The future of African American football coaches may fall victim to the assault on affirmative action
In this year’s pursuit of head coaching positions at NCAA Division
I-A institutions, college sports’ top competitive classification, Black
coaches once again have found themselves shut out — an outcome that
leaves many pondering just what to do to correct the situation.
And to make matters worse, the dismissal of three Black head
football coaches — Ron Dickerson at Temple University, Ron Cooper at
the University of Louisville, and Matt Simon at the University of North
Texas — reduced the number of African American head coaches among the
112 Division I-A football institutions to five. This in a sport where
46 percent of the student athletes are Black.
In fact, a total of only fourteen African Americans have ever held
the position of head football coach at Division I-A institutions.
“This is deplorable,” says Rudy Washington, executive director of
the Black Coaches Association (BCA) — which has been working for a
decade to improve the numbers of Black coaches, particularly in head
coaching positions. “It is getting to be a situation where Black
football coaches are used to recruit college athletes but are not used
to run the teams — and that is disturbing. We are going to sit down
and have a meeting shortly to try to develop a strategy.”
Alex Wood, vice president of the, BCA and the head football coach
at James Madison University (JMU), was equally dismayed at the lack of
hiring of Black head coaches in the division, noting that over a
two-year span there have been thirty-five such openings and only one
Black hire. There were nine openings this year.
“My immediate reaction this year is the same as last year when
there were twenty-six openings and one hiring,” Wood says. “There are
obviously no concerns about hiring Black head coaches in I-A.
