Storyline: How is it possible—in 21st Century America—to have so many people-of-color playing major college athletics and so few people-of-color in college athletic leadership positions?
Courtesy: theplayerstribune.com
50 years ago today Texas Western University (now the University of Texas, El Paso) beat Kentucky to win the NCAA Basketball Championship. What made the win monumental? TWU played with a starting five of Black players. UK’s starters were all White.
It wasn’t that college ball had been segregated completely. A number of outstanding Black players had played the college game—Wilt Chamberlain (Kansas) and Oscar Robertson (Cincinnati), to name two. But most teams were nearly or completely White with White players, like Bob Cousy (Holy Cross) and Tom Gola (LaSalle), as stars.
But society and sports intersect. The ‘60s was a time of civil unrest, of questioning and protesting, of pushing for racial reforms. Jim Crow needed to go—in towns, in businesses, in government, everywhere—including in college sports.
Courtesy: USAToday
Cage fans witnessed the evolution when Loyola (IL), dubbed “the team that changed the color of basketball,” won the 1963 championship. The Ramblers beat Duke along the way and knocked off Cincinnati to win the title.
But a memorable game was played against otherwise unnotable Mississippi State. Mississippi’s governor forbade the Bulldogs to leave the state, knowing that MSU would be playing a team (LU) with black players. The team figured out a way to sneak out of the state (sending the JV team to the main airport instead) and the game was played as scheduled.
Three years later I watched Texas Western win the game against UK. Adolph Rupp, the Kentucky coach and reputed racist, didn’t recruit Black players. For some the game was a racial showdown—White v. Black. TWU didn’t see it that way: they put their best players on the court and those players were Black. But, for the others, something else was at stake: win with Whites and solidify the status quo or lose with Whites and risk change of epochal magnitude.
I remember watching the game, being impressed with how TWU played—skillfully and with pizazz. Bobby Joe Hill was a slippery guard, David Lattin a formidable center. UK seemed slow, too deliberate in a fast-paced game. TWU won, 72-65.
The outcome changed everything, especially in the segregation-sealed South. Integration came quickly, as early as the following season. Rosters that had been predominantly all-White (Black players constituted about 5% of rosters back then) began to include black players.
Courtesy: Cleveland.com
The irony today—50 years later—is how dramatically the demographic profile has flipped. Watch any NCAA Tournament game and see who’s in the starting five … on just about any team. It’s not unusual for a starting five to be like TWU was in 1966—all Black. A rarity is to see two teams on the court at the same time with even a 50-50 composition. The norm: 8-10 Black players on the floor simultaneously.
Without question, college basketball—particularly when it’s played at the highest levels—is a Black Man’s game.
The key word is “played.” Black players play the game—in large numbers—and they play it well. But the transformation of major college basketball stops there—and it stops dead in its tracks. There are two reasons why.
Access and opportunity in college basketball for Blacks hasn’t led to high levels of academic attainment. And relatively few Blacks serve as head coaches and athletics administrators at America’s major universities.
It’s a shameful record, especially for an institution (higher education) that prides itself on being socially responsible. But higher education’s record is hardly that: it smacks of using Black players for instrumental ends—winning.
Courtesy: gse.upenn.edu
Consider the sobering results, just released in a report, authored by the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education. At about 70 schools in the so-called “Power 5” conferences (top athletic institutions) about 50% of black male athletes in revenue-generating sports graduate within six years, compared to 68% of athletes, overall, and 75% of undergraduates, overall.
Schools at the bottom of the list—schools where only a third or less of Black athletes graduate after 6 years—include some of America’s top-brand universities. The graduation rate is 34% at Cal-Berkeley, indisputably one of America’s best public universities. Lowest ranked is Kansas State University at 26%.
And data show an astounding differential between the proportion of Black athletes in revenue-generating sports vis-à-vis the proportion of Blacks in the general student population. That differential is as high as 75% (Auburn University) and it’s 60%+ at nearly 25 major sports-playing universities.
Shawn Harper, center director, believes “it’s time that black athletes and their families to start demanding that colleges take more seriously the academic pursuits of black male athletes.”
The leadership record is poor, too. Richard Lapchick and colleagues follow the numbers at The Institute for Diversity and Sports at the University of Central Florida. In the Institute’s most recent report, authors conclude that collegiate sports “lags behind professional sports in providing opportunities for women and people of color.”
The numbers are astounding. For example, there is only one African-American president at a Power 5 conference school (University of Kansas). Nearly 80% of athletic directors—across a diverse range of colleges and universities—are White men. And over 90% of faculty representatives on university athletic councils are White.
Courtesy: diverseeducation.com
There are fewer than 15 African-American head coaches among 128 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision. A little over 20% of men’s head coaches in D1 college basketball are Black.
These numbers are indefensible. How is it possible—in 21st Century America—to have so many people-of-color representing universities in major athletics while so few people-of-color represent universities in athletic leadership positions?
It’s an outrage and shouldn’t be tolerated. The sad thing is that neither the NCAA or its member conferences seem to be doing anything to address these issues. And fans don’t seem to care. And despite Dr. Harper’s advice (cited previously), is there any evidence that Black families are asking universities to do more for Black players academically?
How do we get the NCAA and its universities to take seriously their social responsibilities? Until we have an answer the breakthrough of ’66 is tarnished by challenges in ’16.
