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NCAA News Archive - 2007
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Put paintbrushes in diverse hands
Close your eyes for a minute. Picture a large canvas that spans the United States. Include Hawaii and Alaska. Imagine that 324 individuals are given a paintbrush with an opportunity to leave their mark on collegiate athletics.
But wait a minute. Why is it that only 10 African-American males and only two African-American females are painting? Could it be that the rest of us haven’t been given an opportunity to paint? To lead? To excel?
There are 324 member institutions in NCAA Division I. Aside from the two historically black conferences (the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and the Southwestern Athletic Conference), only 10 African-American males serve as athletics directors at Football Bowl Championship Subdivision institutions, and only two African-American women (including the just-appointed Kelly Landry Mehrtens at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington) serve as Division I athletics directors at a non-HBCU institution. What picture does that paint? To me, it’s a blurred picture of America, smeared without reflecting the talents and abilities of capable African-American men and women.
We have to find ways to address the minority hiring issue or the lack of minorities in key positions at major colleges and universities across this country. If the historically black colleges and universities have been functioning, thriving and surviving for years, headed by competent African-Americans, can’t those same talented individuals lead other institutions of higher learning? Certainly, if given the chance.
College presidents and chancellors have to be bold enough and strong enough to reach out and hire African-American men and women. Strong enough to stand up to boosters who sometimes hold the purse strings and dictate the who, what, when, where and why of an athletics department. Those same boosters don’t want faces of color in administrative positions, but they cheer for those same faces of color in football stadiums on fall Saturdays and even more during basketball season. March is even worse. It’s certainly mad.
Student-athletes of color need to see athletics directors and other athletics administrators who look like them. Not just the token one or two that most schools hire to make their hiring record pass muster.
There is no easy solution regarding the minority hiring issue in collegiate athletics. If there was, the problem would have been solved a long time ago. But the NCAA is at least headed in the right direction. For instance, it has partnered with the Black Coaches and Administrators to increase awareness about the lack of African-Americans in leadership roles at major institutions. The BCA, celebrating its 20-year anniversary, showed in a recent hiring report card that in major college football, the hiring gap of ethnic and racial minority head coaches is widening, even when one bullet in the BCA’s mission statement is to address significant issues pertaining to the participation and employment of ethnic minorities in sports in general and intercollegiate athletics in particular.
The NCAA formed its Minority Opportunities and Issues Committee in January 1991 to review issues related to the interests of ethnic minorities and women. These issues focus on the education and well-being of minority student-athletes, and the enhancement of opportunities for ethnic minorities and women in coaching, athletics administration, officiating and the NCAA governance structure.
Thanks to the vision and foresight of those involved with the MOIC, programs like the Leadership Institute for Ethnic Minority Males and Females provide a fertile training ground for minorities so that in the future, we can have more men and women attempting to paint their mark on the national canvas.
Here’s to McKinley Boston at New Mexico State University; Damon Evans at the University of Georgia; Herman Frazier at the University of Hawaii, Manoa; Mike Garrett at the University of Southern California; Derrick Gragg at Eastern Michigan University; Craig Littlepage at the University of Virginia; Warde Manual of University at Buffalo, the State University of New York; Gene Smith at Ohio State University; Keith Tribble at the University of Central Florida; and Kevin White at the U.S. Military Academy. Continue to paint, and don’t forget to distribute brushes to the qualified brothers and sisters out there.
Finally, here’s to Mary McElroy at Georgia State University. You carry the torch for all African-American women who aspire to do what no African-American woman had done before you painted your spot on Georgia State athletics.
Can someone hand this sister a paintbrush?
Deborah F. Paul is compliance coordiator and senior woman administrator at Southern University, Baton Rouge. She was a member of the 2006-07 class of participants in the NCAA Leadership Institute for Ethnic Minority Females.
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By Deborah F. Paul
Southern University, Baton Rouge
Southern University, Baton Rouge
Close your eyes for a minute. Picture a large canvas that spans the United States. Include Hawaii and Alaska. Imagine that 324 individuals are given a paintbrush with an opportunity to leave their mark on collegiate athletics.But wait a minute. Why is it that only 10 African-American males and only two African-American females are painting? Could it be that the rest of us haven’t been given an opportunity to paint? To lead? To excel?
There are 324 member institutions in NCAA Division I. Aside from the two historically black conferences (the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and the Southwestern Athletic Conference), only 10 African-American males serve as athletics directors at Football Bowl Championship Subdivision institutions, and only two African-American women (including the just-appointed Kelly Landry Mehrtens at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington) serve as Division I athletics directors at a non-HBCU institution. What picture does that paint? To me, it’s a blurred picture of America, smeared without reflecting the talents and abilities of capable African-American men and women.
We have to find ways to address the minority hiring issue or the lack of minorities in key positions at major colleges and universities across this country. If the historically black colleges and universities have been functioning, thriving and surviving for years, headed by competent African-Americans, can’t those same talented individuals lead other institutions of higher learning? Certainly, if given the chance.
College presidents and chancellors have to be bold enough and strong enough to reach out and hire African-American men and women. Strong enough to stand up to boosters who sometimes hold the purse strings and dictate the who, what, when, where and why of an athletics department. Those same boosters don’t want faces of color in administrative positions, but they cheer for those same faces of color in football stadiums on fall Saturdays and even more during basketball season. March is even worse. It’s certainly mad.
Student-athletes of color need to see athletics directors and other athletics administrators who look like them. Not just the token one or two that most schools hire to make their hiring record pass muster.
There is no easy solution regarding the minority hiring issue in collegiate athletics. If there was, the problem would have been solved a long time ago. But the NCAA is at least headed in the right direction. For instance, it has partnered with the Black Coaches and Administrators to increase awareness about the lack of African-Americans in leadership roles at major institutions. The BCA, celebrating its 20-year anniversary, showed in a recent hiring report card that in major college football, the hiring gap of ethnic and racial minority head coaches is widening, even when one bullet in the BCA’s mission statement is to address significant issues pertaining to the participation and employment of ethnic minorities in sports in general and intercollegiate athletics in particular.
The NCAA formed its Minority Opportunities and Issues Committee in January 1991 to review issues related to the interests of ethnic minorities and women. These issues focus on the education and well-being of minority student-athletes, and the enhancement of opportunities for ethnic minorities and women in coaching, athletics administration, officiating and the NCAA governance structure.
Thanks to the vision and foresight of those involved with the MOIC, programs like the Leadership Institute for Ethnic Minority Males and Females provide a fertile training ground for minorities so that in the future, we can have more men and women attempting to paint their mark on the national canvas.
Here’s to McKinley Boston at New Mexico State University; Damon Evans at the University of Georgia; Herman Frazier at the University of Hawaii, Manoa; Mike Garrett at the University of Southern California; Derrick Gragg at Eastern Michigan University; Craig Littlepage at the University of Virginia; Warde Manual of University at Buffalo, the State University of New York; Gene Smith at Ohio State University; Keith Tribble at the University of Central Florida; and Kevin White at the U.S. Military Academy. Continue to paint, and don’t forget to distribute brushes to the qualified brothers and sisters out there.
Finally, here’s to Mary McElroy at Georgia State University. You carry the torch for all African-American women who aspire to do what no African-American woman had done before you painted your spot on Georgia State athletics.
Can someone hand this sister a paintbrush?
Deborah F. Paul is compliance coordiator and senior woman administrator at Southern University, Baton Rouge. She was a member of the 2006-07 class of participants in the NCAA Leadership Institute for Ethnic Minority Females.
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