Was Race The Biggest Factor In Auburn's Coaching Search?

Auburn University officials have received, perhaps not even their fair share of criticism, for their handling of firing football coach Tommy Tuberville and hiring Gene Chizik.

Most Auburn fans that I've talked to and those that I've listened to on local sports talk radio believe that Chizik comes far from qualified after a 5-19 record in his two years of head coaching at Iowa State.

Other potential hires such as Turner Gill, who would have been the first African-American football coach at Auburn, would have been much more popular with fans and alumni.

The outspoken Charles Barkley, who also might be the most famous alumnus of Auburn, says that his school did not hire Gill because of race. I wrote about this issue in depth last week as related to, well-qualified University of Florida defensive coordinator, Charlie Strong *Also please vote in my online poll

Barkley speaks directly to this search coming down to Chizik and Gill.

""I think race was the No. 1 factor," said Barkley, who played basketball for three seasons at Auburn during the early 1980s. "You can say it's not about race, but you can't compare the two resumes and say [Chizik] deserved the job. Out of all the coaches they interviewed, Chizik probably had the worst resume.""

Barkley like others that have been discussing this topic today have said that not only was Gill's race a factor, but the race of his wife was a factor.

""We talked about the whole race thing in Alabama," Barkley said. "I told him it's there and it's going to be anywhere you go. I told him you can't not take the job because of racism. He was worried about being nothing more than a token interview. He was concerned about having a white wife. It's just very disappointing to me.""

On Paul Finebaum's popular radio show today, a clip was played where Mark Schlabach, who wrote the Barkley article, said that he learned Gill would not be hired because he has a white wife.

I agree with Schlabach and Barkley and others that if this comes down to Gill and Chizik, it does not take a rocket scientist (or even an average college graduate, not named Auburn AD Jay Jacobs) to figure out who is the more qualified.

In all seriousness, from what I have learned today, this hire was the result of meddling by former Auburn coach Pat Dye and the Auburn board of trustee. Heck the President of Auburn University, Jay Googe, did not even attend today's press conference.

I'm a lifelong Alabama fan, but I never like to see Auburn down. This decision to forgo Gill and hire Chizik definitely will be perceived as racist by the national media and civil rights activists.

Therefore the school, the state, and perhaps the SEC as a whole will suffer. I think had Auburn selected a winning coach like TCU's Gary Patterson or Georgia Tech's Paul Johnson they could have avoided such embarrassment.

I think Auburn made a horrible choice in Chizik. I'm not so much the decision is a result of specific racism, but more a result of institutional racism. Institutional racism cuts a lot deeper than just this one example of one man being passed over for one job. This racism perhaps not only comes in the form of judging a man by the color of his skin, but also the color of skin of his wife.