The Black Coaches and Administrators handed out twice as many passing grades as failing ones to NCAA institutions in its sixth annual Hiring Report Card released Wednesday.

Eight Football Bowl Subdivision and three Football Championship Subdivision schools earned A’s, while five institutions were given F’s. 

The 11 A’s represent a decrease from the all-time high of 16 awarded last year. The five F’s mark an increase of two compared to the 2008 report. In addition to the 11 A’s and five F’s, the BCA also distributed eight B’s, five C’s and three D’s across the 32 FBS and FCS programs that were evaluated in this year’s report.

Since 2004, the BCA has used the report card to monitor and publicly acknowledge the hiring process Division I football programs use to fill their head coaching vacancies. Grades are based on five criteria: 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.

BCA Executive Director Floyd Keith dedicated this year’s report card to the late Myles Brand, who as NCAA president was a vocal supporter of diversity.

“Dr. Brand embraced and supported BCA efforts in equitable hiring and professional development, he respected our concerns related to student welfare and he championed academic reform to benefit all student-athletes,” he said.

Keith said the hiring report card continues to be an important tool in pressing the case for more head coaches of color in Division I. Keith noted that in the six years since the report card was initiated, the number of coaches of color leading FBS programs is at an all-time high of nine and the number of interviews being awarded to ethnic minority candidates continues to increase. Keith added that minority coaches were selected to fill five of the 32 vacancies in the last hiring cycle.

Still, he said the pace of hiring coaches of color is too slow, noting that although the five new hires represented the equivalent of 16 percent of the available positions, it was shy of the BCA’s preferred standard of 20 percent or above.

“Today I believe the one group that can change this situation the quickest is college presidents,” said Keith. “The catalyst for positive change on the collegiate level lies at the top of the pyramid. It rests with the college presidents who ultimately must bless the hire and the process. Presidents can demand inclusive and diverse search processes.”

Charlotte Westerhaus, NCAA vice president for diversity and inclusion, said data from the report card indicated that Division I schools are including ethnic minorities in interviews. In the past year, 85 percent of Division I schools interviewed at least one minority candidate during their search for a head football coach. In so doing, Westerhaus said, schools are achieving the essence of the NFL’s Rooney Rule, which requires that teams interview at least one ethnic minority for any head coaching vacancy. The lingering issue, then, is that candidates of color are not being hired.

Expanding the interviewing process to include a diverse group of candidates is the correct approach, Westerhaus said, but the focus needs to shift to improving the number of ethnic minorities who advance out of the interview pool and go on to earn head coaching slots.

“Interviewing is not the measure of true success,” Westerhaus said. “The NCAA national office does not hire coaches for football or coaches of any college sport. The athletics directors and, ultimately, the college presidents are responsible for hiring on campus.”

In the meantime, Westerhaus said the NCAA will continue to advocate for enhanced presidential leadership and involvement in the issue of hiring more coaches in the same way it has called on presidents to enhance academic performance, graduation rates and fiscal responsibility.

“We are calling on our presidents and athletics directors to do the right thing, the best thing, the excellent thing and that is to hire more qualified, talented and able minorities to serve as head football coaches in Division I,” she said.

Entering the 2009-10 football season, there were 16 coaches of color in charge of Division I programs, including seven African-Americans, one Polynesian-American and one Latino in the FBS, and five African-Americans and one Native American in the FCS.

To view the entire hiring report card, click here or visit www.bcasports.org