable, the same concerns remain.
For example, he cited the percentage for head coaches of color (6 percent for FBS schools and 5 percent for FCS) as nearly four times less than the NFL, which has grown to 19 percent for African-American head coaches. He also college football with college men’s basketball, for which the student-athlete demographics are similar but not the coaching ranks.
“If 58 percent of the players in Division I men’s basketball are African-American and 25 percent of the head basketball coaches are of color, why does the 49 percent of African-American players in FBS football translate to only 5 percent in the coaching ranks? These statistics are hard, objective facts that bring to an end the multitude of subjective conversations stimulated by this ongoing debate. The reality is social injustice,” Keith said.
Charlotte Westerhaus, NCAA vice president for diversity and inclusion, pledged the Association’s continued support. While the NCAA cannot mandate hiring outcomes, Westerhaus emphasized that, like the BCA, the NCAA believes that open, objective search practices will allow the best candidates to be considered.
“Expanding the interviewing process is the right approach for intercollegiate athletics because the talent is out there now, ready, willing and able to head a college football team,” she said. “Everyone knows the true measure of progress and success will be when more minorities are not merely interviewed, but actually hired as head football coaches.”
Westerhaus also acknowledged a recent initiative from the Division I-A Athletics Directors Association to develop guidelines and best practices in time for football’s annual hiring cycle in November and December.
“I am encouraged by the heightened awareness and current efforts of NCAA university presidents, athletics directors, conference commissioners, the BCA and the public who support NCAA sports,” Westerhaus said.
For more information about the BCA hiring report card, visit www.bcasports.org.
He refuted recently published remarks from a Rutgers professor and allegations from a sociology professor in reference to an investigation at Auburn about whether a professor improperly assigned sociology grades to student-athletes in 2004 and 2005.
Keith said he was particularly disturbed by the sociology professor’s statement that he “was always appreciative of the supposed opportunity it (athletics) gave minority students to get an education, but when they get a fake education, it undermines it.” Keith said that reinforces an unfounded and inaccurate public perception about student-athletes, and specifically, black student-athletes.
“Contrary to the existing opinions of some educators of higher education on today’s campuses, student-athletes graduates at a higher rate than the general student body, and black student-athletes graduate at a higher rate than the black student body population,” he said. “Scholarship athletes are not unique from other gifted students who receive financial support for other academic skills and talents relating to academic achievement, music, dance, ROTC, drama and the like.”
The BCA issued 11 A’s to Division I Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision schools for their hiring processes last year, but the 10 F’s were the most in the report’s four-year history.
Thirty-three schools (21 FBS and 12 FCS) were included in the 2006-07 study. Nine FBS institutions received A’s and four earned F’s, while two FCS institutions were awarded A’s and six received F’s. Two institutions automatically earned failing grades because they did not return any of the requested data.
In addition, five FBS schools earned B’s, two received C’s and one was awarded a D. Two FCS institutions received B’s, one a C and one a D.
Last year’s football hiring cycle produced only two hires of color in 33 opportunities. There currently are seven ethnic minority head football coaches at FBS institutions and five in the FCS.
Grades were based on five areas: communication with the BCA or the NCAA Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee; diversity of the hiring committee; number of candidates of color provided with an official interview; time frame of the search and hiring process; and adherence to the institution’s affirmative action hiring policies.
The number of schools that have been graded in four years reflects the movement in the head coaching ranks. More than half of the Division I football programs (117 of 218) have been graded — 54 percent of FBS and 50 percent of FCS institutions, One FBS institution and 14 FCS schools have been graded twice in that four-year span.
BCA Executive Director Floyd Keith said while the hiring report card has made practices more transparent and accountable, the same concerns remain.
For example, he cited the percentage for head coaches of color (6 percent for FBS schools and 5 percent for FCS) as nearly four times less than the NFL, which has grown to 19 percent for African-American head coaches. He also college football with college men’s basketball, for which the student-athlete demographics are similar but not the coaching ranks.
“If 58 percent of the players in Division I men’s basketball are African-American and 25 percent of the head basketball coaches are of color, why does the 49 percent of African-American players in FBS football translate to only 5 percent in the coaching ranks? These statistics are hard, objective facts that bring to an end the multitude of subjective conversations stimulated by this ongoing debate. The reality is social injustice,” Keith said.
Charlotte Westerhaus, NCAA vice president for diversity and inclusion, pledged the Association’s continued support. While the NCAA cannot mandate hiring outcomes, Westerhaus emphasized that, like the BCA, the NCAA believes that open, objective search practices will allow the best candidates to be considered.
“Expanding the interviewing process is the right approach for intercollegiate athletics because the talent is out there now, ready, willing and able to head a college football team,” she said. “Everyone knows the true measure of progress and success will be when more minorities are not merely interviewed, but actually hired as head football coaches.”
Westerhaus also acknowledged a recent initiative from the Division I-A Athletics Directors Association to develop guidelines and best practices in time for football’s annual hiring cycle in November and December.
“I am encouraged by the heightened awareness and current efforts of NCAA university presidents, athletics directors, conference commissioners, the BCA and the public who support NCAA sports,” Westerhaus said.
For more information about the BCA hiring report card, visit www.bcasports.org.
Keith criticizes perception of athletes
In addition to announcing report-card results October 9, BCA Executive Director Floyd Keith also expressed concern surrounding recent published articles that appear to include negative perceptions of scholarship student-athletes in general and black scholarship student-athletes in particular.He refuted recently published remarks from a Rutgers professor and allegations from a sociology professor in reference to an investigation at Auburn about whether a professor improperly assigned sociology grades to student-athletes in 2004 and 2005.
Keith said he was particularly disturbed by the sociology professor’s statement that he “was always appreciative of the supposed opportunity it (athletics) gave minority students to get an education, but when they get a fake education, it undermines it.” Keith said that reinforces an unfounded and inaccurate public perception about student-athletes, and specifically, black student-athletes.
“Contrary to the existing opinions of some educators of higher education on today’s campuses, student-athletes graduates at a higher rate than the general student body, and black student-athletes graduate at a higher rate than the black student body population,” he said. “Scholarship athletes are not unique from other gifted students who receive financial support for other academic skills and talents relating to academic achievement, music, dance, ROTC, drama and the like.”
© 2010 The National Collegiate Athletic Association
Terms and Conditions | Privacy Policy