Diversity Day: Minorities getting roles on the field but not on sidelines

College football. It is an American pastime and the reason why I have given up on hanging out with my boyfriend on Saturdays from August through January. Many students even choose which university to attend by which colors they will get to wear on game day or whether or not they will have the opportunity to light a couch on fire before they graduate.

It would seem that the only potential problem that could arise from this fine American tradition would be rooting for the wrong team. However, after attending a lecture last Friday by Charlotte Westerhaus, an OU alumna and the current vice-president for diversity and inclusion in the NCAA, I realized that this is not the case.

Westerhaus' lecture was titled Finders Keepers

Losers Weepers: the Dichotomy of Diversity Lost and Found. She described how although 54 percent of the players in the Football Bowl Subdivision (formally known as Division I-A) are minorities, there are only seven minority coaches. This is out of 119 teams.

Why, in a country that has recently shown such great progress in the area of diversity, does this continue to be a problem? One possible reason is the tradition of a retiring head coach naming his successor. This practice prevents the university from doing a long and thorough search for the best candidate. There are some who believe that minority candidates are not getting interviews for head coaching positions and believe that a Rooney Rule, such as currently exists in the NFL, would be equally effective in the FBS. The Rooney Rule requires that a team interview at least one minority candidate when there is an opening for a coaching job.

Westerhaus assured that although there is no Rooney Rule in place in the FBS, most schools do interview minority candidates; they are just not hiring them. As these candidates are fully qualified, the reason for this remains a mystery.

It is difficult to say how to resolve this problem. Westerhaus stressed the importance of teams embracing diversity beyond a transactional level. This means going beyond counting heads or filling quotas. I would agree with her that quotas have been counter-productive in the past, often causing a hired minority to be considered a token member of the staff.

Currently, there is a hiring report card system in place in the FBS. Schools who are hiring a new coach are graded in several different areas such as the percentage of minorities interviewed and the length of time of the interview process (longer is considered better). A school gets two bonus points if a minority coach is hired. Although I think some sort of accountability is necessary, I do not think the current report card system is fair. If a team hires a white coach, even if he is the best candidate, they will score significantly lower. However, without some type of report card, I can't imagine how they would be able to track if equitable hiring practices are being used.

It may seem like football is an irrelevant forum for diversity conversations and that we should concentrate on bigger issues. However, as Westerhaus mentioned, in some states, the head football coach is better known than the president of the university or even the governor of the state. The head football coach is an influential leader in the community. If the number of minority coaches reflected the number of minority players, there would be around 64 instead of the current seven. It is clear that something has to change.

Christina Stanek is a senior studying Spanish education. Send her an e-mail at cs348305@ohiou.edu.