Tony Dungy Calls out NCAA Football for Lack of Black Coaches

It's only been a little over a month since Tony Dungy retired from being head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, but that doesn't mean he's resting on his laurels. Coach Dungy has been doing quite a bit if speaking engagements and promoting of his books. But one thing he also wants to do is help the growth of Black coaches in college football. As we've mentioned before, out of the 100 and some Division I NCAA football programs, there are only seven Black coaches. That's something Dungy wants to change.

"To think that you would have a Black president of the United States and two Black men who have won Super Bowls before you would have a Black head coach in a top-20 school is hard to believe," Dungy told the New York Times. "It doesn't make sense. The baffling thing for me is that you can have African-American professors at these schools, you can be the head of the department, you can be the basketball coach, you can be the track coach, but you can't be the football coach. How are we going to change that? I don't know."

And although Dungy wants to help in changing the culture of hiring practices in the collegiate level he understands why the practices are the way they are. In the NFL, the owner os the teams calls the shots, at universities; the schools have people to answer to.

"Colleges are result driven, but the difference is that when [Steelers owner] Dan Rooney decides to hire Mike Tomlin, he doesn't have to worry about any ramifications other than people buying tickets," Dungy said. "The athletic director and the president at the University of Minnesota, they get Mike Tomlin's name and their response is: How's this going to affect donations? How's this going to affect alumni relations? How's this going to affect a whole lot of other things? That's the pressure, that's why it's difficult, that's why it is different. I don't know how you change that unless an institution makes a moral stand and says, 'We've just got to be a strong enough force that we're going to do what's right and if it does cost us a $12 million library, we'll make up for it.' "