NCAA’s hiring pledge not working as vast majority of coaches are white

RACIAL DIVERSITY

WILL HOBSON Last September, the NCAA started circulating a “presidential pledge” intended to deal with a problem that continues to rankle U.S. college sports: Diversity in hiring.

While racial diversity on the sidelines and front offices of professional sports leagues has improved in the past decade, the situation in college athletics, according to NCAA data, remains largely the same: Most of the athletes in the high-profile sports of football and basketball are black, but the overwhelming majority of coaches and administrators are white.

The NCAA’s 147-word Pledge and Commitment to Promoting Diversity and Gender Equity in Intercollegiate Athletics is voluntary, doesn’t include any requirements or punishments, and has been criticized as weak.

And yet, nearly 30 per cent of the NCAA’s 1,200 member schools have not signed the pledge. While in some cases this may have just been an oversight, presidents of two prominent universities — Notre Dame and Boston College — said they purposely declined.

Notre Dame President Father John Jenkins “feels strongly that principals of such importance should be authored and pronounced by Notre Dame itself and applied universitywide, and not as the product of an association focused exclusively on collegiate athletics,” university spokesman Paul Browne said.

Boston College president Father William Leahy didn’t sign, in part, because the pledge wasn’t strong enough, according to university spokesman Jack Dunn, who pointed out the school just hired Martin Jarmond, who is black, as athletic director.

While Notre Dame and Boston College have their own initiatives, both still have heavily white athletic departments, a review of their staff directories shows. Of the 23 members of Notre Dame athletics administration, there is one black woman, one Asian-American man, and 21 white men and women. The head coaches have a similar makeup: 16 of 18 are white. At Boston College, all 23 sport head coaches are white.