A couple of weeks ago, the college basketball community was shocked when John Calipari announced that he was leaving University of Kentucky and going to the University of Arkansas. The shock for me was that in all the talk about who would replace Calipari at Kentucky, not one Black coach’s name was mentioned.
Nate Oats of Alabama was mentioned. Chicago Bulls coach Billy Donovan was mentioned. Scott Drew of Baylor. Bruce Pearl of Auburn’. Even Rick Pitino’s name was invoked. On second thought, I was more disappointed than shocked that not one African American was mentioned as a possible replacement. I chalk it up to our invisibility.
In 1985, Billy Reed, the sports editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, speculating on whether a Black coach would replace Joe B. Hall as the Kentucky head basketball coach famously wrote: “There will be a Martian in the White House before there’s a black coach on the bench where Adolph Rupp once sat.” Rupp was a racist, the keeper of the flame of white Kentucky basketball. To many, the idea of a Black coach at Kentucky really was as far-fetched as a Martian in the White House. Well, Tubby Smith, who is Black, became the Kentucky coach in May 1997 and won a national title. In 2008, Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. For many white Americans, a Martian may just have well occupied the White House.
After Calipari’s departure, Kentucky eventually settled on Mark Pope of BYU, a former Kentucky player who was a member of Pitino’s Kentucky team from 1993 to 1996. Things evolve, but the resistance to African Americans assuming leadership positions, even in sports that Black athletes dominate, persists.
In any event, the fact that no Black candidate was mentioned got me thinking about the actual depth of the Black coaching bench. Is our bench thin, or do we actually have a deep bench that simply is being ignored? Are we simply witnessing the modern incarnation of the old boys’ network?
To get a plausible answer to the question, I spoke to three well-respected African American coaches: Jeff Capel of Pittsburgh, Ed Cooley of Georgetown and Cuonzo Martin of Missouri State, who was hired in March. I asked them about the depth of the Black bench in men’s Division I basketball. I also asked if they were optimistic about the current state of Black coaches in men’s Division I basketball.
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For starters, Capel said that he was not shocked when Kentucky hired Pope to be its next coach.
“I wasn’t surprised, just because of where it was,” Capel said during a phone interview. “It’s right off the heels of Kenny Payne at Louisville, and it’s one of their own.” Payne, the former Louisville star, was fired as the Louisville coach after two seasons and a 12-52 record.
“The bottom line is that, when we have an opportunity to get these jobs, we have to be successful, because that opens doors for so many other people to show that we can do the job.”
This sort of forced representation seems to present an unfair burden for a Black coach to have to carry. It’s a burden that their white counterparts never have to bear.
Clearly white coaches are not punished for the failing of their white colleagues. The burden on Black coaches is real and the beauty of it is that African Americans generally have carried the burden with grace and dignity. The news flash for many young coaches is that the burden still exists.
In 1984, John Thompson became the first African American men’s basketball coach to win a major collegiate championship when Georgetown won the NCAA national championship. Thompson coached the team to the Final Four in 1982, 1984 and 1985. Thompson opened doors: Today seven of the Big East’s 11 coaches are Black. Nine of the ACC’s 15 teams have Black coaches.
The picture is bleaker in the three remaining Power 5 conferences.
Two coaches in the 14-team SEC are Black. Two coaches in the 10-team Big 12 and four in the 14-team Big Ten are Black. What used to be known as the Pac-12 Conference has no Black men’s basketball coaches.
Despite those numbers, Cooley said he feels optimistic about the future. Cooley, 54, believes the situation is better than when he became a first-time head coach in 2006.
“I think it’s ahead of when our group was coming up based on there’s more Division I schools,” he said. “The Power 5s have expanded teams, so there’s more opportunities.”
Cooley also believes that the search firms, roundly criticized for excluding most Black candidates, have been forced to be more inclusive.
“I think search firms now that got criticized, and rightfully criticized, are saying, ‘Listen, you got to bring these people in.’ When we’re being interviewed, if we get in a room, I think we’re more prepared for these jobs,” Cooley said.
Capel, whose father Jeff Capel II was a longtime coach, said that he is optimistic, largely because of what he saw his father endure.
“Yeah, I am more [optimistic] now,” he said. “Our league [ACC] is the perfect representation of that. I think we have more Black head coaches in our league than any other conference. We just had a Black coach in Kevin Keatts get to the Final Four as a 10 or 11 seed. I do think it’s more opportunity now for Black coaches now. I absolutely do.”
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Missouri State coach Cuonzo Martin believes the expanded opportunities have to do with Black coaches extracting themselves from the “recruiting-only stereotype.”
“What happened 40 or 50 years ago, you had a select few that were head coach and everybody else was kind of relegated just to be assistant coaches. So that was your role, ‘I need you just to recruit players,’ ” Martin said. “It wasn’t a need for us intellectually to be able to break down films, scout reports, run the practice, even though we were qualified to do that.
“To be able to provide for your family, to get in, that’s my role. And I accept that role and embrace that role and do the best job in that role. Fast-forward 40-50 years, we have more guys that are qualified because we learned from those older guys. They passed it down to us. We’re more than just guys that can recruit players. We can coach the game, we can teach the game, we can lead programs, we can do all, we can be the face of universities when it comes to athletic departments and basketball coaches. We’ve proven that.”
The Black coaching bench seemed deeper in the past, but perhaps that was because Thompson, John Chaney at Temple, Nolan Richardson at Arkansas and George Raveling at Iowa and later USC, had such huge personalities and were loud advocates for young Black coaches.
