Limited pool
Were any minority coaches interviewed by the school during the one-week search process? It doesn’t appear likely. Prohm's Murray State team plays in the Ohio Valley Conference so royal pedigree clearly wasn't a determination in the final choice. He was reportedly chosen among seven candidates that received interviews. The six other names are formally unknown, but ESPN reported that three of the other six were Hoiberg assistant T.J. Otzelberger, Stephen F. Austin's Brad Underwood, and Valporaiso's Bryce Drew. Cyclone Insider has two others reportedly as USC's Andy Enfield and Wichita State's Gregg Marshall. That leaves one that could have possibly been a minority.
Was Prohm the best qualified candidate for the job? Maybe. We also know that the Cyclone job should have been a mighty attractive one. Hoiberg leaves a great team behind, one that finds itself ranked in basically every preseason Top 10 poll. Prohm accepted the job sight unseen, having never set foot before yesterday in Ames, Iowa, or on the Iowa State campus. So he clearly believes it's a big step up in his career.
According to 2012 statistics (the most recent available), the participants at the college level of men's basketball-- the players-- are statistically over 57% African-American, but the percentage of head coaches is less than 19%. In college football, African-American players now outnumber white ones for the first time, but only 10% of the coaches are black. These two black-dominated sports are, by far, the two largest revenue boosters among college sports, yet 89% of athletic directors are white. And you wonder why people keep referring to the college game in both sports-- where the players are not paid and scholarships are dependent on good health- as a plantation.,
If anybody in the media even bothers to ask the question, we'll get the same answer from the Iowa State AD that we get every time in this situation: there were no better qualified candidates. And on it goes. It's not just that white candidates get more chances, they also get more second chances. In college football, it has still never happened at any school at any time in history, outside of a historically-black college or university, that an African-American coach was fired and replaced by another African-American coach.
This is a taxpayer-funded position we're talking about at Iowa State University, and Prohm instantly becomes the third highest-paid employee in the state of Iowa. (Not bad for a guy who on Sunday was a coach with a little over 100 career wins, all in a conference that had the 23rd highest RPI ranking last year.) Aren't there some hiring rules and open records laws that apply here? Iowa State advertises itself as an Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer.
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Your air conditioning is slowing down my internet.
posted by CM @ 9:42 PM
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