ot : uh being sued for discrimination in their hiring process of dana holgerson

[Billy Clyde]

Since when is a man's race a qualification for a coaching position?

Astounding irony in that question, since for something like the first 100 years of football's existence being white was a near-absolute prerequisite for any decent HC position.

 

[H0RNEDFR0G]

1) There probably is merit to a complaint that in a sport where the majority of players are African American, when of the 128 head coaches only 13 are African American, it doesn't appear a minority candidate was ever seriously considered for the position (I can understand why from Houston's perspective, but it's still there). It is worth considering something like the Rooney rule, which has shown to be successful in the NFL, could help in the NCAA too.

2) A typo-ridden lawsuit from a "coach" with no college head coaching experience claiming to be more qualified than a guy who has won conference titles and BCS bowl games is probably not going to do anything to help that issue.

Both can be true at the same time.

This notion, that everything is racist, is really starting to bother me. Black men have and will continue to be given opportunities when their accomplishes merit consideration.

Charlie Strong was a proven winner, at the G5 level first, then at Louisville. Kevin Sumlin had tremendous success at University of Houston (ironic that the man alleges they won't give a black man a chance when Sumlin was made HC there in 2008). Both men got jobs at some of the highest value programs in the country. To sum it up they earned an opportunity.

Dr. Simms has earned no such consideration, I hope U of H hires the best (most expensive) attorneys in Harris County and counter-sues to recoup legal fees.

 

[Zubaz]

Do you have any evidence that a coach's qualifications are relevant to a player's qualifications? I mean, if the best players made the best coaches, Barry Sanders, Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Emmitt Smith, Harvey Martin, etc, etc, all would have been great coaches right?

Were Saban or Sweeney great football players? Because they're certainly great coaches. How about Belichek or Tom Landry? Not standouts, that's for sure.

So I reject your premise that its somehow a bad thing that if one group is under-represented relative to the make-up of the players that they are coaching, it is indicative that people are not getting opportunities for reasons other than their qualifications, because the qualifications of the one group are irrelevant to the other.

I get your point. You're getting a little too close to Al Campanis for my taste, but I think I get what you're saying. I'm wondering if you missed the "could be (not necessarily is, but could be) indicative.." part of what I said? It does seem odd that in a majority African American sport, there are so few African American head coaches (I was actually overshooting it. 13 was the number in 2017. This year it's 12.) It's possible that is for entirely innocent reasons that you mention, it's also entirely possible that it's because they are not afforded the same opportunity. Either way, I think we are all in agreement that this guy is not a good example of that, nor was the reason he was not hired at Houston being anything related to his melanin.

 

[Billy Clyde]

While I sometimes feel like even the most well-intentioned corrective measures to attempt to address historic/systemic racism go too far, sometimes to absurd extremes, the notion that there aren't still very serious questions of fairness is pretty extreme in itself. The very first example I thought of, of which I'm confident there are legion:

Bill Belichick's record his first six years as an NFL head coach:

41-55, and years five and six trending down with a combined 10-22 record.

Anybody want to speculate on how many black head coaches would have survived that at the beginning of their HC career?

Edit: I personally try to look for good news in these kinds of topics- The good news here is, we have a place we can discuss this kind of stuff semi-rationally, even if we aren't all in the same place on it. The other good news is, U of H is still COOGER HIGH!

 

[BABYFACE]

Monetary inducement would have been Holgerson only reason for accepting the UH coaching position.

Most students who attend UH are generally compelled to do so for reasons other than their preferred

choice. UH location in Houston's notorious 3rd Ward (rated as the #15 most dangerous neighborhoods

in the U.S.) is a destination to be singularly avoided. Particularly avoid this area at night.

I think your impression of UH was true for many years. If you haven’t been there recently, you will be pleasantly surprised.

The 1.4 miles between downtown and UH has been going thru a transformation with new condos as people looking to move back closer to DT. That area is fine. The area going south of UH towards Hobby still sucks. That is the area you avoid. I stayed a few days in DT Houston this past June and I felt much safer walking around at night there than I do DT Dallas.

Fertitta and UH have transformed the campus and created a village atmosphere and have created a border between the campus and surrounding area. I was caught off guard on a visit there last Fall with my oldest. (She could have attended almost anywhere in Texas with the exception of Rice) I didn’t realize that UH had recently became a Tier 1 university and their enrollment is just shy of 50k.

