I think this is true.
In some cases, I can see it really helping to have a majority black staff recruiting majority black student athletes. Kids can relate, kids feel comfortable, and kids can get inspired seeing a staff of people that look, talk, and grew up like them.
But I can also see it hurting in some cases. And I think the assumption is I'm talking about white prospects but I'm not, necessarily. I've been around black families that would rather their kid go play for a team of mostly white coaches because they feel the program will be more "structured" and or "professional".
Black-led teams are often associated with being lower class or inferior to white counterparts, and I've seen and heard some black parents say that they want their kids to get "the best" coaching and discipline, or to "get away" from "ghetto" teams, and that led them to putting their son with white coaches.
Now this was at the HS and pee wee level. But if this happened at the lower levels for black parents, I don't think I should doubt that similar feelings exist for college football programs.
I can envision a scenario where a high school kid and his parents are torn between school A, with a majority black staff, and school B, with a majority white staff, and with their likes and dislikes about the schools being about equal, go with a "gut feeling" of trusting that the white coaches have a better chance of making sure their son is taken care of and developed into a pro. I've seen and heard of cases at the lower levels where this happens. Fair? No. But parents generally aren't thinking about being politically correct or fair when their child's future is on the line.
(Just to be clear here, I think the gut feeling is BS. Black coaches have won super bowls and are building big time college football programs that send players to the league right now. Opportunity is why none have ever won a national title. And negative biases have limited the opportunities which only feed the biases.)
And just think about how many of these recruits end up going with gut feelings when they finally decide on a school. Think back to how many kids are undecided on NSD, minutes before they are to announce.
I can truly see some decisions coming down to who they feel more comfortable with, and comfort can truly go a number of ways, from "coach likes the same rap artist that I like and play before a game, so I relate to him" to "coach goes hunting like me and my family, I relate to him". And while neither of those are race specific, black and white people like rap music and go hunting, I bet you still had an image of which race went with each relatability factor.
Ultimately, the in-home visits are always super important, but I do think they are going to take on an even greater importance because biases against black coaches exist out there. Biases for a majority staff of black coaches exist as well.
I have no doubt that Willie is going to do a tremendous job of selling himself and FSU to high school kids and their parents. You can just see in his press conferences that he
gets it. He'll be able to walk into a white kids home or a black kids home and represent FSU to the highest caliber.
But it takes more than just a head coach to recruit. It takes a staff to build all of the relationships and build the family atmosphere that eases the conscious of every parent that signs the LOI to send their kid off to college.
Even if someone likes and trusts Willie individually, they might be skeptical of the three or four other black assistants that accompanies him on his in-home visit. A white parent might think "will my son fit in there? Will
the culture alienate him?" and a black parent might think "Will my son get the best coaching there? Will
the culture be professional?"
(I can't stress enough that I don't agree that there should even be questions like this. I just can't deny that the people who will feel like that are out there, and coach Taggart and his staff will be recruiting their children.)
It's probably not ever going to be spoken out loud or written about in a warchant recruiting article, but as a black man, I'll frankly be surprised if it's
never something that coach Taggart and his staff encounters. And then there is the negative recruiting...
Taggart wants to build a family atmosphere. And I believe he is going to do that. But sometimes it seems like people get lost in sentiment and overlook that families aren't homogeneous. There are vastly different personalities, worldviews, socioeconomic statuses all occupying the same space, all a part of the same team called FSU. And I think it's helpful to have a wide variety of staff in place to nurture all of those different backgrounds.
Not just different races either. Different age ranges too. Can't just be an entire staff of young 30-40 year olds, it's good to have some older gentleman with lots of experience.
Coaches born and raised in the south are important, but it helps to have guys with life experience on the east coast, or in the midwest, or on the west coast as well.
It great to have deeply religious coaches but it's also probably helpful to have some coaches that aren't as religious as well.
It's important to have some coaches that yell and curse and are old school 'get after you' coaches that whip your butt into shape and keep you on your toes, but it's probably also good to have some quieter, 'players coaches' types as well. Guys that will calmly talk to you instead of screaming at you.
My point is that is why diversity matters. Nick Saban isn't doing it at Alabama by himself. A bunch of those kids might not relate to Saban. But they relate to
someone on that staff. He has a great mix of personalities, races, and backgrounds making up his staff, convincing a whole lot of people from a whole lot of different places to come to Alabama.
I'm rambling but my point is it isn't ALL x's and o's. Maybe in the NFL where everyone is a professional making at least six figures but not in college football.
Not when a huge part of the job is recruiting players and families.
Not when you are expected to become a surrogate parent for a class of teenagers every year, and it's your job to keep them out of trouble, discipline them, and keep them motivated on school and football.
At this point it's more than can you coach football, it's can you and your staff manage 85+ different college students with various backgrounds and keep them happy as a "family." Can you get them all to buy in?
And in the end I'm glad we have a white coach on both sides of the ball, not because of diversity for diversities sake, or because a black coach can't do the job, but because having a well rounded staff of different backgrounds is practical in the pursuit of the above paragraph.
To be totally clear here. I'm not trying to imply with this post that race will be the deciding factor with recruits, or will be an issue in the majority of cases. Taggart is a good recruiter and Florida State is an amazing program to recruit for, so that will take care of itself the majority of the time.
I'm just saying I don't believe society is at a place where the racial makeup of a majority black staff recruiting mostly southern players won't matter
at all. And even if it's 1%, that's still a percentage worth having the conversation about. And that the "I don't care if they are white, black, green, or purple" sentiment isn't shared widely enough to be considered a useful counter to having the conversation.
