Alabama continues shameful tradition

? In 1963, Gov. George Wallace literally stood in the doorway to stop the first black students from enrolling at the University of Alabama.

And now, 40 years later, the segregationist spirit of Wallace still lives on — not just in Alabama, but in Mississippi, Georgia, Florida and the rest of the Southeastern Conference. Wallace once declared, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” Who knew he was talking about the SEC and its deplorable closed-door policy toward black head football coaches.

Alabama hired another football coach this week, another white football coach, just like the previous 300-plus white football coaches in the history of the SEC (Segregation and Exclusionist Confederacy). Never in the 70-year existence of the league has a black head football coach been hired.

There was once a head football coach in the SEC named Jack Crowe, but it’s Jim Crow whose name still lives on in the league’s Old South hiring practices. And I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that Trent Lott and Strom Thurmond both represent SEC states.

“It’s 2003,” said Reggie Williams, the Disney Sports Executive who was recently named to Sports Illustrated’s list of most influential minorities in sports. ” . . . The SEC is way past due.”

Granted, the ratio of black head coaches in all Division I-A college football — four out of 117 — is horrible, but the SEC is easily the most abysmal of all. Every other major conference has at least one black head coach in their histories and most have more than one.

And please spare us the rhetoric about the paucity of qualified black candidates. Obviously, there haven’t been a whole lot of qualified white candidates either. Seven of the past 15 head coaches hired by the SEC had no Division I-A head-coaching experience. Doug Williams, the head coach at Grambling, was passed over at Kentucky a few months ago so the Wildcats could hire Rich Brooks, who’d been out of football for the past two years.

But what’s happened at Alabama is even more shameful. The Crimson Tide actually passed over an arguably more qualified black candidate in Sylvester Croom so they could offer the job to Mike Shula. Yes, the same Mike Shula who was a journeyman QB at Alabama and was fired as Tampa Bay’s offensive coordinator three years ago before being hired as the Miami Dolphins’ quarterback coach. To sum up Shula’s coaching credentials, he is the man most responsible for developing Trent Dilfer and Jay Fiedler.

Croom actually grew up in Tuscaloosa. He was an All-America center for Bear Bryant. He coached under Bryant at Alabama for a decade and has been in the NFL since 1986 as an offensive coordinator and currently as the running backs coach of the Green Bay Packers.

“I’m disappointed Sylvester Croom was not hired, but I’m not surprised,” said Floyd Keith, executive director of the Black Coaches Assn. “The statistics in the SEC speak for themselves.”

This was a chance for the state of Alabama to be perceived as progressive instead of oppressive. Hiring Croom would have put the Crimson Tide on the front page for breaking ground instead of breaking rules.

But once again, Alabama has proved it is still living in the 1960s. They have hired cheaters, drunks and philanderers to coach the Crimson Tide. They just won’t hire a black man.