In Black America; Black Head Coaches: The Number Is Small

this week on black america we focus on black head coaches with knowledge isn't like a basketball coach at the university of arkansas humor maybe the semifinals or even a big advantage as it were my same age like a basketball coaches the number is small this week on black america this is in the like america or reflections of the black experience in american society lance i didn't have the customer like when i lived with my dad i think he's his chances of getting a major cause

decreases tremendously i ever think like a million five years ago i think when i came to be a difficult university there was maybe twelve or thirteen fourteen huge redskins were here were not overly concerned at this point when i stop to think about at the university of iowa is one of georgia on the university of arkansas where you don't have any more university or someone is in charge that michael and i think that speaks very difficult and i think that because of that that leaves we can have tremendous pressure to try to pressure to try to do this job so it was nineteen seventy one one that you became the first black a cold lead a team in a major economic why university since that time only a few

other black coaches have landed head coaching positions and so schools the opportunity for blacks in this area have come slowly most have come in basketball football track and baseball bring up debris year and the seventies a good number of black coaches got their chance after serving several years as assistance and some were named to the top position only after public pressure was put on the school's administration this is not the case at the university of arkansas coach richardson has the third best winning percentage entering this seizing among active division one ncaa coaches i'm jackie hanson and this week focuses on black head coaches the number is small with the university of arkansas head basketball coach billy richardson in black america i'm very happy and i got young man named paul presley and is a great historian noel paul prescient came to julia keller with the same credentials the hope of clam hopefully an nba paul president have a high school aged degree

any one got a ged and was enrolled there could julia collins paul never missed the choirs are even though on the role all went to the university of tulsa after their junior college didn't have two years and an end he got some habits and habits are very important yet few steady habits he wasn't what you'd call a dumb kid he was maybe a lazy kiev because he had not been motivated enough to become a college student would do in those two years he was motivated and the two years he spent at the tulsa and not only was he getting awards of being the best player in the league in the last campaign but he is the only young man that had a degree in his back pocket that was a first round draft was in the nba coastal in which isn't just fall into my head coach and the university of arkansas basketball history is the first black head coach in the deep south and the southwest athletic conference before accepting the position of universe of arkansas coach riches and coast of universal tulsa where nineteen eighty one is saying well

the national invitation tournament and the year before his western taxes junior college same tactic the national junior college championship born in el paso texas forty five years ago co directors and crevices grandmother with instilling in him desire to make his dream a reality that reality is being one of only twenty six black head coaches at the nominee white major universities i recently spoke with coach richardson regard his deceptions of head basketball coach at the university of arkansas thing of like a coach at the nominee white university today's student athletes and the rollers grandmother played in making him the man he is today i think my grandmother a lot to do with the mold and some of the thoughts that i have about the way i feel about people worth of our life i i think sometimes things happen for the best in the corner it seemed to mean it they were taken for me maybe you be able to develop some things in life that i could carry and help

others with and that she felt that when i think it from the time i was a live mannequin years old and he tried to julie andrews was just i think it's always been a fact to me that it's very important to try to give you your best and everything you try to do and then of course being the only she wasn't very religious we will go up bringing about the good man upstairs and i think those are the things those of the values that i i think of a more important than a lot of the values of a lot of people talk about where'd you become first interested in athletics my family a background of all my uncles and there was five she had six boys and three and five girls the three through the boys' a very good athletes and my father was a boxer and he's so he was the form of an athlete he boxed though in mexico and then and this unnamed in those campaigns back in those days

and then he was ceo on an athletic ability i think what's my my uncle's played baseball i was my favorite sport nine a star playhouse six years old and then by the time i was ten or eleven i start playing basketball and before i knew it i was running tractor and then i just started on everything for the flight was concern that i just fellow sport was she graduated from high school you attended he says on getting a college whites in areas all before taxes el paso one of the first of all i wanted to go to the university of arizona and back in those days you have to have to buy three point out of state in arizona system well i graduated from high school at a two point eight five and i had to go off to do you got four year to bring that average to a point where i would accept that you were skimmers on why the university of arizona i want there i want to go there because of baseball and they allow the best baseball in the country and a lot of professional baseball teams used to practice and

