Spring Break
Coaching
Study: Hiring may be black and white
By: Todd Heath
Issue date: 6/7/05 Section: News
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George Cunningham and Mike Sagas from A&M's Laboratory for Diversity in Sport surveyed a total of 300 Division I basketball programs and found that white assistants were more likely to be hired than black assistants if the head coach was white. In cases where the head coach was black, the makeup of the coaching staff was an average of 45 percent black, compared to 30 percent for the staff of a white head coach.
"The data suggests discrimination, an access discrimination problem," Cunningham said.
Cunningham said the effect is doubled when you take into account that nearly all head coaches were assistants at one point in their careers. Therefore, fewer black head coaches leads to fewer black assistants, which in turn leads to fewer black coaches.
Cunningham said that along with problems of getting their feet in the door, blacks may also face different types of job offerings.
"This is a real problem," Cunningham said. "First of all, it's against the law, but it's also unacceptable by a moral and social standpoint." ?Cunningham said that in addition to NCAA basketball, where 28 percent of head coaches are black, Division I football has a similar issue. Out of the 117 schools that have a football program, only three have black head coaches.
Bob Lydia, branch president of the Dallas NAACP, said the study confirms what the NAACP has known for years.
"We've always known of this disparity; it's nothing new," he said. "It is conscious institutional racism across all levels of involvement."
Lydia said athletes can take personal action to stop this form of racism.
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