The issue of race in sports is in the spotlight. Are minority coaches treated differently than others? Is race a deciding factor to organizations when they make personnel decisions? There is a prime example right here in Seattle with the University of Washington.

Tyrone Willingham and Lorenzo Romar were hired at the University of Washington to coach the football and basketball teams respectively. Their hiring of Romar and Willingham marked the first time that a Division-One college employed minority coaches in two major sports.

This brought national attention, which was a desirable side effect in the eyes of the administration. The administration was desperately trying to spark some excitement into both of the struggling programs. This is a fact that could not have been overlooked when making the final decision on Willingham (Romar was already the head basketball coach when Willingham was hired).

This is not to say that race was the primary reason behind Willingham’s hiring, but the desired effect was achieved. National media outlets lauded UW for the minority personnel moves. Although race may not have been the deciding factor in the hiring of Willingham, it is undeniable that race was in the equation.

The race issue has followed Willingham in more than one of his coaching stops. Willingham was abruptly fired after three seasons at Notre Dame with a record of 21-15. Willingham’s successor, Charlie Weis, is entering his fourth season with a firm grip on the job despite a record so far of 22-15.

Notre Dame officials have denied that race was an issue in the firing of Willingham, which begs the question as to why Willingham lost his job, yet Weiss kept his even though there records were practically identical.

So what was the reason?

Willingham kept his players out of trouble and graduated nearly all of them, two reasons that would get a coach fired if he neglected to take care of either area. So it would seem to suggest that someone in power did not think Willingham fit in at Notre Dame.  You can only speculate that race was the reason.  I personally do not, after seeing what happened at Washington. The national media was not blind to this fact, and they put a lot of pressure on Notre Dame to explain its position.

As a result of the negative attention that programs receive when choosing a white coach over a minority coach, I believe there is an unnecessary pressure to hire a minority over a more qualified non-minority candidate.  Minority canidates end up getting the "run around", being the token interview while most programs keep their favorite canidate in their back pocket.  Not to say that a minority coach can't or isn't the prefered canidate but because of the political correctness pressure that programs feel, it is the case more times than not.

The pressure is a lot worse if the time comes to fire a minority coach, as in the case with Willingham and Notre Dame. It is because of this external pressure that race plays a factor in personnel decisions, whether or not the hiring officials want it to be a factor.

It will be interesting to see how the demographics change in the coaching world as a result of the combination of this race factor and the evolving media age.