then we're going to get started in that part of the country because of the weather so that was my first choice and so i decided to go not very far from the receivers on older thatcher it can and put in a year but you have it be a religion well a basketball scholarship and was gonna play ball sports i fell so much in love with the basketball and i also played baseball at the julia keller so at the time when i left i decided to act it away i could make some something for myself happen better education wise study habits would be a libya very if i could get away from home and so after that one year and picking up those kind of habits oh they will go back and go to school at the unit and that that was texas western and now i play for three years in wait for a baseball changed because when i went back didn't have baseball a huge hit in the head it had baseball i probably gone there to begin with have you given up aspirations of becoming

a baseball player and he still play i gave a baseball long time ago and became a real avid summer league softball that i play like a softball that says players world championships and softball i gave that up the aisle at least scare be at least fifteen twenty years ago the aberration or wanting to be a pro baseball but my wife is always ran and funny circle because i had an opportunity to be a professional baseball player but at the chance to go to san diego chargers and play with him for a little bit in most and you didn't was wavered and what have you and i had a chance to go to basketball play with the dow chaperones in dallas texas i was very fortunate that i was for them concern as viola my grandmother used to say if i ever would've put in all my energies into one particular thing maybe i would have been able to stay somewhere and played in one particular school but i was too in love with everything in

and i enjoyed it also our island i feel very good when i talk to young boys about their admiration wanting to be professional basketball or professional football there i was a young man would be professional and everyone has bought solar as very unusual or was a major water i get my degree in health and physical education and i went back and worked on my matches in the administration did you find yourself devoting more time for some clinics than your academics want to recover what can tell you of the most baffling i think any special back in those days of anchor you to a new loft ecology margaret's ambition was to become professional out i wasn't a concern about education until i was a senior you know him you know that's when you gotta go biden pick up thirty more hours because you spend all your time dreaming that's why i've been ruined our players today and say that

you know in the educational part to me is an insurance policy and if you get that at least you got something that you get in is based upon what you have learned and insurers back when i want to screw the bit that was an important important thing was to try to get to the professional way to make a decent living because it's where all the money ends typically for blackmail most money that was there again it had to be in professional sports and that's why i look so much for trying to get that to that direction what's stick you in the direction of want to become a coach first of all our my life either as an athlete and planted all the sport i felt that if i didn't make you noticed as close as i possibly could do it because you can be to being a player is being a coach in and so i think that was the whole thing and love of a love athletic so my city be making different what coachella a very fortunate to get my college football eclipsed baseball coach track you know it was a golf course for nine years so i've love i've always been involved

in coaching i think probably when i was ten eleven years old i was a big is good in our neighborhood and so it follows or a donut b the continent as it were my same age so for some reason that seem like oatmeal always been a part of what i was going to be the rumor that first coaching job than some of the goals an objective you set for yourself when you painted first voting well when i first got my first coach joe went back to the high school and graduated from which was really high school in el paso texas and that really i didn't set a lot of goals are of our anything to achieve it is want to be as good as i could be in that particular feel but then i had to realize that first of all i was an educator first and i think at that point i was teaching physical education part math of carvings and five preparation period and even though i was not prepared to teach those particular courses i had the lowest in more time worried about what i wanna say to the student and what's going to be on playing field

but and as a freshman basketball coach in that first year i found that a lot of things about youngster that i didn't understand simply because i had been pretty gifted and and things happen from easy i also thought that that should happen for young man andrew time in that year and it taught me a lesson that everybody didn't come out everybody's not the same every buyer doesn't have a gift and a lot of guess have to work toward retaining that good i think that's the downfall of some of the coaches that were very excellent players because everything is so natural force that it seems that geddes is not natural for a weekend to get up or is there a different level of coaching new costs in the high school ranks night coaching continually coating on causing irreversible of the difference between the two i play the thing that i always explain most of the places i speak

to the fact i was able to go to ninth grade outposts davies mennonite course of our city and i went to junior college element of the major powers in the markets saw been on every level even from the elementary school robin on every level of coaching i think the difference in and the coaching is not so much in terms of taxes and although think of dealing with people and making if you can get people to do things that you believe in and make them believe along with that is immensely the billions in town i think the coaching on all levels of basically the same i can remember running the same office and seventh grader in high school and was successful with i can remember going to julia collins won a national championship with a saying that iran in the seventh grade the only difference is is that the kids are bigger stronger and more refined and the higher you go up the more refined in the more talented player you get and then it's a matter of mind a web are not the young man is it you know you teach the basics

