By Bob Hertzel
The Times West Virginian

MORGANTOWN, W.Va.

It is impossible to imagine that just days after America elected its first black president in Barack Obama, an African-American has little chance to become a major college head football coach in this country.

With Tyrone Willingham at Washington and Ron Price at Kansas State fired in mid-season, there are only four black head coaches among 119 Division I-A NCAA schools.

Chris Beatty is an energetic, sensitive, intelligent young coach, handling the running backs on the West Virginia staff.

He is African-American and very much aware of how heavily the deck is stacked against him. He has some thoughts on the subject.

“I think about it a lot,” he said. “It’s disappointing, it really is.”

He is not alone. West Virginia has three black assistant coaches, defensive backfield coach David Lockwood and wide receiver coach Lonnie Galloway in addition to Beatty.

“We sit back and talk about it,” said Beatty. “It’s amazing, we have a black president and they’re letting black coaches go.”

The numbers tell you that this is not just an aberration, that an African-American has a real bias to overcome when he enters the business of coaching football.

Four of 119 figures out to just 3.36 percent black head coaches, and it’s getting worse, not better. In 1997, there were eight black head coaches.

Since 1996, 12 black coaches have been hired for 199 jobs. The only black head coaches currently employed are Miami’s Randy Shannon, Mississippi State's Sylvester Croom, Buffalo’s Turner Gill and Houston’s Kevin Sumlin. Florida International is coached by Mario Cristobal, a Hispanic, and Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo is Samoan.

In 119 major college programs, there are only 312 black assistant coaches.

There are theories trying to explain the lack of black coaches, but its hard to look past the same kind of bias that once existed when you seldom, if ever, saw a black quarterback.

Some say there just isn’t a large pool of black coaching talent to choose from.

“I don’t buy the pool thing,” Beatty said. “There’s so many qualified black coaches who just don’t get the opportunity. Look at how many people get to the top. Some people take the conventional path, become a coordinator and then a head coach. Some go to the pros and then come back down, what have you.

“There’s plenty of qualified candidates. Not everybody looks to hire them.”

Beatty has had discussions on the subject with some friends who are assistants on the Indianapolis Colts staff, a team coached by Tony Dungy, an African-American. They have their own theory.

“They say the difference between college and pro is you only have to please one person — the owner. In the interview process all you have to do is convince the owner you are the right person,” Beatty said.

“There’s a rule in place to make sure I get the opportunity. You know, if there’s no Rooney rule (pro teams must consider a person of color for head coach openings), Mike Tomlin doesn’t get an opportunity. You’d still be saying ‘Who’s Mike Tomlin?’ But now you know he’s a great coach.

“In college, you have to convince the president, the athletic director, the alumni and the boosters,” Beatty added.

Richard Lapchick, a champion for black coaches as president of the National Consortium for Academics and Sport at the University of Central Florida, is pushing for a Rooney rule in college football, which he would call the “Eddie Robinson rule” after the former coach at Grambling, a historic black college.

The problem is the NCAA has no power to enforce such a rule.
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Bob Hertzel writes for the Times West Virginia in Fairmont. Contact him at bhertzel@hotmail.com.