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More of the same Black coaches get snubbed for top jobs againPosted: Wednesday January 09, 2002 6:03 PM
Stanford hired Buddy Teevens, a coach fired by Tulane in 1996 for losing. Indiana hired Gerry DiNardo, fired by LSU in 1999 for the same reason. Florida hired Ron Zook, demoted by his predecessor, Steve Spurrier, from defensive coordinator to special teams coach following the 1994 season. You ever wonder why black coaches get frustrated? I am sure that Floyd Keith, the executive director of the Black Coaches Association, would wax eloquently on this subject. But I've heard it before. We've all heard it before. As the hiring season comes to a close, the number of Division I-A black coaches has diminished by one to four: Fitz Hill at San Jose State, Tony Samuel at New Mexico State, Bobby Williams at Michigan State, and Tyrone Willingham, who moved from Stanford to Notre Dame. The number remains an embarrassment to NCAA officials as well it should. However, there is one piece of good news. Notre Dame's hiring of Willingham is significant, not because the university hired a black coach, but because it hired the best man it could find for the job and he happened to be black. That represents progress. The hiring of Teevens, who was the assistant offensive coordinator and tight ends coach at Florida last season, represents the old-boy network. Either that, or Teevens has compromising pictures of his old boss, Stanford athletic director Ted Leland. Teevens is the first coach in memory to get a I-A coaching job after going 11-44 on his previous job. That's an average of 2-9 over the five seasons Teevens coached at Tulane. He had winning records at Maine (1985-86) and Dartmouth (1987-91, where Leland hired him). That's why Teevens won the job over candidates that included former San Diego Chargers coach Mike Riley and former Washington Redskins coach Norv Turner. To Leland's credit, his last two football hires were Bill Walsh and Willingham. Leland will surely be among the defenders of Teevens who point out that his players formed the nucleus of the Tulane team that went 12-0 under coach Tommy Bowden in 1998. However, if the Cardinal stumble at the outset of next season, Teevens' honeymoon on the Farm will last about as long as a Drew Barrymore marriage. DiNardo had brought Vanderbilt from the SEC cellar to mediocrity when LSU spirited him away for the 1995 season. After DiNardo took LSU to a No. 6 ranking three weeks into the 1998 season, the Tigers lost 15 of their next 18 games. DiNardo is a smart man and a good guy, qualities which won him a second chance. But Indiana, a school with little football tradition, could have used the bold, attention-getting hire of a prominent black assistant such as South Carolina defensive coordinator Charlie Strong. The Hoosiers squandered the opportunity. Strong didn't get a sniff from his former employer, Florida, where athletic director Jeremy Foley moved quickly to hire Zook, the New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator, after being shunned by Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops and Denver Broncos coach Mike Shanahan. In fact, Foley moved too quickly. Perhaps he did so in order to have a coach in place before the deadline passed for underclassmen to declare their availability for the 2002 NFL draft. But why panic? If quarterback Rex Grossman were to leave, Brock Berlin is still there. Wideout Jabar Gaffney would have left even if Spurrier had stayed. Zook, like Teevens, won't have the typical honeymoon afforded new coaches. Gators fans remember Zook as the guy that Spurrier demoted. One more year has passed. No more black coaches were hired. Sports Illustrated senior writer Ivan Maisel covers the college football beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. |
