Lack Of Black Coordinators Leads to Few Head Coaching Opportunities

If being a provost or vice president for academic affairs is a necessary last stop before becoming a college president, then putting in time as an offensive or defensive coordinator should be the surefire pathway to landing a highly coveted and lucrative collegiate football head coaching position. But for Blacks, the pipeline to the head coaching slot is choked at the coordinator level.

Collegiate football teams employ many Blacks as assistant coaches or position coaches (such as a wide receiver coach), but they rarely make it to the offensive or defensive coordinator position, according to an analysis Diverse conducted of the coaching staffs of this past season’s top 25 ranked NCAA football teams.

While the top 25 teams employed 58 Black assistant or position coaches, just four Blacks were in the offensive or defensive coordinator position.

Charlotte Westerhaus, vice president for diversity and inclusion for the NCAA, was surprised to learn of Diverse’s findings. “That being the case, it’s very disheartening to find that there are so few Black offensive coordinators and defensive coordinators. You would expect there to be more Black offensive coordinators and defensive coordinators, given the number of people in the pipeline,” Westerhaus says.