Hallman: Black coaches' shelf life is much shorter & benefit of the doubt much less practiced as opposed to their White counterpart

Donate To GopherHole

MNfootballfan said:
Without getting political, I feel Ben Johnson was hired for three reasons - I am not sure the order of them, but guessing he wasn't a hot candidate for any other Big Ten school.

1) He was from Minnesota
2) He was cheap
3) He is black

Where Minnesota was at the time of the hiring I don't think it can be denied that his skin color played a role, not the main reason, but definitely played a role in his hiring.
Click to expand...
You are overlooking the last 4-5 years of Pitino when it was constant ‘close the border’ chat. The last 30 years have been a reactionary mess. Needless to say neighboring states have had their way.
 

MNVCGUY said:
You are correct that situations are unique which is why I asked specifically about Ben Johnson. Do you believe Ben Johnson was fired by the University of Minnesota because of the color of his skin?

If you want data - in the history of Gopher basketball Ben Johnson has the worst winning percentage of any coach who had more than 1 year as the coach. In 4 years the team failed to qualify for the NCAA Tournament and almost his entire roster is out of eligibility.

In regards to the University of Minnesota - 3 of the last 5 men's basketball coaches have been African Americans and the school has had a minority head coach for 23 of the last 40 years.

This decision was not based on race it was based on performance and anyone trying to use the firing of Ben Johnson as an example of a minority coach being treated unfairly is being willfully ignorant of the actual situation.

And again, there absolutely is an issue in regards to minority head coaches not getting enough opportunities....but our specific case here should not be lumped in with the bigger problem because race had nothing to do with why he was fired.
Click to expand...
Maybe, maybe not. I offered no opinion about that nor do I have much of one other than that Ben Johnson hasnt earned the right to another year so his fate was rightfully murky. I do know that we live in a country where everyone agrees racism exists but there still seems to be immediate backlash whenever an accusation of racism is made. Its likely that the vast majority of firings, in the coaching industry or otherwise, that DID have to do with race were also met by many claiming that race had nothing to do with it. For many in the majority racism only exists as a macro concept but never a micro occurrence and the immediate response to it is rarely introspection, its typically denial and is held to the standard of the court, present beyond a reasonable doubt. Plausible deniability is racisms best friend.
 

oleboy41 said:
Maybe, maybe not. I offered no opinion about that nor do I have much of one other than that Ben Johnson hasnt earned the right to another year so his fate was rightfully murky. I do know that we live in a country where everyone agrees racism exists but there still seems to be immediate backlash whenever an accusation of racism is made. Its likely that the vast majority of firings, in the coaching industry or otherwise, that DID have to do with race were also met by many claiming that race had nothing to do with it. For many in the majority racism only exists as a macro concept but never a micro occurrence and the immediate response to it is rarely introspection, its typically denial and is held to the standard of the court, present beyond a reasonable doubt. Plausible deniability is racisms best friend.
Click to expand...
Racism goes both ways and is continually promoted.

It will never go away, because it's the religion of certain people.
 

The players really hold the cards here, especially in the current climate.

If elite black athletes started shunning programs with white coaches there would be more black coaches. Wont happen, but it would make noise if it did. I hope the next coach is black and successful. I would of course support a white coach too.
 


oleboy41 said:
Maybe, maybe not. I offered no opinion about that nor do I have much of one other than that Ben Johnson hasnt earned the right to another year so his fate was rightfully murky. I do know that we live in a country where everyone agrees racism exists but there still seems to be immediate backlash whenever an accusation of racism is made. Its likely that the vast majority of firings, in the coaching industry or otherwise, that DID have to do with race were also met by many claiming that race had nothing to do with it. For many in the majority racism only exists as a macro concept but never a micro occurrence and the immediate response to it is rarely introspection, its typically denial and is held to the standard of the court, present beyond a reasonable doubt. Plausible deniability is racisms best friend.
Click to expand...
I fully understand that as a white male I have no right to make any declarations about racism as a whole....I am just specifically looking at and talking about this situation where I feel very strongly that race was not a factor in why Johnson was fired.
 

kg21 said:
Racism goes both ways and is continually promoted.

It will never go away, because it's the religion of certain people.
Click to expand...
Ill just say I wholeheartedly disagree with that as does actual historical fact and leave it at that.
 

MNVCGUY said:
I fully understand that as a white male I have no right to make any declarations about racism as a whole....I am just specifically looking at and talking about this situation where I feel very strongly that race was not a factor in why Johnson was fired.
Click to expand...
Ill say there are plenty of clear reasons for the firing that had nothing to do with race and it is fully justifiable. Even if its currently true that black CBB coaches get a shorter leash he hasnt done anything to earn the benefit of the doubt.
 




oleboy41 said:
Charles Hallman has been a fixture in the community for decades. Just because you arent familiar with him doesnt make him a ‘nobody’. That word is far more descriptive of anonymous message board posters than someone with his name on everything he puts out there
Click to expand...
Should coaches be hired on merit?
 

