Thursday, November 29, 2007

Bryne Under Fire For Not Interviewing Token Minority

Bill Bryne, the Athletic Director at Texas A&M, is under fire from the Black Coaches' Association according to the Houston Chronicle. Why? He didn't interview any black coaches when seeking to replace Coach Fran. Truth be known Bryne interviewed exactly one person, Mike Sherman, the guy who is replacing Coach Fran. Apparently, the BCA feels that Bryne should have interviewed one more person just because they are a minority. I can't think of a stupider reason to interview a candidate. In a world such as sports the interview is merely to find out if you can work with somebody, their ability to perform is already well publicized. Bryne has already admitted to keeping a running database of people he would like to hire if the need should arise, so it should be no surprise that when he has to replace a coach he already knows who his first pick is going to be. I also seriously doubt that AD Bryne, who is trying to build a championship quality football program is going to let a little thing like race get in the way of picking the best fit in talent.

2 comments:

Eric said...

I heard somebody on the radio say something to this effect...

If you are going into a long search and interview process (and Byrne gave some indication to that effect after the game last Friday), then it makes sense to bring in a black candidate, even if he is only a token candidate. The thought being, that by interviewing him you are raising his profile and the profile of black candidates in general. But this radio commentator would not criticize Bill Byrne or Texas A&M because apparently they had known for several weeks that Mike Sherman was their guy. And if you know who you want, and if he wants you, just go get him. I mean, the Aggies weren't flirting with ANY candidates they didn't want. It wasn't just the minority candidates who didn't get token "face time" with the Athletic Director. So there really isn't a problem here.

But if Texas A&M had been in a flirting mood (like SMU, for example -- where they have had a coaching vacancy for more than a month), then it would probably be a good thing to be an equal opportunity flirter.

...it sounded reasonable to me.

Dr. Luther in the 21st Century said...

I stand very much against anything that smacks of affirmative action and I try to be very much colorblind (I actually want the question of race removed from applications). I am not about to interview somebody just because of their skin color. I am going to interview them because I think they are the best for the job.