Black coaches group pleased with gains

? A leading group of black football coaches is pleased Division I schools are considering more minorities for coaching jobs, but it says improvement is too slow and applying civil rights laws might be a way to speed progress.

“I think we’ll have to put a magnifying glass on searches,” said Floyd Keith, executive director of the Black Coaches Association. “Change is not something that has been as quick as we’d like to see it.”

There are now only 11 minority head coaches among the more than 200 NCAA Division I-A and I-AA schools that are not historically black institutions.

The BCA, in a report card released Thursday, says universities must appoint more minority coaches and more diverse search committees. The group says evidence shows more diverse committees leads to more consideration of minority coaches.

And if that means applying Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which makes it illegal for employers to discriminate on the basis of race, so be it, Keith said during a conference call.

The third annual report card showed mixed results. While a record 12 of the 26 Division I-A and I-AA schools that hired head coaches received overall grades of A, a record six schools also received F’s, including five who received the failing marks for not reporting to the BCA on what steps they took to consider minority coaches.

Among 414 coaching vacancies in Division I-A since 1982, only 21 blacks have been hired, a huge disparity given the number of minority athletes on the playing fields, the BCA said.

Colorado coach’s son could see playing time

Boulder, Colo. – University of Colorado coach Dan Hawkins has steadfastly refused to turn over the Buffaloes’ scuffling offense to his son, freshman quarterback Cody Hawkins, whom he plans to redshirt this season.

Circumstances might force his hand, however.

Backup James Cox, who lost his starting job to Bernard Jackson two weeks ago, left the team to be with his ailing father in California, who died Wednesday, and there’s a possibility he could miss the Buffs’ game Saturday at ninth-ranked Georgia.

“We don’t expect James at the game Saturday,” Hawkins said.

With Brian White having quit the team earlier this month for a lack of playing time, the Buffs are down to just two quarterbacks: Jackson and Hawkins, who could be thrust into action if Jackson gets hurt.

Knight weighs in on OU’s controversial call

Oklahoma City – Texas Tech basketball coach Bob Knight said Oklahoma fans now know how he felt after his team lost a game at OU three years ago when a late-starting clock gave the Sooners extra time to score a game-tying basket.

Knight called for Oklahoma to forfeit its basketball game with Texas Tech on Jan. 20, 2003, when the Sooners won 69-64 in overtime after two clock controversies in the final seconds of regulation. Video replay later showed the game clock started late after the Sooners in-bounded the ball on the game-tying possession.

“Maybe now those people at Oklahoma understand what I was talking about,” Knight told The Oklahoman for Thursday’s editions.

“Had Oklahoma forfeited that game against us like I suggested, they would have gotten far more positive publicity out of that than if they had gone to the Final Four that year. Now I guess the ‘duck’ is swimming in the other pond.”