In honor of African American History Month—or Black History Month—I’d like to dedicate this article to the fine African American men on the BYU football coaching staff.
Oh. Wait a second. Let me start again.
Something has been on my mind regarding BYU football for a long time, but it’s not PC to bring the topic up, especially amongst the pigment-challenged.
But hey, it never hurts to take a good look at ourselves from time to time, now does it? (Because of dual ethnicity, I get to group myself in with the white folk sometimes.)
The elephant in the room today, boys and girls, is race, color and the lack of it on the BYU football coaching staff.
A quick glance at the current BYU football coaching staff website shows 10 white coaches, one minority coach and no African American coaches smiling dutifully back at you.
For those of us who aren’t so good at math, that’s about 91 percent white, 9 percent minority and zero percent African American (thank you, Mr. Calculator).
Given the push in the U.S. to recognize the contributions made to our society by African Americans, it seems a shame that more of them aren’t given chances to coach college football, especially at BYU.
BYU is a school that prides itself in honor and tradition, but wouldn’t it be more honorable to demonstrate racial diversity on its football coaching staff? That would be a good tradition to start.
“But what can we do if there aren’t enough qualified African Americans to coach football at BYU?” you might ask.
Good question. Kinda.
It’s hard to imagine that of all the African American football coaches in the country, not one of them is qualified to coach at BYU?
I understand the head coaching job comes with certain religious-based qualifications and is only available to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who are in good standing, but those same qualifications don’t apply to the rest of the coaching staff positions.
That’s not to say that an African American Mormon in good standing couldn’t fill the head coaching spot, but it would seem a safe bet that we won’t see that happen in the foreseeable future.
Jaime Hill was the last African American to grace the Cougar sidelines as a coach, but he’s no longer with the program.
So what will it take to get some color in a mostly-white sea of BYU football coaches? We won’t even go into the disparity between the numbers of African American players compared to white players at the school.
I’m not claiming racism in the school’s hiring practices when it comes to its football coaching staff, but I am inquiring as to why there are no African Americans on the football coaching staff right now.
This seems to fly in the face of the Equal Opportunity Employment laws that are strictly adhered to (presumably) in other areas of the American workplace.
Granted, there may not be many (or any) African Americans who want to coach at BYU, but I would say it’s a safe bet that if a few were approached about joining the staff, they’d be on the next plane to Provo.
It would be nice to see a better representation for African Americans on the BYU football coaching staff, at least representation that’s congruent with the amount of African American players on the team.
One ought to cover that ratio.
That’s not too much to expect, Coach Mendenhall. Whattaya say?
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