Not Enough Minority Head Coaches? Here's A Fix

Last Wednesday, Congress allocated some time to addressing the "lack of minority head coaches in college and NFL" issue. It's a serious and worthy issue, but I think for a while now its biggest advocates have been going about things inefficiently.

The basic assumption for some may be that the combination of "old boys networks" and just plain discrimination are the biggest obstables getting in the way of legitimate opportunities for minority head coaches. Although it's insane to argue in the face of that, I will say it may not be the major stumbling block preventing more hirings.

I think the real issue is a lack of minority coordinators.

Coaching is a funny business. Besides the informal buddy-buddy networks that do create opportunities for those within them, one other feature is fairly dominant: the Order of Operations. In school many years ago we all probably learned how to solve certain mathematic equations through the word PEMDAS. That is, Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiply, Divide, Add, Subtract.

Just as there's a natural order to basic math functions, there is a general order to ascending the coaching ladder. Although college and the NFL blend, young coaches must generally climb successive similar rungs to become head coaches.

In college, one's first position is often as a graduate assistant. The GA's are the lowest on the totem pole, often assisting position coaches and whatever else the head coach asks of them. After serving as GA's, they may jump to another GA spot at another school or be hired as an assistant/positition coach. Several years should follow at multiple schools assisting with various positions, learning lots of new ideas and ways to do things and networking with coaches from more than one school of thought.

Eventually, talented assistants will rise to the top and become offensive and defensive coordinators. This is a key point in a coaching career, because becoming an OC or DC is a lot like having that college degree, it gets you places. One also must manage an entire side of the ball, develop an offense or defense, develop game plans, create an agenda for the position coaches to follow and report to and work with the head coach. It's a lot of responsibility and one of those "sink or swim" jobs that can either elevate or destroy a career.

From a coordinator's position is where many coaches will launch their head coaching careers. There's almost no way around it except for a handful of coaches who somehow "pass go" without having been a coordinator (Mississippi's Ed Orgeron, for example).

A lack of minority head coaches indicates, at least in my mind, a lack in number or quality minority offensive and defensive coordinators. This should be the real push for those looking to see the necessary increase in minority head coaches. Lawsuits and embarrassment can only go so far when it's only reasonable that if there aren't many minority coordinators there won't be many head coaching opportunities.

Now, I don't have the hard data on how many minority coaches are coordinators in college and the NFL, but it makes sense that if talented minority coaches can saturate those ranks, head coaching opportunities will only continue to increase. Maybe I'm wrong and the proportion of minority coordinators is substantial enough that there should be more head coaches, but the coordinator issue remains important just the same.