College Football Coaches Still Overwhelmingly White, Report Says

Twenty-two schools hired head football coaches last year. Twenty of those new hires were white, upping the total number of black head coaches to eight. And with two firings this season, that number has already shrunk back down to six—a statistic that's indicative of the stark lack of diversity at the top of college football programs, according to a yearly report from the Institute of Diversity and Ethics in Sport. Only 12 black head coaches have been hired since 1996 despite the fact that 54 percent of college football players are not white.

Duke was one of those 22 schools to hire a white coach when it selected David Cutcliffe last December. The University, however, generally complied with the six guidelines of the Black Coaches and Administrators by interviewing black candidates, including UCLA's Karl Dorrell, who is rumored to have been former Director of Athletics Joe Alleva's preference for the job. Grambling State head coach Rod Broadway, who is black, also interviewed for the post.

The BCA is expected to release its yearly report card soon. Because it hired a coach last year, Duke will be one of the schools graded according to the BCA's rubric. In 2004, when Duke promoted Ted Roof to the job, the school received a "B," earning its lowest mark in communication and diversity in the search commitee. To improve its grade on the latter, the University made its search commitee smaller so that the diversity would comprise a larger percent, as the BCA's grading scale is reliant on percentages. Duke earned "A"s in diversity of the candidate pool and length of search.

We'll post more when the BCA report is actually released.