There's Croom in the SEC

Enlightenment takes a long time to occur in the Deep (Dark) South. But now they have it.\nWhen Mississippi State University hired Sylvester Croom to be their football coach Tuesday, he became the first African-American football coach in Southeastern Conference history.\nRacial diversity in coaching, especially football coaching, shouldn't be a 21st century concept, but this is one of the all-time better-late-than-never hirings.\nLooking at Croom's qualifications, after all, and one doesn't see a guy in the right place for a bit of tokenism. Rather, he's worked as a NFL assistant coach for 16 years, and that followed 10 years as an assistant at Alabama, his alma mater. \nCurrently, Croom is the running backs' coach for the Green Bay Packers, where over the past four years he has not only overseen Ahman Green's development into one of the league's top backs (1,383 yards rushing, 10 touchdowns) but also groomed Najeh Davenport and Tony Fisher into the league's top backups. Their phenomenal yards-per-carry averages speak for themselves: Green, 5.3, Davenport, 6.1 and Fisher, 5.4.\nCroom even survived the 1991 Indianapolis Colts as an assistant, a memorable squad that went 1-15 and scored in double figures only five times all season.\nWhile we can look back, Croom can't afford to. Hired just five days after Mississippi State played their last game under Jackie Sherrill, Croom's job now is to recruit, recruit and recruit some more to a school that embarrassed itself thoroughly in 2003. Not only did Mississippi State go 2-10, but they lost their last six games by scores of -- and I mention this because I know IU folks can empathize -- 45-13, 42-17, 38-0, 59-21, 52-6 and 31-0.\nThe 38-0 defeat was to Alabama, and if that score would suggest that Mississippi State had trouble getting motivated for the game, they don't have to worry about that when they play next year. Croom played at Alabama for legendary coach Paul "Bear" Bryant and was an assistant to Bryant and his successor Ray Perkins from 1977-1986. \nFurthermore, Croom was a finalist for the Alabama job that ultimately went to Mike Shula after Mike Price was fired for personal indiscretions made at a Pensacola, Fla., golf pro-am and topless bar in May. Shula, who like Croom had no head coaching experience, followed up with a poor 4-9 season in which he regularly seemed outcoached.\nAlabama lost to archrival Auburn, enough in itself to make it a bad season according to the sociology of the Iron Bowl rivalry, and also lost to Northern Illinois at home and to Hawaii.\nMany thought Shula got the job over Croom in the first place because Rev. Jesse Jackson had stepped in on Croom's behalf and campaigned for him, arguing what everybody already knew: It was about time an SEC school hired an African-American football coach. Unfortunately, when university administrators got wind of Jackson's actions, the school seemingly balked. University president Robert Witt, new to Alabama after nearly eight years at the University of Texas at Arlington, felt like he would have been making a poor first impression if he gave in to Jackson, hardly a popular figure in the South.\nCroom didn't have to wait much longer though.\nHis next challenges, though, will be ingratiating himself with the Mississippi State community. He's still one of only five African-American coaches in Division I college football, and generally speaking, African-American coaches have not tended to take over winning programs operating at a peak and they have not tended to have very patient employers. Oklahoma fired John Blake after only three years, a very short time given the disaster that was Howard Schnellenberger's one-year tenure. \nIf college football programs were supermarkets, OU's would not have been a cleanup on aisle 10; it would have been a rebuilding the supermarket after an 8.5 earthquake.\nAnd by many accounts, Blake was beginning to succeed. He brought in much better athletes. Oklahoma's 2000 national championship was done with many players recruited by Blake. \nLooking at the other African-American coaches, with the exception of Tyrone Willingham at Notre Dame, one would imagine more optimism at a graveyard. Dr. Fitz Hill at San Jose State is coaching a school practically clinging to Division I status. Karl Dorrell at UCLA has a long uphill job trying to keep pace with crosstown rival USC.\nOf course, Mississippi State is hardly a plum job. Most schools in the SEC have better traditions. Most schools have more attractive campuses. Many have better academic programs. And, if anything, Mississippi State is better known as a basketball school.\nIn the Deep South, though, coaches have to start somewhere.