UH was her first choice. While that surprised me, I am happier with that choice than if she had chose Tech. TCU was not possible unless loans were taken. She qualified for scholarships and grants and that has help absorb her first year costs. Also, just got back from moving her into her dorm on campus.

I am not a defender of UH, just that my perceptions were changed when we visited last October.

 

[MCFROG III]

A former college player "headed to the NFL" posted that he actually knows this guy (Smith), and that he tried to become the agent for him and his best friend as they were headed to the NFL. He said that "he knows nothing at all about football," and that he doesn't "believe he would have been considered for a high school coaching job."

 

[TCUdirtbag]

I hope U of H hires the best (most expensive) attorneys in Harris County and counter-sues to recoup legal fees.

They’ll get Ken Paxton’s office.

 

[MCFROG III]

BABYFACE, I couldn't agree with you more. Any of these posters who refer to UH as "COOGER HIGH" are out of touch with the UH of today and locked in a past perception which may have once been a reality I fully understand but has been absolved.

I have lived in Houston for 64 of my almost 70 years and attended graduated school at UH in the early '80's after graduating from TCU in '72 as the 3rd of all 4 children who were Horned Frog graduates and and whose father was a trustee of TCU. I wasn't terribly impressed with my time at UH after TCU, but was very happy to have witnessed what's been happening over there with everything going on since the mid 90's. All though the national state of higher education has been watered down in so many ridiculous ways, UH has maintained a very nice focus on continually improving without stooping to the depths so many other pseudo bastions of knucklehead-knowledge factories. Anyone who doesn't see that is just refusing to turn around and actually look at the reality of the University of Houston in today's world. They've caught the same disease that Baylor, Tech, UT, & whomever had for the Frogs as we wandered through the multi-conference wasteland struggling to get a chance to be where we are today.

You never know what can happen at anytime or anywhere, but I am very happy for your daughter and hope she has an incredibly wonderful experience at UH for however many years she's there. Go Coogs!

And GO FROGS!
I'll always move on TCU Time and Bleed Purple until I bleed out.

 

[Frognosticator]

I get your point. You're getting a little too close to Al Campanis for my taste, but I think I get what you're saying. I'm wondering if you missed the "could be (not necessarily is, but could be) indicative.." part of what I said? It does seem odd that in a majority African American sport, there are so few African American head coaches (I was actually overshooting it. 13 was the number in 2017. This year it's 12.) It's possible that is for entirely innocent reasons that you mention, it's also entirely possible that it's because they are not afforded the same opportunity. Either way, I think we are all in agreement that this guy is not a good example of that, nor was the reason he was not hired at Houston being anything related to his melanin.

So 12 out of 129 HCs are black which is just under 10%. Not far from the black population in America (~13%). So it’s a little under, but not significantly.
On the other hand, 70% of D1 football players are black, which is over 5 times the national percentage.
Are we to believe that the institutions who allow such a huge disparity in favor of blacks as players are somehow racist villains when choosing coaches?
Sorry, I don’t buy it.
But yes, as you said, we can all agree that this guy from Houston is completely full of it.

 

[froghair]

you have to love people who want to be seen as local activist for their community, but don't realize they are doing more harm than good.

dr. kenneth simms is apparently suing uh for their discriminatory process of hiring holgerson. i am not a huge fan of fertitta's and i really don't like joseph duarte's smug self, but damn dude.

here is dr. simms back in january at the press conference introducing dana as the new uh football coach.



simms didn't let it go and recently filed suit in harris county which is his right, but.......i would think before you did that you would want to make sure you are going to come across as credible.

dr. simms claims that he has coached for thirty years and he was a more qualified candidate to be the head coach at uh than dana. trouble is no one can find out exactly where simms has coached.

he ran for mayor of houston back in 2011, was involved with some scam involving a houston city council man and some organization that was going to provide motivational services for some hisd schools.

he apparently is the director of the african american coaches association which a friend who coaches and is african american really didn't know too much about. he additionally is director of the all american coaches association and the ceo of the us national healthcare training services which i can't figure out exactly what they do after viewing their website which is always a good thing.

https://gocoogs.com/uh-sued/

found the story was good for a laugh just before the start of the year.

If I remember correctly, he was also the Pope for a while