a number i believe in basic than that learn the past the ball dribbled ballroom in an ancient temple but more than that i think important is to to try to talk to their minds about making decisions i think all of us realize that the best basketball players are going to make the best decisions on the floor with a basketball and so if we can get the talented young man and he can make decisions and where to talk about the same things that were pockets of the neva ninth grade and now you just on a different level it didn't seem that much difference to me to set the record straight couple years ago and john thompson tourist town was on the way to winning a national title yet won a national title before then the johnny carson over nasa live in it what type of feeling that you receive when that force during a callous talent western texas' junior college i think there was one of the greatest feelings at that particular moment that a bad experience as a coach because it was something that not only

myself but the players we had accomplished we had been their threes consecutive years and then denied that national title and then of course in the third year of the title was there and at the same time i had received a job prior to winning a national championship the coach at university of tulsa so with that moment of being selected the coast university of tulsa and three nights later when the national championship you put those two year and i was on cloud man and then really realize which was warm pork was is winning the national championship for being a we had the opportunity to work on a major college level it didn't dawn on me until much later that that we have won a national championship and when you start going back osama clippings and some accusing some of the things that happened in the season and we were fortunate we went thirty seven and only are some unusual things happening games work we should aloft but we want and we figure out away with then used the new rule was we know that even

happier but different kind of a hike that that makes you feel like there's a lot of things have been accomplished and for a lot of people want more button with yuval and some of the people who are close to you a moment that national chairmanship had been won and from what i understood that a black coated never won a national championship and at that time i didn't know in junior college i did know and one one and even intimate to college and that would be important i will be important thing was to try to do the best and reached to those pinnacles and that's certainly the same delegate universe of arkansas before coming to arkansas you cause death tolls was a day for calling getting at first major league coaching position i it's very difficult for a coach and when we didn't have to be so much black or white that particular black man i think he's his chances of getting a major college out decreases tremendously high everything's have done this bill a big change since i came in here five years ago

i think when i came as a political scene adversity there was maybe twelve or thirteen clothes or more in most of those killed were at schools were they were not the only elite schools and at this point when i stop to think about it he choose the university i was one of george from the university of arkansas were at a new that you don't have any more universities of or someone is in charge it's a black coat i think that it's very difficult and i think that because of that weise we can have tremendous pressure to try to do the best job and sometimes you don't either got a pressure to try to do the best job georgetown of course was that it was a doormat when john thompson took the job it was probably the worst basketball job in the country but its same thing at pulse i thought though so it was not a job that i had to compete against great coaches that you know as people say great coated i only wanna guess some assistant coaches and maybe wanted to head coaches but that the job was not a great basketball job i think after we had a chance to winning

in it that year and i brought my junior college for kids along with me we change some things on that campus which jason feelings with jason thoughts and their job became a great job and then when i i left that job it was in the same job i had came to five years ago i was a poorly paid job poorly force recruiting was concern money wise and now it's like to break their job in the top twenty jobs in the country now forced coaches a concern in salaries and income and and and potentials of getting some good athlete on the print is coaching job just accepted you're more or less came in and work miracles with the program wyatt you richard to accept a position here at the university of arkansas the program is pretty successful i would say well first of all i mean i even asked myself that question before the night i accepted the job first a lot that i thought of the fact that at the university of arkansas i would have

some some some better exposure have an opportunity to maybe recruit a higher class of athlete than we were a billion at university of tulsa but i think the biggest ingredient when so much even that i've dressed up to think that i've been pretty successful bringing kids in that there were recruited by the biggest turn out to be pretty good players they were hungry and i like the horses can accuse and why look for the ones that are the blue chips nearby else is at i think the big thing came when i asked myself and then i thought of what my grandmother at once said when i was a high school player and was on my way to odessa texas to win a baseball game or i could not stay in a motel and she made a statement and i'm a statement i would go she made the statement that i would and of course i never did what she would say and then she went on to proceed to tell me while ago and she said to me that that was a demo name of jackie robinson did some things had he not done you probably would be playing baseball we are today but there's got to be some buyers don't do something

second way when she mentioned that course cells from anyone that story and as i thought about that story that night i thought about here's a job at the university of arkansas or that in nineteen fifty five fifty seven the rat race riots there are kids beat up central high school rock was that the target of the country and everybody ended in my age level would've known about it and i'm being offered a position there that would be not right for me to take that opportunity to somehow hopefully if i'm a successful as i was a tulsa look at the doors i could open for many of the black coaches if these things happen so i took it on my own to say i won't take that job simply because it's not only an opportunity for the win reticent but it's also an opportunity for the black coaches in the country and we play that way we will score some point i like to put points on that one on the school board i think best reason i was cool when you post to put points on we've been fortunate and julia collins i've

