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

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What people like Hallman can't seem to grasp is that coming out with BS like this everytime a black coach is fired isn't going to motivate schools to hire more black coaches because nobody wants to be called racist when they have to make a coaching change.

Firing Ben Johnson had nothing to do with his skin color. He wasn't able to get the team to the NCAA tournament in 4 seasons and year 5 had the looks of a likely dumpster fire considering he was losing almost all the key pieces off of this year's roster that wasn't even good enough to crack .500.

And on top of all that.....the University of Minnesota basketball program shouldn't get lumped in with larger problem that is out there in terms of minority coaches getting opportunities because 3 of the last 5 basketball coaches at the U have been black.

Crap like this just pisses me off. There is a real problem out there in regards to the number of minority coaches and while it is getting better there is still plenty of work to do. But playing the race card everytime a black coach is fired doesn't help the next guy get an opportunity. If anything it probably hurts it.
 

I don’t give a good goddamn about the color of anybody’s skin. I waited 26 years for a decent gopher team so if that means find a new coach so be it anything else is absolute fucking bullshit.
 

Bad Gopher said:
The lack of engagement might have bothered me the most, as it's simply a matter of effort and choice. If, instead, he's not capable of engaging with customers, even superficially on social media, it's yet another reason he shouldn't have been hired.
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When I heard Fleck on the radio doing what I thought was making excuses about not having NIL to retain players, I was very, very put off by that. I could not have been more wrong. PJ saw that as a big problem and told the fans point blank, you want the really good players to come here, and stick around, you're going to have to fork over some cash. My impression of how Ben handled the situation was that he simply crossed his arms and pouted that he didn't have the money, while doing very little to help the situation.
 

Breakin' The Plane said:
When I heard Fleck on the radio doing what I thought was making excuses about not having NIL to retain players, I was very, very put off by that. I could not have been more wrong. PJ saw that as a big problem and told the fans point blank, you want the really good players to come here, and stick around, you're going to have to fork over some cash. My impression of how Ben handled the situation was that he simply crossed his arms and pouted that he didn't have the money, while doing very little to help the situation.
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The whole thing IS objectively off putting. I'd predicted that this whole "paying the players" thing was just going to become another cash grab where they turn fans upside down and shake them...again. And, sure enough. Amidst inflation and potential economic and societal collapse, and now I'm getting hit up by the church for a capital campaign and...

BUT, there are well-heeled alumni and corporations and potential innovative revenue streams that haven't been explored yet, and the first thing the U has to do is show it's serious by putting their best possible product on the floor and, for God's sake, do some PR. As for the former, Ben simply wasn't a good enough coach, and that has made the U look unserious. As for the latter, good grief, people: BOTH Coyle and Johnson have been unbelievably bad at publicly representing the institution and the program. Unbelievably bad! Otherworldly bad!
 


Putting aside the Minnesota opening and this Hallman character, we should acknowledge there is a problem. Most players are black and I read an article that shows 59% of assistant coaches at the P5 level are black. It's not really a pipeline issue - in another thread, someone talked about an analogy of women in engineering. That's a pipeline problem because far fewer women go into that field - that is not the case here.

Now we're (likely) going to have 0 out 18 head coaches in the B10.

Again, take the Minnesota job out of the equation. I am not advocating taking a black coach just for the sake of it, and I don't really see a lot of realistic candidates. But why is that? If 59% of assistants are black, and that's the main talent pool for getting a D1 (not P5) head coaching job, it stands to reason that there'd be more black head coaches than there are. I do not understand, nor do I know what would work better.
 


I don't think the issue is about hiring or firing in as much it's about the shorter leash black coaches get. Black coaches are much more likely to catch the ire from the fanbase with a less than stellar season, which results in the AD pulling the quick plug. I believe white coaches are given more grace to fix things.

I'm not saying black coaches shouldn't be fired, but just making the point that they get the quick hook. Now with Ben, I won't criticize the decision. Will all that being said, I think it's better now than it was say 20 or 30 years ago.
 

formerlybis said:
Putting aside the Minnesota opening and this Hallman character, we should acknowledge there is a problem. Most players are black and I read an article that shows 59% of assistant coaches at the P5 level are black. It's not really a pipeline issue - in another thread, someone talked about an analogy of women in engineering. That's a pipeline problem because far fewer women go into that field - that is not the case here.

Now we're (likely) going to have 0 out 18 head coaches in the B10.

Again, take the Minnesota job out of the equation. I am not advocating taking a black coach just for the sake of it, and I don't really see a lot of realistic candidates. But why is that? If 59% of assistants are black, and that's the main talent pool for getting a D1 (not P5) head coaching job, it stands to reason that there'd be more black head coaches than there are. I do not understand, nor do I know what would work better.
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It is a really tough but really interesting topic as well. There is definitely a problem but the much tougher part is the solution. The number I have never seen that I think would be good to know would be the percentage of first time head coaches each year that are minorities.

The coaching carousel involves a lot of coaches moving from one school to another and the reality is that the majority of those coaches are white at this point so the percentages don't really shift.

Ideally though you would like to see a higher percentage of minorities in the first time coaches pool and over time that should lead to more minority coaches in the total pool as guys bounce from job to job (either by choice or because they were fired).

But will say again.....everytime someone like Hallman claims a firing was based on race it works against the chances for other minority coaches to get opportunities. Coaches of all races get fired, it is just part of the gig.
 



KyGopherfan said:
I don't think the issue is about hiring or firing in as much it's about the shorter leash black coaches get. Black coaches are much more likely to catch the ire from the fanbase with a less than stellar season, which results in the AD pulling the quick plug. I believe white coaches are given more grace to fix things.

I'm not saying black coaches shouldn't be fired, but just making the point that they get the quick hook. Now with Ben, I won't criticize the decision. Will all that being said, I think it's better now than it was say 20 or 30 years ago.
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Is there actual data to back this up? Because I honestly believe in 2025 most fanbases don't care what color the coaches skin is if their team is winning.
 

There might be a case to be made for black coaches getting less opportunity and less benefit of patience. But that case needs to be made with statistics, not with anecdotes.

I wish Ben Johnson had had more success, and I hope he's successful somewhere else. But he isn't Exhibit A for this dude's case.
 


MNVCGUY said:
Ideally though you would like to see a higher percentage of minorities in the first time coaches pool and over time that should lead to more minority coaches in the total pool as guys bounce from job to job (either by choice or because they were fired).
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I think that was part of the impetus for hiring Ben: the U doing its part to increase the pool of first-time black coaches. I don't think there would have been much opposition at all to hiring Dennis Gates out of Cleveland State but that wouldn't have advanced that goal.
 







FinnGopher said:
LOL, what's it supposed to be "melanin?" What's that fancy word for the chemical that determines skin color?
In any case, yes my dyslexia strikes again. Dyslexics of the world untie!!!
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To be fair, Ben was like melatonin. He'd put you to sleep.
 


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
 

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