Souhan: If not now, Mark Coyle, when? Past time to diversify Gophers leadership

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BleedGopher

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per Souhan:

If Minnesota's most prominent academic institution isn't going to combat institutional racism in its most visible programs, why should we support it with dollars or pompons? If the University of Minnesota can't walk the walk, why should we listen when it talks?

As he prepares to make perhaps his most important hire, Coyle should ask himself two questions:

If not now, when?

If not here, where?

www.startribune.com

If not now, Mark Coyle, when? Past time to diversify Gophers leadership

www.startribune.com www.startribune.com

Go Gophers!!
 



Clem Haskins and Tubby Smith. Two of our last four head basketball coaches have been black, so this program doesn’t need to be lectured by anyone on this subject.
Jim Souhan believes Mark Coyle should hire a coach simply because he is black. Jim Souhan is a racist.
 

DMB123 said:
Clem Haskins and Tubby Smith. Two of our last four head basketball coaches have been black, so this program doesn’t need to be lectured by anyone on this subject.
Jim Souhan believes Mark Coyle should hire a coach simply because he is black. Jim Souhan is a racist.
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Exactly.... why force Coyle hand...just dumb
 



This article written by a man who on a podcast with Lynx coach Cheryl Reeves apologized for being a white man. "It is not about the color of the skin but the content of their character", MLK. I would add with this bb hire it is not about the color of the skin it is about character, leadership, knowledge, work ethic, vision, etc.. Hire the best candidate.
 







Would assume we would still have a black coach today but there were problems with the content of Clem Haskins character
 




People also shouldn't forget that the only reason Pittino was named Head Coach was that Shaka Smart turned his buddy Teague down when he was offered the job
 
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TheBubala said:
Would assume we would still have a black coach today but there were problems with the content of Clem Haskins character
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The funniest thing about this article is that I'm pretty sure every gopher bball fan would have loved for Tubby to work out as well, I know I was personally amazed when it happened and felt excitement for the first time since really clem had left (paid no attention in the monson years). Clearly didn't work out the way we all hoped, but it would have been hard to find people not on board when that hire was announced.
 

GophersInIowa said:
These articles are written like Coyle has had multiple opportunities to hire a minority coach. Fleck and Whalen were no-brainers. The other hires were in sports that don’t have very many minority options.
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Haven't read this article but most of these stories seem to look only at the race of the head coaches that Coyle has hired and then try to draw some implication that he is only hiring white coaches because they are white.

Coyle's job is to hire the best coach for the job, regardless of skin color. He should never be asked to sort his candidate pool and eliminate those that don't have a particular skin color.

If they want to go after Coyle for diversity hiring then they need to look at every single hire he has made and not just the head coaches in order to find some trend. If they can look at every hire he has made and say that he is intentionally not hiring minorities then that would be newsworthy. The rest is just trying to make a story where there isn't one in order to get clicks.
 



I hope I live long enough to see the day that MLK’s words ring true and everybody is judged be their character. Unfortunately we are not at that point and it’s a fact that African Americans are underrepresented as coaches in many top sports, both collegiate and pro. I think that in many cases white coaches have gotten more chances after being fired both for performance and NCAA related infractions. Haskins never coached after here but guys like Bruce Pearl still are. That being said this hire will not solve the problem in itself and I do hope Coyle hires the guy he feels is the best candidate. If that ends up being Gates I will trust Coyles judgement and be ready to support this program.
 

Maybe Reusse can write the same thing next week, just to make sure we all know what the Strib sports department really wants to see happen.

Look, we get it. Not enough diversity. At the U (or the Strib for that matter). Great. Wonderful. Discuss. Pontificate. Whatever. Because it's a worthy conversation to have.

But not right now.

Not with the obvious level of qualifications of the pool of candidates being considered along with the big issues facing the basketball program. Hire the best candidate. period. But don't do it because the Strib demands you hire a minority as coach. Do it if he checks all the boxes (like any other qualified candidate).
 

This is heading down an ugly path. I really hope Coyle ignores these types. My guess is that this kind of chatter is even louder within the U. People need to realize that they loudest folks are not always the ones who care the most or who represent any sort of large portion of the state.

If Gates is the best guy we can get, hire him. But talking about hiring Gates because it's time for minority is disrespectful to him. Hire Gates because he is the best coach that said yes (and he very well might be!).

At the U, we jokingly talk about hiring Tony Dungy for anything. It's not because he is a good coach for a black guy, it's because we like and respect him so much, we'd probably consider hiring him to coach the men's basketball team if he'd say yes.

Also - if Yao wants the job, hire him 100%.
 

MRJ said:
Maybe Reusse can write the same thing next week, just to make sure we all know what the Strib sports department really wants to see happen.

Look, we get it. Not enough diversity. At the U (or the Strib for that matter). Great. Wonderful. Discuss. Pontificate. Whatever. Because it's a worthy conversation to have.

But not right now.

Not with the obvious level of qualifications of the pool of candidates being considered along with the big issues facing the basketball program. Hire the best candidate. period. But don't do it because the Strib demands you hire a minority as coach. Do it if he checks all the boxes (like any other qualified candidate).
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Now is the time. We cannot live like the UW who totally stopped looking for a UW president to avoid the obvious. Last year they knew they would have to consider ‘others’ so they shut down the process and made Tommy Thompson interim president. Where else in the Big Ten would this pass muster?
 


Some guy said:
If they hire a black coach he will complain they didn’t get the right guy
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There are 80 posters on this board who know more about college basketball than Jim Souhan. I would have him to list who the African American candidates are we should consider. I bet he couldn't get past Gates, Grant and Sam Mitchell, if that.
 

Literally only wrote what he thought would rile the most possible people up. The older anti-BLM folks who are probably a big part of the people who still pay money to read the STrib, and trolling Gopher fans who don't want to be forced to take a Horizon League coach.

I did not click on it.
 


Spaulding!No! said:
Now is the time. We cannot live like the UW who totally stopped looking for a UW president to avoid the obvious. Last year they knew they would have to consider ‘others’ so they shut down the process and made Tommy Thompson interim president. Where else in the Big Ten would this pass muster?
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Not sure how any of that is relevant to the U's coaching search, but okay.
 


Does Coyle even have any history of being remotely racist? Are they saying he shouldn't have hired Whalen or Fleck? He's hired a minority at Syracuse. Minnesota has had Tubby and Haskins. Where does this crap come from? Same thing happened to the timberwolves when they hired Finch over Vanderpool. I would be fine with Gates or Grant, sorry but no Sam Mitchell. I would need to see more out of this Oklahoma State guy without Cade Cunningham
 


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