Roots

Black coaches still can't make headway in football

This is always a hectic hiring time in the NFL, as teams rush to jettison losing coaches and hire new ones -- most often ones who have just been jettisoned by somebody else. Of course, every time an NFL or college football factory hires a new coach these days, the race of the man is called to attention. The two sports that African-American players dominate post quite different records in the coaching ranks.

In basketball, almost half of the pro coaches are black, and so are almost a quarter of Division I college coaches. African-Americans are hired and fired in basketball now without so much as a note made of race. But only three NFL teams had black head coaches this past season -- and that's down to two now -- while among the colleges, the only big-time African-American head men are Bobby Williams at Michigan State and Tyrone Willingham, who's moved up from Stanford to Notre Dame.

There are a number of reasons to account for this, beginning with the root differences between the games themselves. Basketball is a pretty intimate enterprise, with only a handful of players on a team. Even the substitutes can emerge as personalities -- and remember, it's the benchwarmers in all sports who usually make the best coaches. The incumbent coaches, owners, athletic directors and general managers get to know their basketball players well. They're distinct people, not just guys in helmets, which is what so many football players are.

Besides, coaching basketball depends so much on the personal element. A football coach can be a distant workaholic, organizing and organizing. A basketball coach can't last unless his players certify him as a human being. He has assistants, but the system is not so hierarchal. Secure NBA coaches now often even keep wise old strategists around to advise them. These septuagenarian ex-head coaches are sort of like consultants -- the medicine men of team sports. Basketball is more familial, more tribal, football more structured, more corporate.

Football coaches are executives. They have vice presidents -- offensive and defensive coordinators -- and middle-management department heads in charge of the myriad positions. So, not only do the people who hire football coaches probably fail at getting to know young black coaching candidates, there is also almost surely some kind of submerged racism, which presumes that, sure, a black man can handle a little basketball club, but a heavy-duty football operation is really too complicated to trust to a minority.

Athletic directors have also been known to whisper that wealthy alumni wouldn't stand for a black football coach. It's the same secret excuse they used years ago, saying alumni wouldn't tolerate black players. General managers and athletic directors likewise doth protest too much that they won't hire a black coach because they'll get too much heat when they fire him.

I first heard that 30 years ago, in basketball. I asked a potential black coach what he thought of that. He only turned and, smiling, quoted me Tennyson: "'Tis better to have loved and lost/Than never to have loved at all."

Sports Illustrated senior contributing writer Frank Deford is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com and appears each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition. His new novel, The Other Adonis (Sourcebooks Landmark), is available now at bookstores everywhere.

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.

 

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