It’s a fact that led one panelist at a recent meeting of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics in Washington to proclaim that college basketball and football programs are in the business of entertainment, not education. This is becoming a popularly held belief as the money associated with college basketball and football continues to rise each year.  

There are currently one Hispanic and six Black head football coaches out of the 119 BCS teams formally known as Division IA teams. The fact that minority head coaches represent only 6 percent of head coaches in a sport where approximately 50 percent of the players are Black is one of the many issues that the NCAA, along with the Black Coaches & Administrators group, is trying to address. Diverse took a recent ranking, The Associated Press’ “Top 25” college football teams, (from the week of Oct. 14, 2007) and looked at the number and percentage of Black male enrollment on the respective campuses compared to what percentage they made up of Black males on athletic scholarships using 2005 data. We think you’ll find the statistics interesting.

— By Frank J. Matthews Statistics by Olivia Majesky-Pullmann