The Chronicle

My story from Thursday’s newspaper, “Leveling the Playing Field,” tries to examine how Duke’s lack of a black head coach will impact the school’s ongoing search for its next head football coach.  

Even though Duke seems to be behind in the times, the rest of Division I-A college football is not much better: there have been only 22 black head football coaches, in stark contrast to the sport whose student-athletes are more than 50 percent black.  

There was one interesting perspective that I couldn’t quite fit into the story. Paul Hewitt, the Black Coaches & Administrators president, and Floyd Keith, the organization’s executive director, both told me that student-athletes have a responsibility to ask for more diversity in the head coaching ranks.  

“Honestly, I think that the people who should be pushing for this are the student-athletes themselves,” said Hewitt, Georgia Tech’s basketball coach. “

It might be unrealistic for me is to think that an NCAA athlete or recruit really should have this in mind, but the best chance for a young man to stay in this game is to go back to an alma mater to coach. And if a school is not willing to give a person of color an interview—as a coach, coordinator or head coach—that student-athlete needs to think long and hard before they make a commitment to that school.  

“Not until schools feel like they have something to lose will they respond. That’s just plain and simple. We really don’t have any impact on the success or failure of those institutions. But if those decisions begin to hurt them in recruiting battles and student-athletes start to leave those schools and think, ‘Why should  I stay here? I have no chance of being a coach here…’” 

Does Duke need to emphasize the serious consideration, if not hiring, of a black coach in its search? Harvard did so last year with its men’s basketball position before hiring one of Duke’s own, Tommy Amaker. Should student-athletes campaign for more diversity in the coaching corps, as Hewitt and Keith suggest?  

It’s a loaded issue, one that’s sure to bring out plenty of opinions. What do you think?