Spaulding!No! said:
You are overlooking the last 4-5 years of Pitino when it was constant ‘close the border’ chat. The last 30 years have been a reactionary mess. Needless to say neighboring states have had their way.
Click to expand...
That is why I said one of the three reasons I believe he was hired was that he was from Minnesota and to go along with that is connections he was believed to have had.
 

What a joke. CBJ skipped the line to become coach here. Whether it was because he was African American, from Minnesota or went to school here, he certainly didn't earn this opportunity. He was given 4 years, the worst 4 year stretch in the programs history. I don't mean to shit on CBJ, because I genuinely like him and he did things the right way. He just couldn't get it done. The evidence was overwhelming.
 

kg21 said:
Johnson pulled the race card just a few days ago.

Did you miss that?

I'll leave it at that.
Click to expand...
Youve missed about 300 years, my guy based on your previous post. No need to go back and forth. You already disagree with everything I have to say before I say it. Have a great day.
 



oleboy41 said:
Historically? Absolutely. In 2025? I don’t know. I dont have the data to give an informed opinion and also situations are unique. That said this is America and anyone who dismisses the potential of prejudice at play, even subconsciously, out of hand without consideration is usually being willfully ignorant or blatantly lying about it.
Click to expand...
Ben got fired in 2025. Hallman is a racist. Anyone that thinks Ben got fired because he is black is nuts. Period. End of story.
 

BarnBurner said:
Ben got fired in 2025. Hallman is a racist. Anyone that thinks Ben got fired because he is black is nuts. Period. End of story.
Click to expand...
Aw the old ‘call the person discussing potential racism racist’ trick. Been making appearances on message boards for decades lol. Thats an old trick that only works on the stupid. Charles Hallman is pro black and pro community. The only folks that would ever dream of calling him racist are those who get offended by the very notion of the existence of racism. Or those who just want all those loud black people to shut up and take it…
 

oleboy41 said:
Aw the old ‘call the person discussing potential racism racist’ trick. Been making appearances on message boards for decades lol. Thats an old trick that only works on the stupid. Charles Hallman is pro black and pro community. The only folks that would ever dream of calling him racist are those who get offended by the very notion of the existence of racism. Or those who just want all those loud black people to shut up and take it…
Click to expand...
Be well.
 

Of 18 BT school cities not that many are umm mmm multicultural. Maryland, the U, Chicago and Lansing are the handful. I am leaving out the CA schools.
 

BleedGopher said:





Go Gophers!!
Click to expand...
Clem Haskins 13 years, Tubby Smith 6 years and CBJ 4 years in the last 35+ years. That's 65% of the last 35 years. What are you implying? Season ticket holder since Clem. Give me a break. I want a coach that can win, IDC color, religion, experience, where they came from.
 
Last edited:

dbmn said:
Clem Haskins 13 years, Tubby Smith 6 years and CBJ 4 years in the last 35+ years. That's 65% of the last 35 years. What are you implying? Season ticket holder since Clem. Give me a break. I want a coach that can win, IDK color, religion, experience, where they came from.
Click to expand...
Mn bad. Didn't give diversity a chance.
 

oleboy41 said:
Youve missed about 300 years, my guy based on your previous post. No need to go back and forth. You already disagree with everything I have to say before I say it. Have a great day.
Click to expand...
It's 2025, and we are talking about a friggin basketball coach.

Race, though.
 


oleboy41 said:
Aw the old ‘call the person discussing potential racism racist’ trick. Been making appearances on message boards for decades lol. Thats an old trick that only works on the stupid. Charles Hallman is pro black and pro community. The only folks that would ever dream of calling him racist are those who get offended by the very notion of the existence of racism. Or those who just want all those loud black people to shut up and take it…
Click to expand...
I'm sure you feel the same way about pro-white people.

I'm NOT comparing Hallman to someone like Jussie Smollet, I am using him as an extreme, but Jussie Smollet is someone that invoked racism where it simply did not exist. He created it. He fabricated it. Then he called racism. He weaponized his race and the justifiable fears of racism to his advantage. It's like the tiny percentage of women who fabricate being SAd - that's devastating to the actual victims and devastating to the plight of sexual violence. It is almost sexual violence in itself.

In a much more benign way, that is what Hallman is doing here. He is weaponizing the race card to passive aggressively defend a putrid coach. He won't come out and list examples because that would disprove his point. When you invoke the race card to passive aggressively whine about someone who has done as an awful of a job as Ben Johnson, you're doing way more damage than good. If there is a discussion to be had about African American coaches having a short leash, it shouldn't come about after someone as awful as Ben Johnson gets fired. It feels like Hallman is weaponizing race and guilt.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I'm sure you feel the same way about pro-white people.

I'm NOT comparing Hallman to someone like Jussie Smollet, I am using him as an extreme, but Jussie Smollet is someone that invoked racism where it simply did not exist. He created it. He fabricated it. Then he called racism. He weaponized his race and the justifiable fears of racism to his advantage. It's like the tiny percentage of women who fabricate being SAd - that's devastating to the actual victims and devastating to the plight of sexual violence. It is almost sexual violence in itself.

