Dear ESPN, Much has been said and written concerning Sylvester Croom’s resignation from Mississippi State University on Saturday. There is no doubt Coach Croom is a standup man of impeccable character, and is one to be emulated. The lack of African American head coaches in FBS (D-1A) NCAA college football is a legitimate concern. However, the opinions expressed by your hosts on “College Football Live” Friday were beyond reprehensible; specifically, your hosts’ insinuation African American coaches are a “big deal” in the South, and president-elect Obama’s need to pressure Congress into taking some sort of action on hiring black coaches. The South most certainly does not have the best track record of equal treatment between blacks and whites. However, in many instances the South has taken much larger steps in integration than many other regions in the country. Contrary to your Bristol, Connecticut, system of beliefs, racism is not only regionally located in those states who make up the Southeastern Conference. To assume having an African American coach come in to an African American recruits’ house, talk to the mother, grandmother, etc. is a “big deal down there”, as opposed to another university located in a different region of the country is both disingenuous and distasteful. Whether by design or simple idiocy, your network has advanced a stereotype of Southern society that has not existed in decades. It is a fact Sylvester Croom was the first African American head football coach in the SEC, not the first black head coach of any sport. Why having a black coach come into a recruits’ house in say, Tupelo, Mississippi, means more to a recruit than in Akron, Ohio, for example, is baffling. College football is, arguably, the national pastime, and as such, a multi-billion dollar industry. The pressure to win at most universities supersedes pressures to hire black head coaches, without a doubt. But this is not an issue endemic to the South, as your hosts’ suggested. It is, in fact, a “big deal” with every major conference and high-profile universities. To suggest president-elect Obama should intervene by way of the United States Congress to affect the hiring of more African American coaches is likewise disingenuous. Wanting to use political pressure to affect the outcome of hiring football coaches is an issue that must be thoroughly scrutinized. It is understood most in the media have cowed down to the whims of the president-elect, but using this type of political pressure has no place in college athletics, especially when the major conference in which he resides hasn’t exactly led the way for hiring African American football coaches. One would assume the president-elect, and Congress for that matter, would have more pressing issues, especially when the city of Chicago has more Americans killed since January 2008 than the Iraq War. Coincidentally, his state’s flagship university, the University of Illinois, has never hired an African American head football coach, either. In essence, this is not an issue that is predominantly Southern. ESPN has only shown its propensity at perpetuating a Southern stereotype. ESPN is partly the reason why college football has become America’s new pastime. This episode, however, was truly distasteful.
Damn strait. ESPN's analysts are a bunch of carpetbaggers who turned tail and went yellow when the cause needed them the most. The stereotypes have to stop. Signed, Billy Ray Simpkins owner, B.R.'s Home Cookin Cafe and Hubcap Emporium (now with WiFi) Dothan, AL, U.S. of Freakin A.
john's estranged brother has made an appearance; instead of numbers/stats, its letters. these 2 were siamese twins until recently hacked apart by nootch's rusty hacksaw.
