War Eagle And The Race Card

I hate the race card. Honest, I really do.

In general, its overused and most of the time I just don’t agree with the situations in which someone pulls it. The media, and society as a whole, is so hyper-tuned into the issue of race and gender inequality that we all tend to harp on any statement or action that has any hint of it. By doing this we do not advance a society of acceptance, but rather one of further division and, in the worst of instances, it leads way to reverse discrimination.

So, that was the perspective that I had when I logged onto ESPN.com and saw the headline “Barkley says Auburn should have hired black coach”. I clicked the link, ready to be outraged and ready to write a blog very different than the one that I am writing right now.

The University of Auburn’s search for a new head football coach could be narrowed down to two candidates in the end: Turner Gill and Gene Chizik. Gill is black. Chizik is white. Chizik got the job. But, was the decision, as Charles Barkley characterized it, based on race? To be honest, I’m not sure that it wasn’t.

Chizik’s resume as a former assistant coach is stellar. He was Auburn’s defensive coordinator in 2004 when the team finished the season 13-0, and he coordinated the Texas Longhorn’s defense in 2006 when they won the national title. The man can run a defense. But, can he run an entire football program? Chizik has spent the last two seasons as head coach at Iowa State University, and he has done little to inspire confidence. His overall record is 5-19 and his team has not been the slightest bit competitive in a Big 12 north conference that isn’t exactly a national powerhouse. For my money, I wouldn’t even have been quick to bet on Iowa State retaining Chizik after another year or two without seeing some significant improvement.

What is Gill’s resume? Gill spent eleven years as a wide receivers coach at his alma mater, Nebraska, where the team won three national championships and one of his quarterbacks (Eric Crouch) won the Heisman trophy. Gill then spent one year as an assistant offensive coach and director of player development for the Green Bay Packers before being hired as head coach of the University of Buffalo.

Before Gill arrived at Buffalo the team had won a total of ten games in seven seasons. By most accounts, it was the most difficult coaching destination in Division 1-A football. However, Gill has had remarkable success. In two seasons the school has won thirteen games, and this past season they won the MAC conference title by defeated undefeated #12 Ball State in the conference title game. Unlike Chizik, Gill has shown the ability to run a football program inside and out, and he has done so at a school with significantly less resources than those at Auburn’s disposal.

College football as a whole has a grossly inadequate proportion of minority coaches. Although the player base is overwhelmingly African American (just watch any college football game for sufficient anecdotal evidence of this), there are only four African American coaches among the one hundred and nineteen teams in Division 1-A. And, of these coaches, only Randy Shannon at Miami has a position at an elite program.

In addition, black coaches typically get much shorter opportunities than do their white counterparts. Tyrone Willingham became the first black coach in the history of Notre Dame, only to be fired after a 21-15 record in three seasons and to become the first Notre Dame head coach to be released before completing his initial contract in recent memory. Compare that to the current coach, Charlie Weiss, who has posted a lack-luster 28-21 record in a tumultuous four year tenure that has included the worst single season in the history of Notre Dame football (last year’s 3-9 mark). But, Weiss remains and Willingham did not.

Look also at Kansas State’s Ron Prince, who was fired this season after posting a 17-20 record in his first three years at the University. That is a much improved winning percentage from Chizik, but Prince is not being introduced as head coach of another major program, instead he is sitting at home looking for work again as an assistant.

The NFL has experienced similar, although less profound, problems of racial disparity among its head coaches. In response, the league enacted the Rooney rule, which requires teams to interview a specified number of minority candidates before hiring a new coach. I have always been opposed to such a rule, but now I am beginning to understand its value. Even if these candidates do not receive the position, these interviews allow them exposure to top executives and provides them with increased name recognition in the national media as a result of their ties to potential job openings. It is not a perfect system, but it at least provides some semblance of balancing the tide.

The racial distribution of college football’s head coaching ranks is flat out unacceptable. I am not one that believes in forced hiring or other forms of affirmative action, but even I cannot deny that there is a problem here that needs to be addressed. If it is not a product of racism, then it is surely one heck of a coincidence.

Turner Gill should be the next head coach at Auburn. He is not. He is black. I am not dumb enough to suggest that there is no connection between those last two points. College football needs to institute some sort of rule, similar to the Rooney rule, in order to give African American coaches a real opportunity to land head coaching positions. The current structure of the hiring process also must be further investigated and provided increased transparency so that the role of race can be better assessed in these hirings.

I do not believe in the race card, but I believe that, in this instance, it cannot be ignored.