Why so few black head coaches in the NFL and college football?
Posted by admin on Jan 14, 2008 in Football (American) |
gdorsey asked:
Black players make up the majority of athletes in the NFL and yet so few hold head coaching jobs. Is it racism? I hate to play the race card but there are less than 5 in college football [119 teams] and about 5 in the NFL. Why do good black football coaches seem to get the short straw everytime?
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Black players make up the majority of athletes in the NFL and yet so few hold head coaching jobs. Is it racism? I hate to play the race card but there are less than 5 in college football [119 teams] and about 5 in the NFL. Why do good black football coaches seem to get the short straw everytime?
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things take a long time. 15 years ago you didnt see many black assistant coaches or co-ordinators. and now you see a lot more its becoming more and more common. as the pool of black assistants at the top level grows there will start to be more black head coaches hired. really college Athletic directors and nfl general Managers get paid way too much for them to not hire the best candidate based on their skin color. that would be job suicide
also when you say 119 college teams you need to understand at most of those 119 colleges they don’t have the job turnover rate they do at the BCS and NFL levels. until recently it was not uncommon for a college head coach to stay with 1 team for 20 years or more
because the white man want to keep the brother down***
I really hate the race card too. People are just people and color should have NOTHING to do with ability. Having said that, I think there are just more white coaches available right now than black coaches. And any team wanting to win will get the best coach available regardless of color.
We haven’t had a black president or vice president either. These things take years to happen where it’ll be more equal.
For the most part I think schools and NFL teams are past the bias of the earlier years. If they have the opportunity to get a well qualified coach, they will hire him whether he be White, Black, Latino, Middle Eastern, or Asian. Abilities as a coach cannot be and are not defined by his color. Yes there are a far greater number of white coaches at the higher levels, but thats because they were the best for the job when the interviews were taking place. Things will balance out sooner or later. Like you said black players make up a majority of the NFL, they are the most respected anyway, I dont think I’ve ever seen anyone walk down the street wearing a Don Shula shirt, or kids saying they want to be just like Joe Paterno when they grow up.
Racism is part of it. I am going to venture to say that the overwhelmingly vast majority of the NFL’s team owners and administration are white. People in charge tend to hire people of their same race. A predominately white adminstration is likely to bring in far more white applicants.
well i play college ball and our coach is black (im white) and the refs call so many penalties against us, not the normal the refs are unfair i mean they call dumb stuff like offensive PI and def holding. we got on average 20 flags a game. . . so in answer … its the refs that are racists, at least in my conference.
Well, I don’t know. Not everyone in all of football (college and NFL) is racist. It’s weird how it is like that, but I’m sure it’ll change with time.
It’s kinda disturbing trend.. and I’ve notice that White head coach would last longer than the Black head coach.. It’s terrible but it’s true..
I think everything should be based totally on merit and not skin color. I look forward to the day when that is not even an issue anymore.
the last estimate i have seen is that blacks make up 75% of the nfl players. the only reason i can see as to why there isn’t any more black coaches is that there were so few of them getting any experience as a coordinator either offense or defense. just because you play football doesn’t mean that you’ll be a good coach. but i see the trend changing as more and more opportunites are available to blacks being coordinators and getting some of that experience that they need to become a head coach.
ok its fine and dandy to say coaches should be hired based on merit and not ethnicity. thats true. i agree with that statement but white people forget a lot of the coaches in power now havent merited the positions that they are in currently. no african american coach has ever come close to winning a NC in college football. you think of the major football universities there arent any black coaches. there is at least a 5-10 coach turnover every year and statistically white coaches have been hired. Ty Willingham at Wasshington was fired after there years at Notre Dame. Charlie Weiss has been there three years already and everbody saw the dismal year Notre Dame had in 2007. Last year the Superbowl for the first time featured not one but 2 African-American coaches. The rule in the NFL is the teams must openly interview at least one minority candidate for each opening. Well the Dolphins got around the rule. They interviewed a minority but everyone in the league knew who the person that had in place to be the next coach already. So basically teams go to the motion of hiring black coaches without even the intent on hiring them at all. its more a less of a song and dance because you cant compell a team to hire a minority.
Part of it is a lack of good candidates.
Part of it is probably that a lot of owners and administrators are old. Old people tend to be more racist than younger generations. The only thing that bothers me is when career failures get 3rd and 4th chances before a black coach gets one shot. (Wade Philips, Norv Turner, Dave Wannstedt)
I’m not a racist, and I don’t care about being politically correct. I have mixed feelings on the Rooney rule. It’s good, but at the same time I don’t like having rules that favor black people. The government does the same thing. Blacks have all the same opportunities as everyone else plus more. I couldn’t get a dime for college because I’m a white male with married parents. I’ve had enough of the race card being pulled for anything because it’s not justified.
You hate to play the race card? If you hated to do that, you wouldn’t be the tenth person to ask this question this month. Everything always seems to be about race if a black coach isn’t given the head coaching job after his mandatory Rooney Rule interview. Monday is Martin Luther King Day, maybe you should call up Al Sharpton and play the race card on National TV about the injustice in the world? Why can’t it once be about the coaching background of a person and not race that gets someone a job?
I think we’ll start seeing more black coaches as more and more black players retire and stick around to coach. I think that it shouldn’t matter, and whoever the best man is, should be the coach. If there were only 5 white coaches in the league, people would complain about that. The media has made society this way. It’s too bad.