Oh, so we’re lofty lofty enough to publish in the HuffPo, eh, and do most of it via a blockquote? Myles Brand has taken his lessons in lazy blogging from TBL, and learned them well.

200px-mercury_fig_leaf
Relevant metaphor goes here.

In all fairness, he’s citing the NCAA’s Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion Charlotte Westerhaus, who has a lengthy explanation why there isn’t a Rooney Rule–a rule requiring a team to interview at least one minority candidate–for a position. (And no, Bret Bielema, your claim to be “criminally hung” does not make you a minority, dude.)

Her long, long explanation includes this stat:

Dedicated social change agents and pundits who urge the NCAA to adopt the “Rooney Rule” may be unaware of of another important reality – more candidates of color are being interviewed for head coaching positions than ever before. The fact of the matter is that 27 candidates of color were interviewed for 22 vacancies at the Division I level last fall. These numbers far exceed the number of mandated head coaching interviews of minorities conducted by the NFL.

A useless stat, really. Of the 22 vacancies, only 4 went to minority coaches: Dewayne Walker, Mike Haywood, Mike Locksley, and Ron English. Of the nine post season switches in the NFL, three went to minority candidates. That’s a 33 percent to 18 percent difference in the small sample size of one year, proving nothing statistically but at least showing that Westerhaus’ numbers lean toward fig-leaf territory for this term’s hirings.

We’re not a quota person–let each school embarrass itself, since college football is open and lawless like that–but being economically inclined in terms of explaining things, the lack of minority head coaches relative to the number of minority players at the NCAA level has way more to do with the economic pressures faced by black players in particular, and way less to do with an overt institutionalized racism. GAs make next to nothing, and the post-grad safety net is simply not there as often for black players wanting to get into coaching as it is for white players.

(Note we said: “as often.” You paid off your student loans by working three jobs and scraping the barnacles off boats for extra money with your eyelids. Congratulations on being awesome. You did it all by yourself, right down to the oxygen you brought with you to breathe everyd day, white guy. You’re like John Galt, but with titanium nuts that taste like caramel! You’d care about this compliment/mockery, but others are irrelevant to your circumstances and outcomes, so you really shouldn’t even really be reading this Ayn Rand blows goats she bred by herself from thin air.)