In a much more benign way, that is what Hallman is doing here. He is weaponizing the race card to passive aggressively defend a putrid coach. He won't come out and list examples because that would disprove his point. When you invoke the race card to passive aggressively whine about someone who has done as an awful of a job as Ben Johnson, you're doing way more damage than good. If there is a discussion to be had about African American coaches having a short leash, it shouldn't come about after someone as awful as Ben Johnson gets fired. It feels like Hallman is weaponizing race and guilt.
Click to expand...
I don’t fully disagree with your statements but I generally take issue with the sentiment. Black people (and non black allies) have fought tooth and nail to get every right/concession, the whole while being shouted down by huge segments of the population. The Jussie Smollets of the world only do damage in the minds of those who were opposed in the first place. For every Jussie Smollet situation there are dozens more where black people were physically harmed at the hands of racists and uncountable situations where people were harmed by systemic racism. How many black men are dead today because of a false accusation made by a white person? Its in the thousands. But Jussie Smollet is damaging the cause? No, that situation simply helps reinforce the opinions of those who were and remain enemies of black people and harmony in general. Most people all hot and bothered here by the allusion to racism have nowhere near that level of vitriol for blatant racism when it’s presented to them. I can say that confidently because plenty of people have disagreed without getting stark raving mad about it. And if it IS so harmful, wouldn’t actual black people who don’t agree with that (and there are many), actually get upset about it? But they don’t, because the only people that get mad about it are the same folks that get mad whenever race is brought up.
 

oleboy41 said:
I don’t fully disagree with your statements but I generally take issue with the sentiment. Black people (and non black allies) have fought tooth and nail to get every right/concession, the whole while being shouted down by huge segments of the population. The Jussie Smollets of the world only do damage in the minds of those who were opposed in the first place. For every Jussie Smollet situation there are dozens more where black people were physically harmed at the hands of racists and uncountable situations where people were harmed by systemic racism. How many black men are dead today because of a false accusation made by a white person? Its in the thousands. But Jussie Smollet is damaging the cause? No, that situation simply helps reinforce the opinions of those who were and remain enemies of black people and harmony in general. Most people all hot and bothered here by the allusion to racism have nowhere near that level of vitriol for blatant racism when it’s presented to them. I can say that confidently because plenty of people have disagreed without getting stark raving mad about it. And if it IS so harmful, wouldn’t actual black people who don’t agree with that (and there are many), actually get upset about it? But they don’t, because the only people that get mad about it are the same folks that get mad whenever race is brought up.
Click to expand...
Are basketball teams made up of players based on merit? Football? Hockey?
 

oleboy41 said:
I don’t fully disagree with your statements but I generally take issue with the sentiment. Black people (and non black allies) have fought tooth and nail to get every right/concession, the whole while being shouted down by huge segments of the population. The Jussie Smollets of the world only do damage in the minds of those who were opposed in the first place. For every Jussie Smollet situation there are dozens more where black people were physically harmed at the hands of racists and uncountable situations where people were harmed by systemic racism. How many black men are dead today because of a false accusation made by a white person? Its in the thousands. But Jussie Smollet is damaging the cause? No, that situation simply helps reinforce the opinions of those who were and remain enemies of black people and harmony in general. Most people all hot and bothered here by the allusion to racism have nowhere near that level of vitriol for blatant racism when it’s presented to them. I can say that confidently because plenty of people have disagreed without getting stark raving mad about it. And if it IS so harmful, wouldn’t actual black people who don’t agree with that (and there are many), actually get upset about it? But they don’t, because the only people that get mad about it are the same folks that get mad whenever race is brought up.
Click to expand...
Are basketball teams made up of players based on merit? Football? Hockey?

In 2023, approximately 70.4 percent of NBA players were African American. Meanwhile, ethnically white players constituted a 17.5 percent share of all NBA players that year
 

Block M said:
The players really hold the cards here, especially in the current climate.

If elite black athletes started shunning programs with white coaches there would be more black coaches. Wont happen, but it would make noise if it did. I hope the next coach is black and successful. I would of course support a white coach too.
Click to expand...
You advocate the premise of not playing for a coach not the same color as you? Wow that certainly would advance race relations. The community Hallman is supposedly is well respected in basically whatever color our coach is rarely sends players to the Gophers. So really why should he care or why is it an issue?
 

GoodasGold said:
I wouldn’t hire an albino - much too distracting.
Click to expand...
You’re looking at it all wrong, you should want to hire one so that we can have the pleasure of firing an albino. Because obviously that’s what bigoted institutions do.
 

Beth Goetz? Hallman? Beth Goetz? Hallman? Ben? Coyle? The list of absurdities keeps getting longer. The next coach will have one thing in common to all of us. His blood will run green with money. His players will too.
 

Approaching otb territory here. My 2 cents this is a slippery slope. Maybe we should require the player pool as well to represent America's racial breakdown? 75% white and 14% black. Maybe every activity, job, organization should represent America's racial breakdown? Where does it end.
 

Still have land grant universities that are gate kept for a racial preference. I heard of one school photoshopping in a person of color. Brutal.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom