The lack of minority head coaches in Division I-A college football has been a source of hand-wringing and head-scratching for years.
But over the last two weeks, a veritable flood of black coaches have entered the head-coaching ranks. Four African-Americans have been hired to fill vacancies so far this season: Virginia coach Mike London, Memphis coach Larry Porter, Louisville coach Charlie Strong and Western Kentucky coach Willie Taggart.
That increases the number to 11 black head coaches and 13 minority coaches overall among the 120 Division I-A schools. The recent hiring suggests perhaps there is a shift in the way athletic directors are making their hiring decisions.
"What we're seeing this year is really the first time that I can say that there is substantial progress on the issue of hiring African-American football coaches," said Richard Lapchick, director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at UCF. "It's a clear demonstration of opening the pipelines and bringing people into the interview process. We've been putting pressure on ADs for a long time to discover there are guys they might not have ever brought in that are clearly people who fit the mission of the school and can get the job."
Just last month, Lapchick released a study called, "The Buck Stops Here: Assessing Diversity among Campus and Conference Leaders for Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) Schools in the 2009-10 Academic Year." Unsurprisingly, it found the world of college athletics to be a bastion of white males.
Going into the season, there was only one black head coach in the 66 BCS programs – Miami coach Randy Shannon. There are now four with the addition of Strong, London and Kansas coach Turner Gill. Of the eight vacancies that have already been filled, five have gone to minorities.
But Shannon wants people to look at him as a coach, not as a standard bearer for all minorities looking to become head coaches.
"Sometimes we get into a minority situation -- it's great, but Charlie's the best candidate for Louisville, Mike London's the best coach for Virginia," Shannon said. "We're all coaches. It doesn't make a difference. If I go to the ACC meetings, they're not going to say minority Randy. I'm happy that the coaches got an opportunity like Charlie did and l did, and hopefully some other coaches get another opportunity because there's a lot of great coaches out there who deserve a chance."
Even with the progress being made, there are those who believe more must be done. Last week, former Colts coach Tony Dungy called the lack of minority coaches in major college football "disgraceful," and added minority coaches feel they have better opportunities in the NFL than in college football.
There are seven black head coaches in the NFL, including Bills interim coach Perry Fewell. That works out to about 22 percent of the head coaches in the league. Minority coaches in I-A make up about 11 percent of the head coaches. The goal of the Black Coaches Association is 25 percent.
"That's where basketball's been at for a long time," Lapchick said. "Football has been waiting for those success stories. Basketball had them with John Thompson and John Chaney and Nolan Richardson in the '80s and early '90s. They were able to speak out for other opportunities for other African-American coaches. But it's going to take a long time to get that percentage up in college football."
True, but this hiring season is a good start.
On the menu: Big Ten expansion?
Wisconsin Athletic Director Barry Alvarez told the school's athletic board on Friday that he expects the Big Ten to push for a 12th football team. This has seemingly become a hot topic of conversation every year. Many believe the league is irrelevant at the end of the season because it ends play so early and doesn't have a conference championship game.
Earlier this year, Penn State coach Joe Paterno said the Big Ten should expand, but Commissioner Jim Delany shot down the idea. Alvarez told the board he has a sense that Delany is "going to take this year to really be more aggressive" about expansion. "I just think everybody feels [that] is the direction to go, coaches and administrators."
The last time the Big Ten expanded was when it added Penn State, which started competing in football in 1993. The question of who the Big Ten should add is an interesting one. Notre Dame? Pittsburgh? Missouri? The Irish are obviously the most logical choice, but what are the chances they finally give in and join a conference?
On the rise
UCLA. The Bruins (6-6) had to wait a week, but they finally got their bowl appearance – the EagleBank against Temple (9-3) on Dec. 29 in Washington, D.C. – after Army lost to Navy on Saturday. "We've reached our goal," UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel said. "Now, we need to finish with a flurry."
On the decline
Lane Kiffin. So the Tennessee coach is being questioned about his recruiting practices once again. First came word from The New York Times that there were questions about the use of recruiting hostesses. Now there are questions about a recruiting trip Kiffin took to St. Thomas Aquinas in South Florida in October with a recruiting intern who just so happened to be a St. Thomas grad.
Kiffin called the investigations a compliment. "When it comes to recruiting, we're at the highest level, and I think that people really want to know what we're doing," Kiffin said. "They want to know how are we able to get interest from so many great players, and sign so many great players, so I think you have a lot of people coming at us."
Read Andrea Adelson's blog at OrlandoSentinel.com/collegegridiron365 and e-mail her at aadelson@orlandosentinel.com.
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