When Texas and Penn State– two of college football’s marquee programs– had coaching vacancies this year, they went for the best candidates available.
The fact that the two choices– Charlie Strong and James Franklin– are both African American seemed less important than the fact they are excellent football coaches. Their hirings send a message that the sport is finally leaving the plantation era and entering the 21st century, moving into a brave new world where talent trumps the old boys network and skin color is irrelevant in the quest for a national championship.
Strong, 53, signed a five-year contract at Texas worth more than $25 million.
Franklin signed a six-year deal with Penn State worth $25.5 million over six years.
Both bring an impressive body of work with them to their new jobs.
Strong was 23-3 the past two years at Louisville, winning the 2012 Big East title and defeating Florida in the 2013 BCS bowl, then beating Miami this January in the Russell Athletic Bowl in Orlando.
Franklin inherited a Vanderbilt team in 2011 that made one bowl game in the previous 28 years and hadn’t experienced a nine-win season since 1915 . He made the Commodores competitive in the SEC. The Commodores made three bowl games in a row — the first time in school history — and finished with back-to-back nine-win seasons, defeating Georgia, Tennessee and Florida this season.
They were not brought in to create social change.
They were hired to win football games and compete for conference championships and national titles, much like Kevin Sumlin of Texas A & M and David Shaw of Stanford have done.
Sumlin came to A & M from Houston in 2012. He immediately upstaged hated instate rival Texas by winning 11 games and produced a Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel his first year as the Aggies entered the SEC, then smothered Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl to finish in the Top 5. He followed that up with a 9-4 season and a victory over Duke in the Chick–fil-A Bowl in Atlanta.
Shaw, a former offensive coordinator under Jim Harbaugh at Stanford, has coached the Cardinal to a 34-7 record in his three years on the Farm and has coached the Cardinal to two Pac-12 titles, two Top 10 finishes and three BCS bowls, a Fiesta and two Roses.
Their success stories speak volumes for what can happen when qualified African-American coaches are actually given the necessary resources to compete with the top teams in the BCS and aren’t restricted to dead end jobs.
There is no reason to believe Strong and Franklin can’t experience similar success if they are given a fair chance from their fan bases. Strong inherits a team that won a 2005 BCS championship and had nine 10-win seasons in 16 years under Mack Brown, but he didn’t win enough for Texas Exes over the past four years, going 30-21 after 2009 and was forced out. But he will be under a huge microscope. Strong is the first African American football coach at a school that was the last all white team to win a national championship in 1969 and did not start signing multiple black players until 1973.
“I don’t ever want to look at it as being the first. I want to look at it as I’m a coach and that’s the way I want to be treated,” Strong said. “Floyd Keith used to be the director of the Black Coaches Association. He said to me then, ‘What you need to think about is the African-American coaches that you’re representing right now who did not get the chances that you’re getting… When you think about it, yes, this is a historical day.”
Making his first major decision as Texas men’s athletics director, Steve Patterson did not look to break a color barrier. “We did not set out on this coaching search to make a political statement, we set out to hire the best football coach we could hire,” Patterson said. “Regardless of race, Charlie was the best candidate and we are excited to have him here. Hopefully, that is the way the world can operate.”
Franklin was a man in demand at the end of this season. He received calls this off season from the NFL’s Houston Texans, Washington Redskins and Cleveland Browns before before agreeing to a deal with Penn State. He replaces Bill O’Brien, who left for the Texans earlier this month after two seasons.
O’Brien guided Penn State through unprecedented sanctions– including post-season bans and a brutal loss of scholarships– levied by the NCAA in response to the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal. He finished with records of 8-4 and 7-5. Players were largely stunned by O’Brien’s departure last month but wished him well.
O’Brien was never a long-term fix. He spoke with the Browns last season and only agreed to come back if the university lowered his buy out. In the end, he left because he grew trried of Penn State politics and negative backlash from “Paterno-era loyalists” who were upset about the dismissal of Ron Vanderlinden, an assistant coach who had been one of the last links to the Joe Paterno era.
“You can print this: You can print that I don’t really give a [expletive] what the ‘Paterno people’ think about what I do with this program,” he told Dave Jones, a columnist for the Harrisburg Patriot. “I’ve done everything I can to show respect to Coach Paterno. Everything in my power. So I could really care less about what the Paterno faction of people, or whatever you call them, think about what I do with the program. I’m tired of it.”
Franklin, who grew up in the Philadelphia suburb of Langhorne, Pa.,described himself as a “Pennsylvania boy with a Penn State heart.” He was obviously excited about the job, vowing to fill 107,000 seat Beaver Stadium every week and dominate the state and the region in recruiting.
Franklin’s hire did not come without controversy. University associate professor Michelle Rodino-Colocino started an online petition in advance of the news and called the potential hire “appalling” because of an investigation regarding several of Franklin’s Vanderbilt players accused of committing a rape last summer. Franklin dismissed four players in connection with the incident but was suspected of deleting criminal evidence. Prosecutors cleared him of wrongdoing, but a trial for the accused players is set to begin in August. Rodino-Colocino’s petition received more than 500 signatures. However, an official from the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape told PennLive.com there was no reason to condemn Franklin.
Franklin said during his introductory press conference his discussions with Penn State regarding the alleged rape were honest and forthright. Athletic director Dave Joyner said he “couldn’t be more confident in the character of this man.”
It’s about time schools look for and hire the best person for the job. Period.
