Marcus Freeman, Mike Loxley, Tyrone Whittingham Willingham discussed on The Paul Finebaum Show
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Didn't work at Virginia tech, but he also conceded that the first job he got, his father knew the AD and he just father knew the offensive coordinator. So again, it's not necessarily meant to shame the people who are involved in this, the coaches that are sort of legacy higher. There's a lot of very good coaches out there because they grew up in the game, but it becomes an obstacle when all the white coaches are sort of putting their white family members in the pipeline. And on that subject, you mentioned him earlier in Marcus Freeman. He, you know, you can't help but be at Notre-Dame and get a lot of attention, sometimes we make too much out of what one person can do. And Notre-Dame is hired black coaches before. So as head coaches, so this is not earth shattering, but it is important, especially his age. I mean, he could really perhaps shape reshape some of the conversation. Could he not? I think so. I mean, listen, the Tyrone whittingham willingham hire if you want to go back way back when it doesn't seem that long ago, Paul, but the things that don't seem like that long ago really are because we're getting old. You know, that didn't end well for Notre-Dame. And I think there's a lot of folks who looked at that and felt like Tyrone Williams did not get a really good really fair shake. And I imagine there's a whole bunch of people watching this market Freeman situation and wondering if what kind of a shade he will get. He's a young coach in his first coaching job. This is a big, big task to be the coach of Notre-Dame is a big task for a 30, I think it's 36 year old who has never been a head coach before. I do think he could be sort of the next generation that sort of leads to possibly a little more diversity in these ranks. I mean, again, I don't think it's that much to ask for the head coaches, the population of head coaches to look a little bit more like the population of players in major college football. In talking to people, I would like to say athletic directors and presidents make these decisions, but you and I both know this is college football. And there's usually some big guy and a smoke filled room who makes the ultimate call. What else did you learn and just talking to various people about this issue? Yes. So I think Mike loxley has done a great job. That's more Maryland head coach. He's led this national coalition of minority football coaches and I think a lot of what he says is really interesting, which is, you know, we're not necessarily looking at I'm not going to hire a black coach. It is more of I am I will tend to hire a person who looks like me because that's sort of what we end up who looks like me sounds like me and has a similar background, which leads people in power to end up hiring people who look like them when they're hiring for powerful positions. And I think that what Mike loxley will tell you, a lot of it has to do with promoting more black coaches. Having them hooked up with more ADs, getting their names out there, having people to advocate for them. They've done a lot of work as far as trying to get black coaches in positions where they have advocates within the business. Because so much of the hiring and coaching now is basically, listen, every business is a little bit of a who you know business, but so much of the way coaches are hired nowadays are people looking for recommendations and who do you think you can trust and having powerful ADs go to bat for you often ends up making the difference between who is hired? And I think that what blocks we would tell you is we need more black coaches having advocates among these powerful ADs and other powerful people who help make these decisions. Just a fantastic conversation with Ralph Russo from the AP Ralph. Many, many thanks. We know you'll be busy. We hope to catch you up with you as the season gets going. Always a pleasure, Paul. You got it. A great stuff there. We will take a break. Very dynamic final hour. We'll talk to Clark Lee from Hawaii who also talked to Patrick young, the SEC basketball analyst who has dealt with some life-changing issues in recent weeks and we'll talk to him later in the program. We're coming right back.