Teamwork among the NCAA, the Black Coaches and Administrators association, and other organizations has led to a badly needed jump in the number of ethnic minority football coaches at Division I’s Football Bowl Subdivision  level.

At the end of the 2008-09 season, Sylvester Croom (Mississippi State) resigned, and Tyrone Willingham (Washington) and Ron Prince (Kansas State) were dismissed, leaving just three other coaches remaining in the uncomfortably exclusive club of black coaches leading one of the 119 FBS programs.

But in the weeks after the 2008-09 season, the annual coaching carousel produced an unexpected but welcome bounty. Among the crop of newly appointed head coaches were five men of color – Mike Locksley (New Mexico), DeWayne Walker (New Mexico State), Ron English (Eastern Michigan), Tom Williams (Yale) and Mike Haywood [Miami (Ohio)].

The string of hirings by no means erased college football’s dearth of ethnic minority head coaches, but it was a positive development. Currently, there are 16 ethnic minority head coaches among 237 Division I programs, including 13 African-Americans (excluding historically black colleges and universities).

All of the African-American coaches chosen this past winter are graduates of the NCAA Expert Coaches Forum, which was established in 2004 to address the lack of diversity in the major college football coaching. So, too, is James Franklin, the associate head coach at Maryland who was designated in February as current head coach Ralph Friedgen’s successor.

The Expert Coaches Forum has a growing reputation for being an accurate identifier of assistants who are ready to lead programs of their own. Eleven of the 12 head football coaches of color who have been hired in the past four years to guide Division I teams are alumni of the forum.

Aimed at coaches with eight or more years of experience, the three-day forum focuses not on X’s and O’s but on polishing participants’ leadership skills and enhancing their proficiency in communication, fiscal responsibility, building a successful program, rules compliance and academics.

Current head coaches, athletics directors, university and college presidents and representatives of search firms serve as guest facilitators of forum sessions, sharing their expertise and experiences while also providing participants with crucial networking opportunities.  

While it is impossible to draw a direct correlation between participation in the program and those who ultimately earns a Division I head coaching position, it is accurate to say that program administrators have been adept at identifying talented coaches who are ready to advance to the next level and supplying them with the tools they need to get there.

“I feel like the forum met just about every area you could possibly need,” said New Mexico’s Locksley.

Besides the media training and the opportunity to hear from current head coaches, Locksley said the guidance he received on assembling his coaching portfolio was highly valuable. He said he still refers to his binder of materials from the forum as he navigates through his first year with the Lobos. “Obviously with the success rate of the coaches who have come out of it, some credit has to be given to the forum. I think it speaks volumes for how it prepares you,” he said.

The forum’s growing reputation as a top-flight professional-development experience has garnered overwhelmingly positive reviews and has resulted in an ever-increasing number of applicants. Last year, 59 candidates vied for a maximum of 28 spots. That was up from the 28 applications in 2006.

Word of mouth is fueling the program’s popularity, but so are head coaches, who are aware of the forum and are sending their coordinators and top assistants. That’s how Yale’s Williams initially learned of the program. He was an assistant at San Jose State in 2005-06 when Spartans head coach Dick Tomey asked him if he was interested. Williams did a little research then decided to apply.

While he got the most out of the emphasis on the role search firms play in the hiring process, Williams called the overall experience one that afforded him the chance to get to know fellow coaches and network with key decision-makers. He said the recent run of success by forum graduates means the program is attracting the right kind of attention from the right kinds of people.

“It means people are looking at the program, seeing who is going through and expanding their networks. There’s a ready-made network they can tap into if they are interested in pursuing a minority head coach,” Williams said.

Williams is on target, according to Charlotte Westerhaus, NCAA vice president for diversity and inclusion. Westerhaus said candidates may be mentioning their participation in the forum in interviews for head coaching jobs, which matters because ADs are more aware of the program and its graduates.

Maryland Athletics Director Debbie Yow said all young professionals can benefit from professionally conducted and structured development initiatives such as the Expert Forum.

“The NCAA has assumed a much-needed leadership role in this important area,” she said. “These young professionals will reap the benefits of that training as they pursue and receive opportunities for advancement as football coaches.”

Interestingly, it’s not just the coaches who are benefiting. Warde Manuel, director of athletics at Buffalo, has facilitated the Expert Forum and said it has helped him know coaches who are making themselves available for continued development.

“That’s the important aspect,” Manuel said. “That’s what I look at when I see them. That’s what I look at when I see the resume. Who is trying to grow and learn how to become better and prepare themselves to be a head coach? That’s meaningful to me as an athletics director.”

The 2009 Expert Coaches Forum is June 18-20 in Orlando. For more information about the forum or other NCAA-sponsored professional-development programs for football coaches, contact Ira Childress, NCAA assistant director of diversity and inclusion, at ichildress@ncaa.org, or visit the Diversity and Inclusion page under the “About the NCAA” tab at www.ncaa.org.