Charles Barkley should look at the facts

We were going to blog about the inaccuracy of Sir Charles Barkley’s talking point on black coaches only ‘getting the (expletive) jobs’ but Jeff Miller of the OC Register already wrote the article:

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“My biggest problem with the black coaches is they’re not getting jobs,” he said, “and they’re getting (expletive) jobs when they are hired.”

We agree, for the most part. The essence of this comment is true, but not every word of it.

UCLA isn’t an (expletive) job. Karl Dorrell just didn’t win enough.

Michigan State isn’t an (expletive) job. Bobby Williams just couldn’t turn things around.

Notre Dame and Washington? (Expletives), neither of them. Tyrone Willingham just failed to produce acceptable victory totals.

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To amend his article, I would argue Randy Shannon at Miami does not have a crappy job.

I think Charles is right to call out the lack of black head coaches and at least have this conversation, but we should take a macro-view of and look at previously unmentioned issues, like the issue of entry level jobs that produce qualified head coaching candidates.

And how does a coach get their foot in the door to start a coaching career? By being a Grad Assistant. And you can’t be a Grad Assistant if you don’t graduate.

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Of the 120 FBS schools overall, the gap between graduation rates for Black and white players widened by 3 percentage points between 2007 and 2008.

In 2008, some 59 percent of Black players graduated, as opposed to 76 percent of whites. But these figures show improvement in rates for both Blacks and whites–in 2007, only 50 percent of Black football players graduated, as opposed to 64 percent of whites.

According to TIDES Director Richard Lapchick, graduation rates for football players at these schools were much higher than their non-athletic peers. The graduation rate for Black-male students as a whole at FBS schools was 38 percent; for white-male students, it was 61 percent.

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Additionally, at Barkley’s beloved Auburn, the graduation rate among all players is 57%.

Some journalism needs to be done into researching these entry level jobs, where connections are made with Athletic Directors and with other coaches.

There also needs to be more journalism done with racial distribution of coordinator and position coaches and also look at deeper look at the lower levels of college football.

FBS is the just tip of the coaching iceberg. There are thousands of other coaching positions available, including the lower levels of college football and the high school ranks. These coaches  harbor large ambitions and often move between college and high school ranks.

Is there a problem in the high school ranks too?

A full examination of the plight of black coaches at all levels, not just FBS, is needed in order to fully examine the depths of the problem.