[Peace-discuss] Dave Zirin on Racism

[Neil Parthun]

Dave Zirin with a fantastic article about modern racism right near  
us.  For those interested in an intersection of sports and politics,  
he poses the question: Is it easier to become the first African  
American president of the US or an NCAA Division I football coach?   
May be a topic worth further breaching.

Enduring Dixie: College Football Today

by Dave Zirin

In 2008 we are faced with a question: What is the easier path for an  
African-American male, becoming president of the United States or an  
NCAA Division I football coach? The answer reveals something sordid  
about college sports, as well as university presidents and the  
boosters who back them.
At present, there are 120 Division I-A football programs, and you can  
count the number of African-American head coaches on one hand...  
literally. There are currently four: Turner Gill at Buffalo, Randy  
Shannon at Miami. Kevin Sumlin at Houston, and Illinois offensive  
coordinator Mike Locksley, the new head coach at New Mexico.

This number had been 50 percent higher, but then Ty Willingham of  
Washington and Ron Prince of Kansas State were pushed out the door-- 
leaving just the four, half the number of a decade ago.
That's 3.3 percent, in a sport where 50 percent of the players are  
African-American. It's not as if there are no black assistant coaches  
either. African-Americans make up 312 of the 1,018 assistant coaches.  
Therefore, the message being sent by the NCAA football world truly is  
as simple as black and white: African-Americans are only good enough  
to bleed, sweat and get their ACLs torn out. Only then are you  
qualified to hold a clipboard. But the top job has a "Whites Only"  
sign on the door.

Charles Barkley called this out when his alma mater, Auburn, hired  
Iowa State's Gene Chizik for the coaching job instead of Gill, who  
against all odds has made a winner out of Buffalo. "You can say it's  
not about race, but you can't compare the two résumés and say  
[Chizik] deserved the job. Out of all the coaches they interviewed,  
Chizik probably had the worst résumé.... My biggest problem with the  
black coaches is they're not getting jobs and they're getting  
[expletive] jobs when they are hired," Barkley said. "They're not  
getting good jobs. They're not getting jobs where they can be  
successful. That's why I wanted Turner to get the Auburn job. He  
could win consistently at Auburn. You can't win consistently at New  
Mexico. You can't win consistently at Kansas State. He could have won  
at Auburn."

This reality is especially stark in the South Eastern Conference. The  
SEC is the gold standard division in college football. Top teams like  
Florida, LSU and a resurgent Alabama field the best players and have  
become pipelines to the pros. It's also the conference that has the  
schools with a background of the most bitter integration struggles  
during the civil rights movement--among them, Alabama, Mississippi  
and Mississippi State. It could be the conference that sets a trend  
nationally and makes a statement that the whole era of the old South  
is gone with the wind. But the SEC has had only one African-American  
head coach in its history, Sylvester Croom at Mississippi State, and  
he just resigned.

A number of college coaches, off the record, give explanations like  
the "small-mindedness" of university presidents, or say that the  
culture of college administrators is "resistant to change."
Coach Johnny Lopes, who coached on the defensive side of the ball at
USC from 1979-1985 said to me, "Many white coaches feel that black
coaches don't have the intelligence to coach at the college level.
The white fans still hold to their prejudiced feelings. College
Presidents need to have a good relationship with the fans. It's about
money."

But all of this is a kind, roundabout way of saying the word  
"racism." Qualified candidates are passed over because they have the  
wrong color skin. The sad facts are that 92.5 percent of university  
presidents, 87.5 percent of athletic directors and 100 percent of  
conference commissioners are white.
Even more important, the boosters who pull the strings aren't looking  
for change. The wealthy funders of pigskin are the ones calling foul  
on any pretensions of diversity. They are looking for the familiar  
guy they can have a beer with, the guy they know. It's like Eddie  
Murphy's famous "White Like Me" SNL sketch come to life. As soon as  
all the black folks are out of the room, it's a party for everyone in  
the box, including the new coach. The strength of boosters also makes  
affirmative action plans like the NFL's somewhat successful " Rooney  
Rule" less than helpful. The "Rooney Rule" dictates that NFL owners  
must at least interview a person of color when a coaching opening  
arises. This has helped break down some of the walls in the NFL. But  
in the NCAA, where boosters call the shots, the individual choices of  
university presidents have far less sway.

College football, in particular, should be sensitive to these  
charges. The game has been referred to as a "plantation economy"  
because the student athletes don't get a dime in a sport that  
produces billions of dollars in revenue. The solution is going to  
have to reside in sanctions far stricter than the "Rooney Rule." The  
qualified assistants are there so conferences should have diversity  
quotas or be penalized bowl money and scholarships. This is the only  
strategy that will actually work. It's time for NCAA president Myles  
Brand to show some real leadership. Or maybe sports fans should begin  
to turn the channel. Even better, students on these college campuses  
should take out the clipboards they were using to register people to  
vote and start registering people in the struggle for a more diverse  
athletics department. The message is simple: the path to the White  
House shouldn't be easier than the path to coach football at Oregon  
State.

Live without dead time,
      Neil

  With the people, for the people, by the people. I crack up when I  
hear it; I say, with the handful, for the handful, by the handful  
because that's what really happens.
[fannie lou hamer, 1917-1977]
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