Mr. President, Please Help College Football…

Barack Obama may not have the time to create a college football playoff system, but maybe another aspect of sports is worth the attention of the 44th President of the United States.

There is a huge aspect of sports that is a big reflection of where we are as a country. You see, even in a nation that is fresh off inaugurating its first black President, it’s amazing that we still find it difficult to let black people coach our collegiate football players.

In NCAA Division I-A football, there are only 7 black head coaches out of the 119 teams. That means that slightly less than 6% of head coaches are black, while well over 50% of football athletes are black.

What does that add up to? Discrimination!

However, it shouldn’t come as a surprise, not even a day after we swore in the nation’s first black President. Afterall, if you go back to the polls, you will easily find that John McCain won over white males over the age of 50. In fact, most exit polls have McCain winning the white vote with 55%, winning the 60 and older vote with 51%, tying the 45-59 year old vote, and losing the male vote by only 1%. I couldn’t find an exit poll with demographics for just white men over the age of 50, but the facts I could find have McCain beating Obama 56-42 among white voters (men & women) ages 45-59, and McCain beating Obama 57-41 among white voters (men & women) ages 60 and older. Like I said, with Obama winning the overall female vote by 13 points, it’s clear that it was the white males over 50 driving those statistics.

Now, not to say that people who voted for McCain were racist, but in a race where Obama won by a margin of 8.5 million votes and by about 8 percentage points, it’s quite odd to find an entire demographic where McCain beat Obama in the double digits. So perhaps you can see where it might make sense for me to suggest that if there was a demographic where racism was still somewhat prevalent, it would be white males over the age of 50.

Coincidentally, that same demographic controls college football. White males over 50 especially control southern football conferences, such as the south’s biggest conference, the SEC, where there are no black head coaches whatsoever.

But so what if the SEC and old white males don’t hire black coaches? Why should our nation’s President get involved with that?

How about for the same reasons he would get involved with Google, Wal-Mart or Goldman Sachs if there was reason to believe that they weren’t allowing blacks to advance to the upper ranks of their companies. College football is just as big as those companies, thus a prevailing issue of race in football is just as big an concern as an issue of race at some nationwide company.

My asking the President to step in and do something about this prevalent racism has nothing to do with Obama being black. It’s his youth, passion for sports, and example of socioeconomic mobility that makes him the perfect President to step in and stop the racial bleeding going on in college football.

College football is as influential as any Fortune 500 company, and its discrimination against blacks should be reprimanded and fixed. Obama should institute some sort of “Rooney Rule”, where Presidents and Athletic Directors are forced to interview blacks for head coaching positions in football. Obama should also look to include the presidents of these schools (the same presidents who ask for government funding for scholarships and research) in the process. These university presidents should be held accountable for the Athletic Director hirings, which should also be more inclusive of the black community. It seems to me that that the best way to give blacks a fair chance at being a head coach in college football, would be to give blacks a fair chance at being the ones who hire football coaches.

But why stop at giving blacks a chance to be ADs? Why not give them a chance to become Presidents at the bigger universities?

At the end of the day, it’s a simple solution. Equal opportunity hiring at all levels will increase the inclusion of blacks in coaching college football. And Barack Obama can initiate the inclusion. The same way affirmative action helped spur the collegiate initiative to acquire diverse student bodies, is the same way affirmative action can encourage diversity in college football and all intercollegiate sports. And by putting pressure on University boards and presidents, Obama can help start the process without making this a big waste of time for the government.

But it’s just an idea, Mr. President. Not that you have to follow it. I just don’t want sports left out of the entire national conversation. Because like it or not, sports is a big part of what this nation is. And while it doesn’t deserve the attention it got from Congress with the steroid issue, it does deserve some consideration—even if it’s just a little bit.

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