Boycotts recall another era, an era when the civil rights movement was in full flower and unconventional methods nudged a nation toward racial equality. But now, more than a quarter of a century later, the Black Coaches Association (BCA) will resurrect that practice to call attention to its many concerns.
Already it has announced that it will boycott the National Association of Basketball Coaches’ issues forum, which opens Monday in Charlotte, N.C. On Tuesday, in Washington, high-profile members of its group will meet with the Congressional Black Caucus. And possible in the future are the disruption of practices, the boycott of games and an unspecified action at next April’s Final Four.
“Marching, boycotts, things that changed America-we’ve looked at them. They were very effective,” says Drake basketball coach Rudy Washington, the executive director of the 3,000-member BCA.
“We have a lot of actions like that planned, but we’re not talking about them. We know exactly what we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it. But when you go to war, you don’t tell the enemy what you’re doing.”
“What we’re hoping not to have to do is the type of thing (Georgetown basketball coach) John Thompson did a few years ago (when he protested new NCAA legislation by boycotting his team’s games with Boston College and Providence),” adds Northwestern basketball coach Ricky Byrdsong. “But I can see that being possible, very possible.”
“I don’t think it was any one thing that pushed us to this brink,” concludes Ohio State basketball coach Randy Ayers. “It’s been a growing thing, something that’s been on our minds and that we’ve talked about over the last two, three years. Out recruiting, we’d talk infomally about our concerns and boycotting. The association felt it was finally time to take a stand.”
The BCA is taking its stand as the NCAA tries to cleanse itself with sweeping legislative changes. College presidents were the main movers, and as they imposed their wills and new rules, they upset coaches both black and white. But many of those new rules, feels the BCA, disproportionately affect blacks.
They are ready to act now to manifest their displeasure with these changes:
– The reduction of men’s basketball scholarships from last season’s 15 to 13 next season. “You’ve got 300 schools playing Division I basketball,” says Ayers, “so that’s 600 kids you’re shutting out each year, 3,000 over a five-year period (the normal life of a scholarship).”
“Black players make up, what, 70 percent of that 600?” says Washington. “So you’re looking at over 400 kids, and we’re saying to take away that access really, really bothers us. The reduction of scholarships means more black kids on the street.”
– The increased academic standards an athlete must meet to be eligible as a freshman. They do not go into effect until the 1995-96 school year, yet they already have stirred the same controversy that surrounded the passage of the now famous Proposition 48. which went into effect in the ’86-’87 school year.
According to NCAA statistics, the number of blacks receiving scholarships fell 5 percent the first year that proposition was applied but has since returned to its previous level. Yet those same figures also show that blacks make up nearly two-thirds of those athletes who fail to meet its standards and must sit out their freshman year.
– The reduction of practice time and the amount of time a coach can work with his players. This legislation was aimed at freeing up the athlete to spend more hours in the library, but Thompson has often made this point: While a coach’s time with his player is restricted, there is no restriction on the amount of time a drug dealer can spend with him.
“We seem to be pushing kids away,” says Ayers more simply.
– The elimination of the part-time/graduate assistant coach. Ayers, Brydsong and Washington all began in that position, as did-among countless others-Iowa women’s basketball coach Vivien Stringer. Its elimination, the BCA feels, eliminates an opportunity for young blacks-male and female-who might wish to make coaching a career.
“Women need those entry-level positions more than men do to get young black women into basketball,” says Ayers.
“You’d be hard-pressed to find 10 (black) women head coaches at primarily white institutions,” says Stringer. “We need the opportunity to get experience to move onto the next level, but we get even fewer opportunities than men. Sometimes cuts like that get made without consideration to the people they affect.”
