Wildcats women’s basketball coach Adia Barnes, who is biracial, says “Arizona went against the grain and took a chance on me,” when it picked her over two white males with head coaching experience.
The annual hiring/firing season of college basketball coaches created a potentially troubling issue in the Pac-12. For the first time since 1972, there are no African-American head men’s basketball coaches in the league.
In fact, of the 24 men’s and women’s head coaches in Pac-12 basketball, Arizona’s Adia Barnes — who is biracial — is the only person of color currently employed as a head coach.
“Someone pointed it out to me,” Barnes said. “Honestly, I haven’t done enough research on the process of each individual hiring to comment.”
Not only are there no black men’s head coaches in the Pac-12, there are none in the Big Ten, either. The Big 12 has just two minority head basketball coaches, Mike Boynton of Oklahoma State and Shaka Smart of Texas.
This can’t be a good trend for contemporary college basketball. Of the top 50 scorers in Pac-12 men’s basketball this season, 41 were black. The numbers aren’t as high in Pac-12 women’s basketball, but of its 50 leading scorers, 28 were black.
The two black head coaches in Pac-12 men’s basketball, Washington State’s Ernie Kent and Cal’s Wyking Jones, were fired at season’s end.
One of the league’s most positive basketball developments of the last 20 years has been its racial diversity and inclusion in coaching. From 2000-19, the league had as many as five black head coaches simultaneously – Washington’s Lorenzo Romar, Oregon’s Ernie Kent, ASU’s Rob Evans, WSU’s Paul Graham and USC’s Henry Bibby — but all were ultimately fired and replaced by white coaches.
“I was somewhat surprised when I was hired by Arizona because I was replacing a black coach (Niya Butts) and athletic directors often go the opposite way, and hire someone different,” said Barnes. “When I was hired, the other two finalists were white males with head coaching experience. I had never been a head coach, so Arizona went against the grain and took a chance on me.”
The Pac-12 has a much better current record of racial diversity and minority inclusion in football, with four black head coaches — Arizona’s Kevin Sumlin, Arizona State’s Herm Edwards, Stanford’s David Shaw and Colorado’s Mel Tucker. The league has five non-white athletic directors, including ASU’s Ray Anderson.
While every Pac-12 men’s and women’s basketball program has at least one black assistant coach, that platform has not led to a significant number of head coaching opportunities.
Of more than 125 Pac-12 black men’s assistant coaches since 1980, only four — Romar, Stanford’s Trent Johnson, USC’s Charlie Parker and Cal’s Todd Bozeman — became head coaches in the league.
Identifying, developing and hiring minority head coaches is more of an issue in college basketball than the one-and-done rule or anything else. Think about it: the last time the Pac-12 didn’t have a black head basketball coach was 1971. That was when Arizona was playing at Bear Down Gym and Sean Miller was 3 years old.
