College Football Current Events
This past week, Notre Dame unloaded Ty Willingham from the head coaching spot of the football team. A lot of the media have been trying to portray this firing as some sort of racially motivated action. Sometimes a school firing a black coach could be, but race was simply not a factor in firing Willingham. Why the hell would they hire him three years ago to begin with? Did he used to be white? Don't forget, ND only hired Willingham because their first choice, George O'Leary, committed resume fraud. I won't go as far as saying ND hired Willingham because he was black, but I do think at the time race played a factor; by hiring a black coach, of which there are hardly ever more than 5 out of 115 in division 1, ND may have thought they were deflecting attention from the O'Leary scandal while getting positive media coverage for being racially progressive. Either way, Willingham is simply not a good coach. If you want an article sharing my opinion, read Skip Bayless on ESPN. There have been plenty of good black coaches in all sports (Romeo Crennel on the Patriots, Bill Russell when he was a player-coach on the Celtics, K.C. Jones also for the Celtics, Dennis Green when he was still on the Vikings, etc.).
I am simply tired that many of the media see the Willingham firing as an issue of race. Does College Football have too few black coaches? YES. Does it need more? Maybe. How can reporters be irresponsible enough to say the sport DEFINITELY needs more black coaches? College Football doesn't need more of ANY race of coach, it needs more GOOD coaches. You can't break it down by race. Are there too many white coaches? NO. There are just too many bad coaches that happen to be white. Race doesn't make a coach good or bad, so hiring simply to appease any minority would be dumb. I am not calling for Asian head coaches, and there is not a single one in any of the major U.S. sports! Shouldn't I be complaining more than guys like Mark May and John Saunders? I'm sorry that they feel this is a race issue; no college with a football tradition like ND would fire a good coach if they didn't like his race, they fire a coach because he doesn't win enough. The terribly low percentage of minority head coaches in general in College Football is not so much an indictment of racism in hiring head coaches, but of racism in the entry levels of coaching: you can say that many African Americans aren't given a chance to enter the coaching profession as assisstants due to certain people being racist, and that's what causes there to be so few black head coaches.
But i'm going to maintain that major programs like ND and Michigan have too much to lose in the modern era by making head coaching decisions on race. And the media should not try to overblow it. Like I said, if Notre Dame really fired Willingham because they don't want a black coach, why on earth did they keep him for three years? ND is not racist, just looking for an instant winner. And Michigan? The Assistant Head Coach (next-in-line of Carr) is none other than Fred Jackson, who is....AFRICAN AMERICAN. He is the next in line because he is the best qualified, not because he is any race. Obviously race is still a problem not just in coaching, but throughout society; however, I think reporters should pick their spots better when talking about it. All I care about is that the best qualified man gets the job. I like all races just as much as my own, no more, no less.
I am simply tired that many of the media see the Willingham firing as an issue of race. Does College Football have too few black coaches? YES. Does it need more? Maybe. How can reporters be irresponsible enough to say the sport DEFINITELY needs more black coaches? College Football doesn't need more of ANY race of coach, it needs more GOOD coaches. You can't break it down by race. Are there too many white coaches? NO. There are just too many bad coaches that happen to be white. Race doesn't make a coach good or bad, so hiring simply to appease any minority would be dumb. I am not calling for Asian head coaches, and there is not a single one in any of the major U.S. sports! Shouldn't I be complaining more than guys like Mark May and John Saunders? I'm sorry that they feel this is a race issue; no college with a football tradition like ND would fire a good coach if they didn't like his race, they fire a coach because he doesn't win enough. The terribly low percentage of minority head coaches in general in College Football is not so much an indictment of racism in hiring head coaches, but of racism in the entry levels of coaching: you can say that many African Americans aren't given a chance to enter the coaching profession as assisstants due to certain people being racist, and that's what causes there to be so few black head coaches.
But i'm going to maintain that major programs like ND and Michigan have too much to lose in the modern era by making head coaching decisions on race. And the media should not try to overblow it. Like I said, if Notre Dame really fired Willingham because they don't want a black coach, why on earth did they keep him for three years? ND is not racist, just looking for an instant winner. And Michigan? The Assistant Head Coach (next-in-line of Carr) is none other than Fred Jackson, who is....AFRICAN AMERICAN. He is the next in line because he is the best qualified, not because he is any race. Obviously race is still a problem not just in coaching, but throughout society; however, I think reporters should pick their spots better when talking about it. All I care about is that the best qualified man gets the job. I like all races just as much as my own, no more, no less.
On a related and lighter note, Michigan added insult to ND's injury by beating them on the basketball court; read about UM's most exciting win of the year on Jaclyn on the Court, by blogging colleague Jaclyn Gentner.
posted by Jeff Yang at 1:38 AM
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