Becoming President easier than Head College Football Coach?

You wouldn’t think that in 2009 it would be more likely for an African-American to become president of the United States than to be hired as head coach of a top-20 football program. But that seems to be the case.

Of 120 teams in the N.C.A.A.’s Bowl Subdivision, the top tier of play, only seven have black head coaches.
(Above is from the NY Times link below)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/opinion/20dungy.html?ref=opinion

Two African-Americans have won the Super Bowl in recent years yet the top level of college football has a weak record of black head coaches.

Why?

This paragraph, written by former Indianapolis Colts Coach and Super Bowl champion Tony Dungy sums up the why: (full article is on link above)

With the progress that has been made in terms of diversity in politics, in other collegiate sports and in professional football — Edwards, Smith and Tomlin all got top jobs in the N.F.L. — why is college football hiring so far behind? At a seminar last spring in Indianapolis with other N.F.L. and college head coaches and university athletic directors, I asked that very question, and was enlightened by the responses of those directors. The biggest factor, they said, was the involvement of other people associated with the universities. It was not just the president and the athletic director who made the hiring decisions — alumni and boosters were involved, and the presidents often felt pressure to hire coaches the boosters would support.

One reason colleges should improve in this area comes from the same article:

February is also the month that high school football players choose the colleges they will attend in the fall. While it’s an exciting day for those seniors, it’s a disappointing day for me. You see, many of those players who choose the top schools are African-American and yet almost none of them will get the opportunity to play for an African-American head coach. Of 120 teams in the N.C.A.A.’s Bowl Subdivision, the top tier of play, only seven have black head coaches.

Will they bold enough to do the right thing? I hope so as we don't want to see the great strides made in racial relations begin to go the other way.

Gswede