More harm than good...affirmative action?
Sylvester Croom is a bad football coach.
Two years ago he was ushered in with great fanfare as the first SEC football coach of color, in of all places Mississippi State University. I cringed everytime I heard a story about this, which without fail always made reference to his race.
Fast forward and Mississippi State is the worst performing football program in the conference. However, everytime you hear the coach mentioned, we get to hear how "he cleaned things up", "what a great role model he is", et. al.
Here's the rub...I did a little mental excercise identifying great coaches of an era, by sport, and came up with names like Shula, Knoll, Landry...Coach K, Bobby Knight, Dean Smith...Cohwer, Jimmy Johnson, Parcell, Gibbs...Lasorda, Torre, Billy Martin...Phil Jackson, Larry Brown...Scotty Bowman...you get the point. Two people of color enter my mind with the likes mentioned above...Eddie Robbinson and John Thompson...and I wonder if Eddie Robbinson gets it done in the SEC.
Clearly the % of uber-talented coaches of color is disproportionate to the % of the population. However, and I mean a big however, the solution is not to keep force feeding black coaches into the system in hopes that one sticks. This only fulfills the stereotype that blacks aren't smart enough to perform "high level thinking jobs" like coaching sports...which is clearly a WRONG stereotype. We have dark skinned leaders of government, dark skinned military heros, dark skinned business leaders...why the quota in athletics...or for that matter anywhere...it only hurts the cause.
And Sylvester Croom fulfills my unfortunate prophesy.
Any thoughts?
posted by Hollywood at 9:31 AM
3 Comments:
Frankly, I think the jury is still out on Sylvester Croom. He got his first "signature" win in shorter time than Mike Shula at Bama and Croom inherited an awful mess of a program.
Croom got the job because he was a successful coach in the NFL who had long awaited a college gig. His first press conference at State was brilliant, when he was asked about his race, he responded, "The only color that matters to me is maroon." He has cleaned things up. He is a great role model. If my choices are Urban Meyer or Sylvester Croom, give me Croom.
The reason he isn't getting things done at State (yet, let's see if they improve this year) might have to do with facing the entire SEC West week in and week out with a rebuilding program. But they've gotten better than they were. He has done a lot with less.
So, I'd suggest that if Croom had gotten the Bama job he coveted when Shula got it, I might, as an Auburn fan, be a bit more worried about this year's trip to Tuscaloosa.
And, what if Eddie Robinson had the resources that Bobby Bowden had? Maybe he wins 360. He won at his level better than anyone else won at their level.
I guess what I'm saying is that Croom didn't get his job because of the color of his skin. He got it because he was qualified to do it and found an employer with enough guts to hire him...and politics may have kept him from getting the Bama job he clearly wanted (and, frankly, is waiting for Shula to fail so it'll be his at that point).
I think Croom proves the very opposite of your point.
10:18 PM
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10:18 PM
Nice counterpoint and interesting viewpoint...
4:22 AM
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