How do you feel about this??

[gurlybull]

I saw this article on ESPN and I was wondering what your thoughts were on it. Obviously, there are a lack of black head coaches, but is it really because our "college athletic directors, who are usually white, are failing to look beyond their inner circle -- which usually contains candidates who look exactly like them."??  Would a black head coach winning the National Championship really open the doors for all black women to be head coaches?  Just wanted to have some intelligent discussion on the article....

                                                     -Gurly    

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=hill/070403&sportCat=ncw

A Rutgers victory could make a difference

By Jemele Hill

Thank goodness C. Vivian Stringer is in the Final Four, otherwise we might completely forget about the appalling trend in women's college basketball that often goes unnoticed, unchallenged and unheard-of.

Rutgers' surprising rise to Tuesday's national title game is a feel-good story that only the heartless couldn't get behind. But what doesn't feel so good is knowing coaches that look like Stringer -- in other words, black coaches -- are a rare sight at the Final Four and in women's college basketball altogether.

C. Vivian Stringer is one of just four black female head coaches out of 64 teams in this year's women's NCAA Tournament. Here's a stat Title IX has failed to confront: Out of 324 Division I women's basketball programs, less than 8 percent are coached by black women -- even though 42 percent of the players are black. By comparison, black men make up 58 percent of college basketball, but 25 percent of the head coaches are black.

The women's tournament only reflects the sport's diversity problems. This season, just four of the 64 tournament teams were coached by black women. Stringer is just the second black woman to coach in the national championship game. Carolyn Peck led Purdue to a national title in 1999, and she is still the only black woman to win a national championship. Peck's dismissal from Florida this season and Pokey Chatman's controversial departure from LSU left the SEC without a black female head coach. The ACC also doesn't have any black coaches. And the Pac-10 and Big East have one black coach each.

"I think it's ironic that if you look at the players in the Final Four, 90 to 95 percent of them are black," said Tina Sloan Green, the founder and executive director of the Black Women in Sport Foundation. "All these players, and you can count on your hands the number of black coaches."

Unfortunately, these inexcusably low numbers don't exactly warm up the Civil Rights bandwagon the same way the small number of black head coaches in Division I-A football or the NFL does when it's mentioned. Not that the problem is solved in college or the NFL, but the Rooney Rule and the Black Coaches Association's annual report card at least represent aggressive attempts to remedy the problem. Last football season, the BCA threatened to use Title VII -- a statute in the 1964 Civil Rights Act that prohibits employment discrimination based on race, religion or national origin -- to sue college football programs over their hiring practices.

This isn't a comparison of who has the worst struggle. But even among other black coaches, the plight of black women is an afterthought. Next year will be the first time the BCA report card includes women's basketball.

"Now is the time to make an issue of it," Green said. "It's just not getting the exposure."

Opening doors for black women is conceivably more challenging than it is for men, since black women face barriers created by both gender and race.

They, too, must deal with the same obstacle as their male counterparts. College athletic directors, who are usually white, fail to look beyond their inner circle -- which usually contains candidates who look exactly like them.

Culling a deep pool of candidates is an issue, since black female participation in college basketball isn't as high as that of their male counterparts. But considering 71 percent of black female basketball players graduate, the lack of numbers is at least offset by quality.

With the Texas, LSU and Florida jobs available, now is the opportune time to discuss how more opportunities can be created for black women.

But the NFL's recent racial progress shows good intentions alone don't inspire change. Success does.

That's why the best thing Stringer can do to ensure more faces in women's basketball look like hers is to win her first national title. Although Stringer has more than 700 victories and is the only women's coach to take three different teams to the Final Four, Tuesday night is her Tony Dungy moment.

"I'm hoping she wins," Green said. "It would show the world that black females can be successful."

[Apis Bull]

Jemele Hill seems to put a racist spin on everything since her days at the Slantinel.  I'm not saying she's wrong, per se, but to root for someone to win because they are black is as bad as rooting for someone to win because they are white.

[Mama_Bull]

Jemele Hill seems to put a racist spin on everything since her days at the Slantinel.  I'm not saying she's wrong, per se, but to root for someone to win because they are black is as bad as rooting for someone to win because they are white.

Agree with you 100%.  I don't believe in today's colleges that there is any concerted effort to hire a black or white coach.  I do think that most schools only want to get the best coach they can.  We are extremely lucky to get a coach who has been in the SEC versus having to bring a non BCS coach in.

[Kyle]

I'm so sick of hearing how blacks are slighted in coaching. We've got a hispanic head coach, how's that for minority?

[Bull Dozer]

College athletics are too big of a business to look at skin color.  Winning means more $$$$ and that means getting the person who can bring you the most $$$ & wins regardless of skin color.  

[miksans]

Yea, Hill puts a different spin on her articles, however, the message is important. No teams should purposely hire coaches based on quotas or the status quo. HOWEVER, more of an effort should be made to hire qualified coaches from various backgrounds.  The lack of black coaches in football and basketball is more of systemic issue than anything else. Why are there only 5 black coaches out of 119 D-1 football programs in the nation? That picture looks funny to me. Is it possibly the "good ole boy network"? If answering this question is too hard, let's examine our personal lives. How many friends (let's say for the sake of this topic)....particularly black can you CALL RIGHT NOW and say "hey let's go out for a beer or let's tailgate for the spring game? Answering this question should shed light on who we choose to associate with. It goes back to that old expression, it's not what you know, it's who you know. So if you're in a position to hire, people will typically interview and hire amongst their collective network of "remotely qualified - qualified†associates. We've witnessed the Good Ole' Boy Network throughout the ranks of the NFL and NCAA.

So Kyle please don't sound ignorant when speaking on this issue. There is a disparity.

I'm glad that USF hires the BEST candidate for the job and not the best skin color.

[Jamie]

I think this is a problem that might be ahead of its time. Meaning that it's a problem because the pool of candidates on the women's side isn't the same as it is on the men's side. In both gender, race, and depth. But eventually it will get there and it will become more of a discrimination problem.

For example: How often do you hear about WNBA players going into coaching? Having a pro league around keeps basketball as a career in players' minds and they think about how they can contribute to the game after they finish playing it. When your basketball career is over at 21 or 22, you just move on with your life and don't turn back. I think as the WNBA continues on, more ex-players, and therefore more black women, will go into coaching.

[Don Toro]

but to root for someone to win because they are black is as bad as rooting for someone to win because they are white.

No is not. Big difference. One group may be looking up to a hero that might do something that has never been done before due to centuries of oppression and inequalities, while the other group has no such excuse.  Sometimes we forget that we are only 47 years removed from the 60s.

[JoeBulls]

oh no --

gurlybull -- you gotta watch yourself with these types of comments.

You got Rush Limbaugh and the gang all fired up over quotas and affirmitive action...

it can get pretty crazy with these types of issues around here.

But when you have 64 teams in the women's tournament and only 4 of them are coached by african-americans (a whooping 6%) -- i think that signals a bit of problem.

my 2 cents.

[JoeBulls]

"Black people dominate sports in the United States. We are 20% of the population, yet 90% of the final four. We own this ****. Basketball, baseball, football, golf, tennis, and as soon as they make a heated hockey rink we'll take that **** too.

You know the world is going crazy when tthe best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn't want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named 'Bush', '****', and 'Colon.' Need I say more?"

Chris Rock