Posted on 07/30/2003 4:51:48 AM PDT by aomagrat
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The SEC is first among Division I athletic conferences in annual revenues, first in football attendance and was the first league to stage a championship football game. But the SEC is last in another important category. With the hiring of Mike Shula at Alabama and Rich Brooks at Kentucky during the off-season, the SEC remains the only major conference that never has hired a black head football coach.
The lack of minority coaches plagues college football nationwide, with only four black head coaches at the 117 Division I-A schools. But nowhere is the issue more visible than the SEC, which has had 340 head coaches in its 71-year history — all of them white.
“The fact that the SEC has never had a minority head football coach brings the spotlight here, and it will stay here until that fact is changed,” SEC commissioner Mike Slive said Tuesday during his opening remarks at the conference’s annual football media days.
It might have changed in May when Alabama was looking for a replacement for Mike Price. The Crimson Tide wanted a coach from the Alabama “family,” and interviewed two NFL assistants with similar qualifications — Shula and Sylvester Croom, a Green Bay Packers aide who is black.
Alabama hired Shula, prompting an outcry from civil-rights activist Jesse Jackson, who called for an investigation into the hiring strategies at Alabama and the rest of the SEC schools.
Slive thinks the SEC is making progress, noting that minorities have been on the short list during three of the conference’s coaching searches in the past two years. Former USC defensive coordinator Charlie Strong, now in the same position at Florida, interviewed at Vanderbilt two years ago and was contacted by Kentucky last year for its vacancy.
Grambling coach Doug Williams interviewed for the Kentucky job, and longtime NFL assistant Ray Sherman talked to Georgia when the Bulldogs hired Mark Richt before the 2001 season.
Slive said the SEC might consider implementing a policy similar to the NFL’s that requires teams to interview at least one minority candidate for head coaching openings. Also, the SEC will maintain a database at its Birmingham offices of qualified black coaches from the college and pro ranks for the second straight year.
Kentucky president Lee Todd said he required a diverse pool of candidates when the Wildcats were searching for a successor to Guy Morriss and also when they hired athletics director Mitch Barnhart.
Said Todd: “I think that whether it’s high on the total conference mind, it’s got to be a working concern on each campus, as well.”
Black coaches have made inroads in the SEC in men’s basketball. A total of five SEC schools have hired black men to lead their basketball programs, including four currently — Mississippi’s Rod Barnes, Georgia’s Dennis Felton, Arkansas’ Stan Heath and Kentucky’s Tubby Smith, who led the Wildcats to a national championship in his first season in 1998.
“I just would hope that the door would be opened, because we’ve seen the success that a lot of the African-American coaches have had in basketball,” Barnes said. “I’m sure there are guys that are capable of doing the job in football. We have to continue to try to make progress and hopefully here real soon that will happen.”
Change always has been slow to come to the SEC, which did not integrate until the late 1960s. But Georgia athletics director Vince Dooley, the Bulldogs’ football coach from 1963-1988, is among those who think a black head coach is imminent.
“I don’t think there’s any question that day will come,” Dooley said. “Just like integration came. Just like integration into football. Just like (black) quarterbacks playing that didn’t for awhile. Just like (black) basketball coaches being hired that weren’t for awhile.
“And eventually you’re going to see black football coaches hired.”
The ACC has had only one black football coach — Jim Caldwell, who lasted eight seasons at Wake Forest from 1993-2000.
Vanderbilt defensive end Jovan Haye, a Florida native who is black, said he is not concerned with the issue of the lack of black head coaches.
“I really don’t think about that too often,” Haye said. “You hear the talk, but that’s not an area that I’d like to comment on.”
But plenty of other people will continue to focus on the topic until history is made. That group includes Slive, the second-year commissioner who realizes any strides the SEC has made with black coaches in men’s basketball will be overshadowed by the absence of such in football.
“Clearly the most visible appointment and the one that is of the most interest is the fact that we’re the only conference that has never had a minority head football coach,” Slive said.
“And we will.”
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