A group of experts, including former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy, began an effort Monday to integrate presidents and chancellors into improving the percentage of minority college football coaches.

The meeting, conducted at the NCAA national office, included Dungy, who now serves as a football analyst for NBC; his attorney, Dennis Coleman; Division I-A Athletic Directors Association Executive Director Dutch Baughman; and Fritz Pollard Alliance Chairman John Wooten, who participated via conference call. Several NCAA staff members, including Interim President Jim Isch, also participated in the meeting.

The session was part of a continuing effort to tackle a subject that was championed by late NCAA President Myles Brand.

The NCAA conducts four academies to provide professional development opportunities for minority coaches at various stages in their careers. The programs were created to raise awareness and create a pool of qualified coaching candidates. While these programs have produced some success, more support is needed, participants said.

Not counting historically black colleges and universities, there are 582 football programs throughout all three divisions and only 21 (2.7 percent) have minority head football coaches. The Football Bowl Subdivision, where nine out of 120 positions are held by minorities, commands the most media attention, but attendees at Monday’s meeting treated the matter as an Association-wide concern.

Dungy, who retired following the 2008 season after 28 years of NFL coaching (including the last 13 as a head coach), said he has recommended minority coaching candidates to colleges and universities throughout his career. Now, he said he is willing to go further.

Dungy wants to address the NCAA Executive Committee based on the belief that impactful change, such as the adoption of a federated NCAA governance structure and academic reform, historically has occurred under the leadership of the presidents.

“I would tell them that they have to step up and do the right thing,” said Dungy, who led the Indianapolis Colts to the Super Bowl XLI title. “They have to take control of this issue. There is no reason professional football, a private entity, should be ahead of the NCAA in terms of diversity.”

The NFL has six minority head coaches out of its 32 franchises (19 percent). The league also has “the Rooney Rule,” which requires teams to interview at least one minority candidate when vacancies arise.

Since the NCAA is a voluntary association, it cannot mandate institutional hiring practices. But Dungy hopes the membership can find ways to lead on this issue.

“We are teaching young people life lessons on our campuses,” Dungy said. “There is no way young men coming into college football should have to look and see that basically all the leadership is white. The presidents have to take charge of this. That’s the only way it will change.”

In recent years, Dungy recommended then-NFL defensive coordinators Lovie Smith and Mike Tomlin for collegiate head coaching jobs that came open at Football Bowl Subdivision institutions.

Neither coach received an interview for those positions.

Smith later became the head coach of the Chicago Bears, where he coached against Dungy in Super Bowl XLI. Tomlin led the Pittsburgh Steelers to the Super Bowl XLIII title.

Those aren’t isolated cases.

Florida defensive coordinator Charlie Strong, who is African-American, has helped the Gators win two of the last three Bowl Championship Series national titles, and the team currently is first in the BCS standings.

But Strong did not receive any request to interview for a collegiate head coaching position after the 2008 season.

Dungy said Tomlin very much wanted to be a collegiate head football coach. However, he left the collegiate ranks and joined Dungy’s staff with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers because he felt he could reach his goal of becoming a head coach faster.

These are the types of career decisions stakeholders in the college football would like to avoid.

Other possible solutions include enhancing efforts to identify minority assistant football coaches at all levels, developing stronger relations with search firms, finding out exactly what type of coaches institutions are looking for and identifying what other influences (for example, board of regents or boosters) have on hiring. 

“It will take some courage to step out and do something out of the ordinary,” Dungy said.  “Hiring someone who may come from a different track, looks different or who does something in a different way can happen if you are convinced that this is the best person for your university.  I don’t know how you get the chicken before the egg, but somehow we’ve got to convince people that this can be done.”

Besides Isch, NCAA staff was represented by Executive Vice President of Membership and Student-Athlete Affairs Bernard Franklin; Charlotte Westerhaus, vice president of diversity and inclusion; Dennis Poppe, vice president of football and baseball; Troy Arthur, director of diversity and inclusion; Damani Leech, director of football and baseball; and Wally Renfro, vice president and senior advisor to the president.