Business as Usual: Big Time College Sport and Inequality
by Richard C. King and David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan
On December 6, 2011, amid the jubilation of students and alumni, fanfare from the marching band, and media hype, Washington State University (WSU) presented its new football coach to the public. After four losing seasons, the announcement that a proven winner would take the helm had Cougar nation in a frenzy, excited by the high scoring offense and return of fun to the Palouse. Much of the media coverage echoed fan sentiment: With headlines like "Why Mike Leach is Awesome” and “Leach is a Dream hire,” journalists and pundits alike celebrated the bold decision making of Athletic Director Bill Moos and the promising future of the once great program.
Apparently, the unfolding sex abuse scandals at Penn State and Syracuse, the play of Ndamukong Suh, and the NBA labor agreement have exhausted the always-limited critical powers of the sport media and sport fans alike. Even in a social moment seemingly primed for connections between sport and society, few, if any public voices seemed willing or able to do so: the short lived outrage sparked by Taylor Branch's “The Shame of the Game” a scant two month earlier had no lasting resonance, no place in public discourse. In fact, when framed critically for students on campus, our classes reacted with indifference, if not hostility.
Two fundamental issues are lost in the hype, pleasure, and possibilities surrounding the new hire: the racial politics of college athletics and the increasingly inadequate resources devoted to higher education. Indeed, the hiring of Mike Leach exposes the workings of higher education in stark terms, highlighting the ways in which the status quo simultaneously perpetuates economic and racial inequality and masks structures of power.
Fifty years after integration of it began in earnest, big time college athletics remains one of the clearest of examples of racial inequity and racist exclusion in the United States. Historically white colleges and universities exploit black bodies for publicity and profit. Although black athletes have dominated football for decades, few coaches and fewer administrators are African American. Efforts by organizations like Black Coaches and Administrators have made a difference to be sure: African American head coaches have rise from 1 in 1979 to 25 at the start of this season and today 31 of 260 offensive and defensive coordinators (11.9%) are black. The recent firing of Turner Gill at the University of Kansas not only reduces the total number of active head coaches, but reminds us how limited the success of black coaches is: only one black coach (Tyrone Willingham) has been hired after being fired as a head coach (see here for additional information). The hiring of Mike Leach thus fits a broader pattern. Historically white universities headed by white Athletic Directors, such as Bill Moos at WSU, tend to hire white coaches.
Arguably more troubling is how Leach was hired. The search committee appears to have been Moos, who wanted to make a bold statement about Cougar athletics, increase attendance and alumni interest, and make the program relevant again. This too resonates with prevailing practices in college athletics, ranging from unilateral hires to selecting internal hires groomed for the position, and virtually ensures the unbearable whiteness of college coaching, where the failure to take measures to cultivate and promote a diverse athletic leadership, it is unlikely it will ever materialize. This has nothing to with overt racism and isn’t a question about the intentions of any individual. Rather priorities and preoccupations render such questions largely unthinkable, and when asked they are deflected by defensiveness about “how race doesn’t matter” and how he was “best qualified person.” In the end, don’t we need to reflect on why, how and the significance of candidate pool being overwhelmingly white?
In its most recent Annual Hiring Report Card, the BCA gave WSU a C for its hiring practices. No doubt, the fait d'accompli hiring of Leach would receive an F. But one might wonder when did grades ever stop fans and alumni from enjoying college football. As with the larger shifts in our society that has resulted in further economic inequality, even more evident as we examine persistent and worsening racial inequality, we are struck by the symbolism here of the a millionaire white coach profiting off the labor of black players even while the students, faculty and staff at the university are left behind by tuition increases, worsening working conditions, and a culture defined by budget cuts.
As with much of the 1%, Leach’s salary far exceeds that the 99% of faculty and staff at Washington State University. Earning an astounding 2.25 million dollars per year, Leach is set to become the third highest coach in the Pac-12. Compared to the average associate faculty members’ salary, who makes $74,700, the disparity in income is significant. The gulf between faculty and college football coaches is a relatively new phenomenon. For example, in 1969, the head coach at Oregon State University earned $24,000, while the school’s president earned $34,500 and the dean of the college education brought home $29,760. As of 1986, salaries had not increased significantly, with the average NCAA football coach earning roughly 150,000. Beginning in the 1990s, this changed with the norm slowly becoming over 1 million dollars. Obviously faculty salaries have not increased on similar levels. The income gulf evident between football coaches and faculty is emblematic of larger inequality that defines that relationship between the 1% and the 99%. In “Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%,” Joseph E. Stiglitz reflects on this historical shift
It’s no use pretending that what has obviously happened has not in fact happened. The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. Their lot in life has improved considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent.
The same shift and income inequality that is evident in society at large is visible with the income gap between college football coaches and everyone else.
According to the Sports Business Journal, the athletic budget for Washington State University increased from $37.0 million in 2010 to $38.5 in 2011. For 2012, the budget was set at $39.3 million, representing a +6.2% increase. And this was all before the hiring of Mike Leach. If we can examine these numbers within a larger history, it is clear that a disproportionate amount of revenues and much of costs are associated with the football program. Michael Oriard, in Bowled over: Big-Time College Football from the Sixties to the BCS Era, Washington State football generated almost 10.5 million in revenue (as part of 38.2 million in total revenues for all of athletics), yet it spent 7.5 million (the athletic department spent 38.2 million). And that was before Mike Leach.
On the heels of endless chatter about overpaid NBA players being tone deaf to the economic difficulties facing the NBA and the nation at large, the absence of a conversation about the salaries of college football coaches is particularly revealing. On the heels of widespread demonization of teachers and other public employees as overpaid and pampered, the absence of a sustained discussion of investment of public colleges and universities for football coaches is telling. Like state investment in prisons (in California, the 5 highest paid state employees work in prisons), the investment in collegiate sports is a testament to our collective priorities. The expenditures and the silence from the citizenry, media, and institutions illustrates the values of a society, one that puts profits over people, that puts victories over education, and one that puts the potential of a successful football program ahead of anything else.
While the hiring of Mike Leach focuses our attention, to make this about Leach or even WSU is to miss the point, misconstrue our analysis and misdirect our energies. The erasure of context, the dissolution of structure and power within media spectacle, and the seeming impossibility of critique are systemic and systematic, just as with the case in the perpetuation of racial and economic inequality. In the end, this is not a commentary of Leach or other individuals but instead priorities and values, inequality and divisions. It is as much about a media that flocks to campus for a press conference while failing to give attention to the meaningful issues facing of all us. It is about a campus that unreflectively celebrates what it all means for us, that rarely is encouraged to think about us beyond the sport team and never asked to determine what it all means. It is a reminder that amid the 99% at America’s universities, football coaches are the 1%.
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C. Richard King is the Chair of Comparative Ethnic Studies at Washington State University at Pullman and the author/editor of several books, including Team Spirits: The Native American Mascot Controversy and Postcolonial America.
David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He is the author of Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema and the forthcoming After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop(SUNY Press). Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan and blogs @ No Tsuris. Follow him on Twitter @DR_DJL.
