Black Coaches in College Football

Eddie Robinson coached for 56 years -- all at Grambling! When he retired, he had more wins than any other college coach, had sent more than 200 players to NFL camps and had graduated 80 percent of his players, back when football graduation rates across the country were around 50 percent. In spite of all that, Robinson not only was never offered a Division I-A job, but was never even offered an interview for a Division I-A university head coaching job.

I was getting ready to write something about this issue and just decided to let the facts and stats speak. FBS is what used to be known as Division I.

- 54% of FBS players are minorities (50 percent of all players are African-American)
-5.04% of FBS head coaches are minorities, 3.4% are African American
- 12.1% of offensive and defensive coordinators (31 of 255) and 30.4% of assistant coaches (312 of 1,018) are African American
- 4 African-American head coaches out of 119 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) schools (3.4%)
-92.5% of FBS university presidents, 87.5% of FBS athletic directors and 100% of FBS conference commissioners are white.

Read more about this issue, a recent example and graduation rates for Black student athletes underneath.

A Call to Civil Rights Action in College Football
Number of African-American Coaches Remains Unconscionable

Also, read:

Charles Barkley Outraged by Auburn's Hiring of Chizik
Tigers' Haphazard Search Leads to Chizik
Auburn hired Gene Chizik, a coach who went 5-19 in his two seasons as head coach at Iowa State, and ended the 2008 season with a 10-game losing streak.

Turner Gill, a former Nebraska quarterback, took over one of the country's worst programs at Buffalo three years ago and guided the Bulls to an 8-5 record and their first MAC championship this season, upsetting previously unbeaten Ball State conference championship game. The Buffalo Bulls won 10 games in their first seven seasons at the Division I-A level. Gill guided Buffalo to 13 victories during the past two seasons combined. He was one of at least 8 candidates to interview for the job.

Five wins in two years got Chizik an offer of a two-year contract extension at Iowa State. He reportedly will receive a five-year contract worth about $2 million a year from Auburn, about double his former deal which included a $750,000 buyout.

More Bowl-Bound Black Players Graduate
Of the 68 schools going to bowl games, 19 graduated less than 50 percent of black players, according to the report by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) at the University of Central Florida. The number of black graduates grew from 55.5 percent to 59.1 percent.

A total of 76 percent of whites graduated compared with 59 percent of blacks in the study. Last year, 64 percent of whites and 50 percent of blacks graduated. Among bowl teams, only Oklahoma graduated less than half of its white players. Navy had the best overall football graduation rate among bowl teams at 95 percent and tied Notre Dame for the best among blacks with 93 percent. Arizona had the worst overall graduation rate, 41 percent, and among black players, 29 percent. Five schools had better rates for black players than white: Connecticut, Rutgers, Troy, Oklahoma and Florida.

The NCAA uses graduation rates as the primary factor in its Academic Progress Rating. If a school's APR drops below a certain level, it can be sanctioned, starting with losing scholarships and escalating to restrictions on practice time and postseason play. The formula considers a 50 percent graduation rate in each sport to be acceptable.

The study showed the graduation rate among all black males in the student body of the schools studied is 38 percent.