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ANTONYA ENGLISHOnly one Division I-A school evaluated by the Black Coaches Association failed the "opportunity" test.
The Black Coaches Association released its first minority hiring report card Wednesday and only one of the 14 Division I-A schools evaluated received a failing grade.
The BCA analyzed the hiring practices of 28 Division I-A and I-AA schools with football coaching vacancies over the past year. Seventeen of the schools received either an A or B, while 40 percent of the I-A schools received a C, D or F.
Nevada-Reno was the lone failing grade among I-A schools. Three I-AA schools received an F - Southern Utah, San Diego and Texas State. All but Texas State failed because they declined to fully participate in the process. Nevada-Reno rehired Chris Ault for a third stint as head coach. He had been the school's athletic director since 1986 but resigned that post in December.
"It's important to make this clear, low grades do not mean school individual leaders are racist," said Keith Harrison, director of the Paul Robeson Research Center at Arizona State, who compiled and analyzed the data. "But it does mean that the hiring practices at that particular school should be re-examined and altered so they are more inclusive."
Grades were based on results in categories that included percentage of minorities involved in the hiring process, the number of minority candidates who received interviews and the schools' contacts with the BCA and its executive director Floyd Keith.
Although Mississippi State was the only I-A school to hire a black head coach last year, six schools received A grades. Keith and Harrison emphasized that schools could receive high grades without hiring a minority coach if they met the other four criteria.
"It's not a quota mechanism," Keith said. "We evaluated the process, not the outcome."
Nebraska earned a B, despite hiring former Oakland Raiders coach Bill Callahan after contacting just one minority candidate. Keith said Nebraska rated high on everything except diversity of its search committee.
Harrison acknowledged that the process has its limitations, two of which are critical.
"One limitation is we want to paint a broader picture and look at Division II-A, III-A and women's athletics," Harrison said. "One limitation is we weren't able to quantify who knows who on the staff and how people climb up the ladder in the coaching informal clique. And we still can't quantify if the final candidates of color were token interviews. It's nearly impossible to test that because it is subjective. Our research design has limitations as far as subjective analysis, but not objective analysis."
Those backing the report card, including the NCAA and the Congressional Black Caucus, say the process is in place to stay and it should serve as a model for all intercollegiate hiring search processes in the future.
Under the BCA system, Florida would have received a poor grade during its search to replace Steve Spurrier. Athletic director Jeremy Foley conducted the search, he interviewed three candidates, all white, and the process was done in less than two weeks.
Currently, only five of 117 Division I-A schools have black head football coaches. And Floyd said it could become a recruiting issue as well. If you're a minority football recruit pondering where to attend school next season, the BCA has some suggested reading material.
"What we're finding today is that there is a growing amount of sensitivity among student-athletes and their parents about diversity being an instrument measured in terms of where they are going to go as far as their education," Keith said. ". . . It's safe to say if there continues to be a history at a certain institution of being C, D, F in terms of how they approach things, that's an indication of maybe that isn't a place I need to go."