UF’s Strong Says Interracial Marriage Hurting Black Coaches

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Everyone’s always so willing to run to extremes.

Auburn has hired four black assistants in the past few weeks and now a lot of media folks want to say, “see there’s no such thing as racism in college football.”

The real issue, as mentioned earlier today, is the lack of black HEAD coaches, of course.

And while a writer that I really like — Kevin Scarbinsky of The Birmingham News — sees Gene Chizik’s diverse hires as a reason to fire a shot at Charles Barkley, there’s a serious piece to this story that’s been forgotten.

While discussing the Barkley claims on ESPN.com, Mark Schlabach revealed that two SEC football coaches told him prior to Chizik’s hiring that Turner Gill would never get the Auburn job because he is married to a white woman.

So let’s throw the lightning rod Barkley out of the discussion.  Schlabach is pretty well respected among media types.  What about his claims?

Can they be disspelled because Chizik has hired four black assistants? 



Surely I’m not the first person to think that:

1) Auburn took a beating in the press (overblown as it was, if you ask me)

2) the school was basically called a racist institution by one of its most famous alums

3) that might not be too much of a help in recruiting black athletes

and 4) the best way to prove that the school is not racist is to hire black assistants to appeal to black players.

Well, now Mr. Schlabach’s revelations are being backed by a black coach who’s come out and said that he believes race is still a factor in hires and that his white wife is a drawback when it comes to landing a head coaching job.

That coach?  Florida defensive coordinator Charlie Strong. 

The guy is certainly qualified to move up.  He’s coached under national title-winners Steve Spurrier, Lou Holtz and Urban Meyer.

He’s at the right school, too.  Coach for a winner and usually you go to the top of the coaching list.  See: Dan Mullen, UF offensive coordinator who just got his first head coaching gig.  And he was able to stay in the SEC to get it.

According to Strong, he was passed over for a head coaching job at a Southern university in recent years.  (Not to mention the fact that no one came after him this year, though his young defense is a big reason UF is in the national title game.)

“Everybody always said I didn’t get that job because my wife is white,” Strong said yesterday.  “If you think about it, a coach is standing up there representing the university.  If you’re not strong enough to look through that (interracial marriage), then you have an issue.”

He went on to say that his wife “makes no calls and she plays no defense.”



There are some who say that flat-out overt racism is the reason that there are only seven black head coaches at 119 FBS schools.

Others would have you believe that racism is a thing of the past and has nothing to do with this.

Like most things in life, I believe the truth is somewhere in the middle.  And this issue won’t be going away until both of the above groups admit that there IS a problem, but it’s not as pure as “all whites hate all blacks.”

Until folks start to admit that, I can borrow only from Seinfeld.