THE GREAT DIVIDE
For Black basketball assistant coaches, reaching the top is often far away
Editor'snote: Undeniable — The Oklahoman's fourpart series examining the lack of Black coaches in men's college basketball — concludes with Part 4 on the path and struggles of Black assistant coaches to become head coaches.
Chris Crutchfield saw no other option but a leap of faith last summer.
For a quarter of a century, he bounced from program to program as an assistant coach at various levels, recruiting future pros and coaching in the Final Four. He even interviewed for open Division I jobs at least a dozen times the past decade, only to be turned away.
He needed to make a change. He needed head coaching experience.
So, Crutchfield became the new coach at Division II East
Central University in Ada, 80 miles southeast of Oklahoma City.
“I get the best of both worlds here,” Crutchfield said .“I can go get head coaching experience and spend time with my kids coaching them in their last years of college.
“Whatever happens after that, it's in God's hands.”
Like countless Black coaches in college basketball, he dreams of leading his own program. Largely, they are shut out from being a head coach.
In a sport overwhelmingly featuring Black athletes and assistant coaches, landing a top leadership position seems further away than ever before.
According to NCAA data, only 27.6% of all Division I programs this season have a Black head coach, including Historically Black Colleges. Of the 1,090 Division I assistants, 52.1% are a minority with 47.9% being Black coaches.
And 56% of all college basketball players are Black.
Before this season ,29 Division I coaching changes were made. Only eight Black coaches were hired, including three assistants being promoted. Two — Wichita State' s Isaac Brown and Texas State' s Terrence Johnson — were promoted to interim head coach.
U C-Riverside' s Mike Mag pa yo became the NCAA's first head coach of Filipino or Asian descent. But even he holds the title of “acting head coach.”
“I think it is a racial issue,” Crutch field said of Black assistants rarely being promoted. “I don't think it's a basketball issue. I don't think it's an X and O issue.
“I just think the people that make those decisions — whether it be ADs or boosters or even search firms that put people in position to get jobs — they tend to go for people that look like them, speak like them or people that they're comfortable with. That's just the lay of the land. That's how it's always been. That's why the separation is so, so far apart.
“But I don't think it' s a basketball issue, whether not a guy can run a program. It's just people tend to do what they're comfortable doing. They tend to make decisions based on comfortability.”
•••
Craig Robinson is looking to break the trend.
Widely known as the brother of Michelle Obama, he left Corporate America 21 years ago and became a basketball coach, eventually leading Brown and Oregon State. Robinson was named the executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches in July.
His big focus is improving the equity of athletic departments on college campuses. He wants to start by placing more minorities in administrative leadership positions.
Only 18% of athletic directors at Football Bowl Subdivision universities are minorities, according to The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport.
“I' m disappointed that we' re not further along ,” Robinson said .“And I' m trying to systematically figure out how to make this better. For me, it really does seem like we have to start at the top with the decision- makers. We have to make these decision makers understand t hat having a more diverse athletic department's going to help your whole university, having a more diverse university's going to help your athletic department.
“We're going to get to a time where students, not just student-athletes, are going to make their decision based on how diverse your university is going to be. I'm trying to figure out a way to make that happen quicker.”
Last summer, the NABC partnered with t he McLendon Foundation and the McL end on Minority Leadership Initiative. Named after legendary coach John McLendon, the initiative places minority candidates in athletic administrative positions on a scholasticyear internship of sorts. The aim is to prepare the candidate for a full-time position in administration.
The initiative—which was founded by Kentucky's John Calipari and Harvard's
Tommy A maker—has already placed 27 candidates at universities around the country. The NABC even employs one candidate.
“If the excuse is we can't find qualified people of color, just ask us,” Robinson said. “We know where they are.”
•••
Carl in Hartman wishes he would have been more patient.
In 1996, he was just a rookie coach getting his first break working for Willis Wilson at Rice. It was a tremendous l earning opportunity for a young, Black former basketball star to learn under a Black coach.
As a restricted- earnings coach, Hartman couldn't travel with the team and he made less than $20,000. He could scout. But he couldn't recruit players.
That wasn't good enough. He left for McNeese State and stayed there one year, eventually embarking on a coaching odyssey. He made eight more stops— including two more at Rice both as director of operations and associate head coach —before landing his first power-conference post with OU.
Now in his fifth year with the Sooners as an ace recruiter and developer of big men, Hartman has interviewed four times to bea head coach, mostly by phone or Skype. His most recent venture was with his hometown university, Buffalo, but he wasn't a finalist.
He believes change starts at the top of athletic departments as well. But he also feels his interviews came at the wrong point of his career.
“I just bounced around too much,” Hartman said. “That's the biggest thing I wish I could take back, just the patience of learning more from my first boss, Willis Wilson, and just going through the process of being a better coach on the floor, learning more from him and letting things naturally happen instead of trying to force my career.”
When Hartman became a coach, he thought of it as an extension of his playing career. He wanted to pay it forward to other kids.
He helped establish t he Coaches Coalition for Progress this summer in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor with the aim as a coach to unify by forming relationships with teams, local youth and specific groups in innercity communities.
But he always planned to be a head coach. He just didn't know it would take this long.
“I just thought it was going to come by process,” Harman said.
Now 48, Hartman believes the timing could be right. He's way more comfortable coaching than 10 years ago.
But he's also happy. He's had quite a ride.
“If I never get an opportunity to be a head coach, I've had such a great career in terms of the relationships I' ve built with the people I've built — administrators, coaches, my former players that I still have relationships with today that are married, have jobs coaching or with Fortune 500 companies,” Hartman said.
“So, I'm blessed. I'm never going to look back and say, `Oh man, I really missed out on not being a head coach.' I' m not going to do that, because this has been such a wonderful experience.
“With that being said, of course, I'd love an opportunity. If it does come, I'll be ready for it.”
•••
Crutch field believed he was on the path to be a Division I head coach.
He was the head coach at Tyler (Texas) Junior College from 1997-99. He was an assistant at NebraskaOmaha, Tyler, New Mexico State, TCU, Oral Roberts, OU and Arkansas.
At T CU, he was also t he director of basketball operations.
With the Sooners, he rose to associate head coach. He helped recruit and mentor stars Buddy Hield and Trae Young.
He's recruited, he's mento red, he's organized and he's led. But he hasn't had the responsibility of calling time outs or making substitutions.
For Crutch field, that is baffling.
After each time he' s been told no, he's looked at himself in the mirror and questioned if he was good enough to be a head coach. He believes he was a token candidate “several times.” Other times, he wondered if he did something wrong.
“I was frustrated how bad that made me feel ,” Crutchfield said.
He doubles back to the search firms or athletic directors asking for answers. They've all told him he's in line for a job some day.
Crutchfield believes there is a solution: Athletic directors have to change their mindset. Race should not be an issue.
“Those guys need to start advocating and order search firms to give African American guys an opportunity ,” Crutch field said. “Don't just throw one guy in a pool of five just because of his color. You can say you checked a box because he's African American, but you know deep down inside that' s not what the AD wants.”
His personal solution is to buck the system.
That means taking a pay cut. He gets to be the boss. He can finally show what he can do as a head coach. At the same time, he can coach two of his three sons.
At 52 years old, East Central is the perfect spot at this point in his life.
“Now I got head coaching experience, so what's going to be the narrative now?” Crutchfield said. “If I can come to East Central and win, what's going to be the reason why I don't have it? So that's why I did what I did to try to get more experience and just to get some more family time with my kids.
“Truly, I want to be a Division I head coach. But a lot of guys have worked in this business for 35 years and never gotten the opportunity to be a head coach and they probably should.”