BCA hiring report card

The 2011 BCA Hiring Report Card for NCAA FBS and FCS Head Football Coaches is out. This is the full report. If you cannot download the report, it is also available on the BCA’s new website at www.bcasports.org.
Without question, I believe this BCA-funded report that is researched by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) of the DeVos Sport Business Management Graduate Program at the University of Central Florida’s College of Business Administration has had a significant and lasting influence on the landscape of collegiate football regarding inclusion and diversity in the head coach hiring process. The following facts will validate this premise:
1) 52 percent of all the ethnic minority football coaches ever hired have been hired in the eight years since the publication of the first BCA Football Hiring Report Card.
2) Of the 22 coaches hired since the inception of the BCA Football Hiring Report Card, 19 have been hired in the past five years.
3) In the past two years, 19 appointments have occurred, almost doubling the number of head coaches who began the 2009 football season on the FBS level.
4) From the 2003 football season, since the first 2004 BCA report card, there has been a 600 percent increase in the number of Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) head football coaches from three (3) to an all-time high of 19 today.

 

The biggest thing I still wonder about is the makeup of the Graduate Assistants. I believe that the head coaching problem eventually takes care of itself as long as their are competent assistants available. However, the number of black off/def coordinators also seems very low. I would argue that unless you increase the number of off/def coordinators that are black, you are not helping the problem in the long run. Where do those black off/def coordinators often start -- as graduate assistants.

If the BCA really wants to make a long term difference, it needs to really push hard for black athletes to become interested in coaching and pursue graduate assistant jobs. It also need to encourage universities to seek our potential black graduate assistants. Until you fix the pipeline problem, I believe that a lack of black head coaches will continue.

 

Very good point.