Behind the numbers: Black coaches and black athletes

Every now and then, usually during timeouts or while one of his teammates is at the foul line, junior point guard Chris Duhon will walk over to the end of the Duke bench to get advice.

The sought-after help usually comes from one of the younger, more vocal assistant coaches, Chris Collins or Steve Wojciechowski. Because of their positioning, both are by far the most animated on the bench--more often out of their seats than in them--and both are likely to meet Duhon halfway to answer the question or give advice.

Other times, Duhon walks straight to head coach Mike Krzyzewski himself, who in turn imparts his own wisdom.

Finally, there are the rare times on the court when neither of the assistants rise, and Duhon seeks the answer or advice from associate head coach Johnny Dawkins.

Though he is currently not the most famous member of the basketball team, back in his heyday of 1986, Dawkins was an All-American and national player of the year who led the Blue Devils to the NCAA title game, a final No. 1 ranking in the Associated Press poll and a two-loss season. His number, 24, hangs in the rafters of Cameron Indoor Stadium, and to this day the former point guard is still the program's all-time leading scorer. After nearly a decade spread over a few NBA teams, today Dawkins is just the tall thin man immediately preceding Krzyzewski on the bench.

Another rarely noticed though important trait of the second highest-ranking member of the men's basketball program is his skin color: Dawkins is black. And despite a large number of black athletes at Duke, in the Atlantic Coast Conference and in the NCAA, there are only a handful of blacks on the coaching end.

"It really does not cross my mind. I mean I've been a part of the Duke program in some capacity for a while, since 1982, and never really thought about it," Dawkins says. "So I hear those things [in the media about black coaches]. It's a difficult subject. Are there some really capable African-American coaches? Absolutely. There are terrific coaches in every race.

"There are opportunities out there for African-American coaches to do terrific job. There are guys that have proven that. You look at guys like [former Georgetown head coach] John Thompson or [Kentucky head coach] Tubby Smith, these are guys who have proven that African-American coaches can be successful and win at the highest level."

Currently Georgia Tech leads all ACC schools as the only member with more than one black head coach--the Yellow Jackets have two. However, the Ramblin' Wreck also employs 10 black assistant coaches and has more assistants than any other school in the league.

As far as sheer numbers are concerned, Clemson University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill rank second highest in the league; each has eight black coaches on staff. Florida State and Wake Forest are next with seven, while Maryland and Virginia both employ six and Duke and N.C. State bring up the rear with four.

However, one of the more overlooked facts when considering the number of black coaches per school is the number of possible programs each individual school sponsors. By dividing the total number of coaches into the total number programs one can arrive at a coach-per-program figure for every school.

While Georgia Tech's 12 black coaches may lead the ACC, the statistic becomes even more impressive given that the Yellow Jackets fund only 17 programs--the second fewest in the ACC--a number that gives them an average of 0.70 black coaches per program.

Conversely, Duke's numbers become the lowest in the ACC when computing by this method. The University's four black coaches with its 26 programs give the Blue Devils an average of 0.15 black coaches per program.

"It's true that there are not a lot of black Division I-A coaches and sometimes it is discouraging," assistant football coach Brad Sherrod says "It's not that there are not qualified ones out there, they just aren't getting the interviews--or they're not getting serious interviews. There a lot of politics involved, and no one knows why because it varies from place to place. Sometimes, for example, it could be that alumni don't want a minority head coach and they have a lot of money.

"I don't know why Duke doesn't have more [black coaches], but they're moving in the right direction and will eventually get over the barrier," he adds.

For UNC, one of the four ACC schools without a black head coach, the subject is an important one. UNC Director of Athletics Dick Baddour says the fact that UNC has no black head coaches concerns him, and he says it is something he hopes to change during his tenure. Despite this, Baddour's two main hires, men's basketball and football head coaches, were white.

Nationally, more controversy started recently in the Big Ten Conference when Michigan State University football coach Bobby Williams, an African-American, was sacked. Williams' firing left just three black head coaches among 117 Division I football programs, and civil rights groups have argued that it is a classic case of the "last to be hired, first to be fired" scenario many black coaches face.

"I've heard about the [Michigan State head football coach] who got fired, and football's a little different because there are only a handful of African-American coaches in football," Dawkins says. "So it becomes a very touchy subject there, with the number of guys."

Race is also an issue in professional sports. Attorney Johnnie Cochran released a report this summer criticizing the National Football League's hiring practices involving black head coaches. Cochran threatened to sue if the NFL did not take action.

The report criticized the league for having only five black head coaches since 1986 and suggested that it start a reward/punishment program based on draft picks for diversity.

Despite the national attention on the topic, when Duhon walks over to talk to Dawkins in the middle of the game issues of race do not cross his mind. Off the court, however, the team captain definitely considers the issue.

When simply asked last season to talk about his relationship with Dawkins, Duhon, without any prompting, noted that since Dawkins was also black, he could help him with off-the-court issues where other coaches could not.

The Slidell, La., native says he thinks that as more players turn to coaching at the end of their careers, numbers of black head coaches will rise. Duhon says that right now there is a backlog of assistants, like Dawkins, who have not quite hit the head coaching level.

"I really don't think about it too much, there are times where [I think it could be better], but everyone is given a fair shot and it's going to take time to establish yourself," Duhon says. "That's what Coach Dawkins has been doing. He's had numerous opportunities to become a head coach somewhere else and he loves it here."

Recent statistics show that this may be true, but progress is being made at a snail's pace.

The latest national study, released in 2000, shows that blacks made up 5.8 percent of head coaches and 15.1 percent of assistant coaches at "non-historically black Division I schools." And while the number is up from 5.1 percent and 14.3 percent since the 1995-1996 season, the ACC still lags behind the national average.

According to The Associated Press, ACC schools have a total of 197 programs, but blacks constitute 3.6 percent of the league's head coaching staff.

The study also notes the disparity between the coaching percentages and student-athlete participation. For example, blacks currently make up 18.9 percent of athletes in the NCAA, a number lower than the percentage of black coaches from the 2000 study.

However, considering just the "revenue" sports--football, men's and women's basketball--the percentages change significantly. While blacks made up 45.3 percent of student athletes in those sports, just 13.7 percent of head coaches for those men's teams and 7.3 percent of head coaches for those women's teams are black.

Regardless of what the future may hold for black coaching, it appears that this may become a national issue if statistical progress is not made. Many black coaches point to the success of Notre Dame football head coach Tyrone Willingham, who has revitalized one of the country's premier collegiate football programs. They say the more Willinghams there are, the more open the door will be for future black head coaches.

"Even if I don't think about it, I still try to be a positive black role model," Dawkins says. "It's important to be African-American in a positive light and important for African-American students across this campus to see that you have someone who's successful, who's a family-oriented guy, who works hard at what he does, and you want to project a positive image for those young people that come up.

"You want them to say 'You know what, I think I can do that because I remember way back there was a guy--Coach Dawkins--he did that and so it's possible.' I try to always live in a way were people would look and say 'he's a guy I'd like to try and emulate.'"