Division IA college football teams have selected only 19 blacks to the 404 head coaching openings in more than 20 years.
With the release of its second annual Hiring Report Card, the Black Coaches Association is offering its evaluations of the hiring processes at 30 NCAA Division IA and IAA institutions over the past year.
Richard Lapchick, director of the DeVos Sport Business Management Program at the University of Central Florida and the BCA's first vice president, said in the foreword to the report card that the process is more important than the result.
"We are not as concerned with the outcome as we are with the openness of the process," Lapchick wrote. "Schools received an 'A' without hiring a coach of color because they took their time in the selection process, had a diverse selection committee, interviewed a diverse pool of candidates … and followed university affirmative action policies."
Although the BCA rewarded five schools with A's, it flunked five schools in its report card, including two — the University of South Carolina and the University of Utah — who, according to the BCA, refused compliance.
A spokesperson for one of the failed schools, San Jose State University, refused comment on many questions — at the direction, he said, of the school's attorneys.
"The organization used a methodology which they felt was their best form of measurement," SJSU spokesperson Lawrence Fan said. "In the Western Athletic Conference, there are two schools that have an African-American as either an offensive or defensive coordinator, and San Jose State is one of those two schools."
Fan refused to comment on how many candidates the school interviewed, how many were of color and why it did not cooperate with the BCA in its investigation — SJSU received an 'F' for its communication grade.
Additionally, Fan would not elaborate on why the school's attorneys advised it not to answer these questions, but said it was not considering any legal action against the BCA.
Despite announcing a head coaching change in its football program this summer, the University of Wisconsin was not included in the BCA's report card because it was not a documented job opening.
"I look at the number of African-American student athletes and professional players and there's an awful lot of African-American assistant coaches and there's no question the African-American head coaches are underrepresented," David McDonald, special assistant to the UW chancellor regarding athletics, said.
Despite this anomaly, McDonald said he would not support a mandated number of minority interviewees, a policy which currently exists in the NFL.
"If you're forcing people to do what they should do, you're not really fixing it," McDonald said. "It's such a complicated issue that to reduce it to a simple numeric [formula doesn't do it justice]."
UW economics professor emeritus Lee Hansen agreed mandated interviews of minority candidates would not be appropriate and additionally questioned the usefulness of the report card.
"There's a whole industry out there developing report cards, and it's probably a good business to be in, but it's not clear what the net effect of that will be," Hansen said.
Although the BCA and the NCAA are not technically affiliated with each other, both are based in Indianapolis and McDonald said the BCA can have a significant influence on collegiate athletics.
"They're a very effective advocacy group, and I think they usually make very effective arguments," he said. "The NCAA takes heed of what they do, but they're not officially affiliated."
