BCA puts Southeast at head of class

~ Southeast was among three schools to score an "A" for considering minority coaching candidates.

INDIANAPOLIS -- NCAA Division I universities fared better this year in considering minority football coaching candidates, the Black Coaches Association said Thursday.

Now the BCA wants those universities to hire more minority coaches and produce more representative search committees. 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 third annual report card showed mixed results. While a record 12 of the 26 Division I-A and I-AA schools received overall grades of A, a record six schools also received F's.

Three of those with A's -- Buffalo, Columbia and Southeast Missouri State -- hired black coaches. Kansas State, which also hired a black coach, received a B.

Five of the schools with failing marks did not return their report to the BCA, resulting in automatic F's. The other school was Division I-AA Missouri State.

The 12 A's were nearly as many as the previous two years combined (13), and Buffalo and Southeast Missouri State each earned perfect scores -- A's in each of the five categories. Kansas State received a lower overall grade because it received an F for the composition of its search committee.

Scores evaluated on factors such as the percentage of minority candidates interviewed, the schools' contacts with BCA executive director Floyd Keith or the chairman of the NCAA's Minority Opportunity and Interests Committee. Schools that hire a minority coach get a two-point bonus.

This year's results improved some over last year, which produced the worst scores in the three years the report card has been released.

More than half the 26 schools in the study received either A's or B's in the four categories other than the composition of search committees.

Eleven of 26 schools received average, below average or failing grades. And of the 119 Division I-A schools and nearly 100 non-historically black institutions in I-AA, there were only 11 minority head coaches -- five in I-A and six in I-AA. Ten are black, and St. Peter's Chris Taylor is an American Indian.

Four of the schools that responded to the BCA still received F's for their choice of final candidates.

Of the 414 coaching vacancies since 1982, the BCA said only 21 were filled by minorities, and in the history of college football, only 25 minority head coaches have been hired.

The current minority head coaches in Division I-A are: Mississippi State's Sylvester Croom, UCLA's Karl Dorrell, Buffalo's Turner Gill, Kansas State's Ron Prince and Washington's Tyrone Willingham. Gill and Prince were hired this year.

Those in I-AA are: Taylor, Valparaiso's Stacy Adams, Northern Arizona's Jerome Souers, Indiana State's Lou West, Columbia's Norries Wilson and Southeast Missouri's Tony Samuel.

Three of this year's schools were graded for the second time. Fordham, which had a B in 2003-04, received an A this year. Idaho earned its second straight C, and Elon University in North Carolina dropped from a B in 2003-04 to a D this year.