The latest Black Coaches and Administrators Hiring Report Card for NCAA, FBS and FCS Football Head Coaching Positions (2010-11) documents a significant increase in head coaches of color since the report’s inception in 2003.
It’s not a coincidence that 22 head coaches of color have been hired by Football Bowl Subdivision, or FBS, and Football Championship Subdivision, or FCS, schools in the eight years since the Black Coaches and Administrators, or BCA, released its first report card. This represents 52 percent of all ethnic minority football coaches ever hired.
“We have been an instrument of accountability,” said BCA executive director Floyd Keith in a telephone interview. “We’ve also provided names of talent that are out there and have been successful, who can do the job. Those coaches have gone in and they have been successful.”
Keith said the NCAA also has been instrumental in the positive growth by providing development programs and coaching academies for assistant coaches who want to become head coaches.
“Those have enabled coaches to gain valuable experiences with regards to knowing all of the landscape of being a head coach,” he noted.
The report card released on Tuesday analyzes the practices of the FBS and FCS schools that hired a head football coach in the last hiring cycle. Of the 29 schools in the study, 14 FBS schools received grades of A, two got B’s, four C’s and only one school earned an F. The overall FCS final grades are two A’s, three B’s, two C’s and one F. Quite a change from 10 F’s given four years ago.
FBS San Diego State University got the F. The report indicated that San Diego State got an F for communication, a B for search committee, an F for candidates’ (interview) and an F for time frame. Meanwhile, FCS University of North Carolina-Charlotte got the F because the school elected not to participate in the study. Schools that won’t participate get an automatic F.
