[jmdickens]

http://www.sportsline.com/collegebasket ... y/10144910

[ATrain]

I think this "columnist" is trying to make something out of nothing.

[Libertine]

I think Felton put it best when he said, "I didn't realize that."

The fact that it took this hack -- who's generally a horrible excuse for a writer, by the way -- to point this out says boatloads to me about the state of mind in the SEC and college athletics in general.

[bigsmooth]

are they racist?? i doubt it , but some of the words in this article are very true. i have a friend in the athletics dept at an SEC school who is white, and he says the good ole boy network is still rampant, and he feels like the black coaches who are in the SEC do not get the leniency their white counterparts get. this may come from alumni pressure, or whatever else, so the AD's may not be racist, but there is still racism in the SEC, and it is well documented, and to say "it is something out of nothing" shows me how out of touch some people are.

[Libertine]

I'm not saying racism doesn't exist in the SEC, Smoothie. Obviously, the good ole boy network is intact but that's pretty much everywhere and I don't see it going away. However, I do think that in most cases anymore, the good ole boy network has a lot less to do with race than it used to. AD's hire coaches they've worked with before and coaches hire former players that they've worked with before. I think that, as more and more minorities get involved in coaching at the major college level, the good ole boy network will still be in full effect but it won't be noticeable as a racial thing.

[Fumblerooskies]

The author of that Sportsline article is just plain silly...
...what's next....questioning the HBCU's on their hiring of caucasians?

AD's are paid to win (except for Vandy, which is doing pretty well in their program, sans AD..but that's another story.) The AD is going to hire, just like most other in authority, who he/she thinks is going to produce. I think Libertine nailed it on the head.

[belcherboy]

Add Michigan to the "racist" schools now. We did fire a black coach for a white one. Of course most rational people believe they hired the best coach available, he just happens to be white. My opinion is that these other SEC schools did the same thing.

I'm just glad that Liberty finally quit being racist and hired a black coach! Now if we could just get the football and girls basketball programs to quit being racist, than we may be free at last.

[PAmedic]

LU will never get any praise for diversity, just human nature to want to hate.

great response to that article here: http://www.sportsline.com/mcc/messages/chrono/2269089

April 23, 2007 2:30 pm
i love it when a white guy cries about diversity. i have an idea, how about garry parrish making the big move and giving his writing slot on cbs sportsline to a black writer. if anything needs more diversity, it's sports media. so garry, when you are ready to do the right thing, you can write you're last column on your sacrifice to diversity. until then no one wants to hear about it from you.

[SuperJon]

My generation doesn't see race like the generation of today's sportswriters. We could care less if a coach is black, white, or in some cases purple. If the person's qualified, we don't care what color they are.

[Cider Jim]

I may be the only Ole Miss alumnus on this board, and NO, they are NOT racist.

[HenryGale]

We could care less if a coach is black, white, or in some cases purple. If the person's qualified, we don't care what color they are.

Line of the day...

[BrysOn_G]

i'm with jon. the race of a coach doesn't really catch my attention. as long as the job is getting done, the coach stays. if things are at a stand-still... the coach may need to go. i think the writer has an interesting point, but i'm with atrain...

[thepostman]

I wouldn't say racism is completely gone from our generation, but it is BY FAR better then the generation before us. Most of us could care less, this is true....but there are some racist in our generation that is for sure....i know some of them

[TallyW]

This is a dumb article. Simply because a school had a coach that is of one race/gender/faith/shoe size, doesn't mean they ALWAYS need to replace them with someone of the same.

I'm okay with saying that schools like ours should have a diverse staff... all schools should... but to pick on one sport and only 3 coaching changes is dumb. Another thing this writer has to consider is that race relations are in transition for the good right now. As more and more blacks are given the opportunity to get degrees, coach at other levels and work their way up, there will be more of a chance a replacement coach will be black. With this day and age of immediate gratification and booster dollars... an AD is trying to get it right. Sometimes that means going with an African American (as in our case) and sometimes it won't be. You can't say that an AD is racist just because he goes with one guy over another... unless you can prove that the previous coach was fired for being black then this article is pointless.

[SuperJon]

I wouldn't say racism is completely gone from our generation, but it is BY FAR better then the generation before us. Most of us could care less, this is true....but there are some racist in our generation that is for sure....i know some of them

I agree completely that it is still present, but it is on a much larger scale. We see an interracial couple and think absolutely nothing of it. We don't really care if a teacher or a coach or leader of something is black or white.


Thanks for noticing the purple joke.