Today’s generations of Black coaches in men’s basketball have depth but do not have as much potential to force change.
“We don’t because we don’t have a voice,” Capel said. “We don’t have a Coach Thompson or a Coach Richardson or Coach Rave. We just don’t. Those guys were so outspoken on different things. I don’t know if what’s different is the fear. I don’t know if it’s because we don’t have the same experiences that they had.”
It’s one thing to point out issues and it’s quite another thing to do something about it. This is what made the era of Thompson, Richardson and Chaney so dynamic. They were part of the burgeoning civil rights movement in sports.
In 1989, Thompson walked off the court before a Georgetown home game to protest NCAA legislation denying financial aid to students who did not meet minimum academic standards. Thompson believed the legislation would disproportionately impact Black student-athletes.
“Who would do that now?” Capel asked. “And that was over some academic stuff. That’s not even the George Floyd stuff. Who would do that now?”
That, of course, is the question.
The prevalence of name, image and likeness may have a numbing effect on young athletes focused solely on money and a chilling effect on Black coaches who need the support of white-run collectives to bring in top recruits.
“Maybe there’s a fear that if you’re outspoken, if you say stuff or you’re doing this, are people going to want to help you get players,” Capel said.
The talent pool of African American coaches in men’s Division I basketball is probably deeper than ever. Aside from Cooley, Capel and Martin, the Black bench in men’s college basketball coaching includes but isn’t limited to Shaheen Holloway at Seton Hall, Shaka Smart at Marquette, Keatts at NC State, Jerome Tang at Kansas State, James Jones at Yale and Rodney Terry at Texas. Kyle Neptune, the young head coach at Villanova, is on the upswing.
The numbers are there.
“The thing we don’t have, we don’t have the guy like Coach Thompson, Coach Chaney, Coach Richardson. We don’t have a guy that’s outspoken,” Capel said.
“We don’t have a guy that has the security that Coach Thompson, Coach Chaney had. Black coaches have more of an opportunity now. We just don’t have as loud a voice. We don’t have anyone that’s willing to publicly take a stand like those guys, to publicly speak out.”
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Power is measured by wins and losses, which takes talent, and therein lies the dilemma. Even though international recruiting has changed the equation, young African American athletes continue to be the backbone of the big-time college football and basketball. While Black players are a pronounced majority in each of the Power 5 conferences, their numbers are not matched by Black men coaching on the sidelines.
In the Thompson/Richardson/Chaney era, many young Black athletes wanted to play for a Black coach. Many Black high school coaches sent their players to Arkansas, Georgetown and Temple. And some Black coaches believe that sense of Black pride and support has been compromised by NIL money.
“I would say not 100% yes, but I think it’s really canceled it,” Cooley said. “It’s now, ‘I would like to play for a Black coach that has the right collectives.’ ”
Capel said that there are families who would like their sons and daughters to play for Black coaches, all things being equal. He recalls a conversation with the father of a recruiter who said, “I need somebody to teach him how to be Black.”
The environment has changed dramatically since Thompson, Richardson and Chaney. The nation has seen the election of a Black president and has also seen the backlash to Obama’s eight years in office. We are in the throes of a conservative shift in the country, with diversity, equity and inclusion being attacked. In the NFL, the Rooney Rule is under attack from a conservative organization which has filed a federal civil rights complaint against the league.
The University of Florida is eliminating its chief diversity officer position, eliminating the program’s staff jobs, scuttling DEI contracts because of a law pushed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. In this climate the fight to have more Black coaches and upper administrators will be challenging. In the latest hiring cycle, 17 Black coaches were fired and six were hired.
The new challenges facing Black coaches are pushing for a greater presence in administration and in the presidential suite, though as Cooley points out, NIL is changing that dynamic as well. Boosters who once wielded power with under-the-table financial influence are now legally forming collectives that raise millions to lure the most coveted recruits. And it’s all permitted.
For this reason, Cooley disagrees that young Black coaches may have a higher ceiling.
“I would say no because the presidents and ADs are no longer going to get us fired,” he said. “The collectives are going to get us fired because you have these people donating money that have power that are like, ‘Well, I just gave Bill $200,000 and he stinks. We didn’t get to the tournament, and we spent X amount for our whole NIL collective. We need to make a change.’ “
Some say that may have happened to SMU’s Rob Lanier, who was fired March 21 after only two seasons, including a 20-win season and NIT appearance in 2024. SMU will join the ACC next season and the speculation among some is that the collective wanted a more palatable (white) coach to be the face of SMU’s basketball program as it heads to the ACC. Andy Enfield was hired as Lanier’s replacement.
Black coaches do in fact, have a voice.
With three national titles, South Carolina’s Dawn Staley has become the dynamic voice of African American college coaches. She not only speaks for Black coaches, but Staley also advocates for female and transgender athletes. She has become a powerful voice for inclusion.
With seismic shifts and changes, Staley’s Black male counterparts have work to do. In the era of Thompson, Chaney and Richardson, the bench seemed deeper than it was. But for Black male coaches, the opportunities are there.
They have to find a way to forcibly crash the party.
“It’s a deeper bench now, we just have to make people aware of it,” Gary Charles, the executive director of the Advancement of Blacks in Sports, said. “The guys we had were so loud, it looked like we had the world. We didn’t.
“Now, we’re not as loud, but the bench is deeper.”
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