had a chance to lead the nation's corn syrup a couple times in their wheelchairs and one point again not a firearms on a point again we went thirty seven until we also have lent as a as a major college basketball coach two years ago kelso we were the nation's the mormon scoring team on our way to a record of twenty seven and four wins the tents people are considering teams in the running again team our teams have done more scorn from a defensive standpoint a wooded so much from an officer because the bridge and eternal within those that has become a game of like to have that development arkansas and i answered lot different than a deliberate style include sudden have played in and clinton or numbers i think once i get the cali key aides at the complainants taliban were on our way to playing hardball as i call it nationally a lot of attention has been focused on the big east the big tent your perception of

love of competition in the southwestern athletic up well i think the reason is in there were right to at this point the big east the big ten more basketball of them play in the farm country that has played in this southwest south west retirees bigger the southwest coverage you think of football you know and shows just the opposite a month the reason i think that is that again the basketball it is it is a way of life and in the east for boswell life back in southwest but on the level of the southwest conference basketball i think the conference at this point maybe not is equipped with the talented talented players that you would have on the biggies on the victim at this point when i think they're young i think this conference is young and i think that in time well we could compete with anyone but on unabated databases of playing the big east end now we would have our problem simply because they played

again the animal has spent half played again they're a lot more often than we have in a supplicant in your opinion is there a problem in syria with the rules of regulation ncaa rules a revelation about recruiting should there be some new rules capital of some rules lacked as far as athletes be unable to say it's a tale widely money or some type of compensation i certainly feel that with the student athletes should be able to receive some type of compensation and i'm not using in terms of being pagan that's the wrong word because when i played college was surreal and get my money to have to take your laundry and ten dollars in those days were like a hundred a day and i don't seem to think different than that i think it would please curtail some of the cheating is not going to take away from the gas and continually cheap that's gonna be there you know as long as we live theirs will be cheating going and

in any any phase of life not only in athletics but i certainly feel that the ncaa then a great job i certainly feel there's a lot of rules didn't really make a lot of sense but vanished rules america to have backup will rule but that we need to do more for athletes and that's presented as a whole i just can't see i'm am not there that's margaret i just cannot see that that kind of money he's taken in by the ncaa from our basketball program what we cannot do something to help you to guess will help them bring in their comedy i just can't see a band and i know that sounds like a pay him play out that's not the point i think that we should have a spy from pretty is that ice question would support at least a hundred bucks a month because you know you talk about the final four given only four million dollars to those teams that does that makes sense that's what causes cheating anytime you start putting the premium of money in television

is taken away you know the really that many of the main everyday every printed to borneo sea of exposure has become so important that the coaches and the fans of made so much pleasure on winning that that's where your cheating is going to take place but because of all this exposure because the money the television remote that puts out four games i mean i can see why we can try to help so a bit more is a different measure mental evaluation for black coaches when you when you have great players and when you lose it allows a coat that's been the has been the thing that has been amazing it throughout my career you know i approached told the junior college newspaper articles and with the fork is an element in his name is big ten coach of the country but he says a moment in going win seven games at tulsa what those gas has taken within the neon of the main go to the union

state we won twenty six games a year the next article came out called ritson has brought a fine as athletes who never played the game see it sits it's been one of those got a situation for by confusion and we know as coaches ourselves that we never win basketball games a year the players when i'm all but on the other side the white coaches and very they're very intelligent and they know how to motivate the players to win for them and so therefore they can take less talon winner i would like to say point out that when you do a study of war all the great players who went to the nba i noticed that in the top four teams in american humane the coaches knew find out whether players are ucla one more national championship semi by that's ever played again ucla has more players more than double any school in the nba during that period kentucky won some championships and they've been named one of the top schools in the country kentucky which is another school with have put more

nba players in the nba than any other school north carolina dean smith he says has more nba players that have come through here in north carolina than any other scoop and the courts are great bobby knight and night indiana indiana has more nba players at any other school has ever played the game you give me good players and then maybe i can be and that number also coast nolan richardson head basketball coach at the university of arkansas you have a comment or like approaches a cassette copy this program write us the dresses in black america longhorn radio network ut austin austin texas seventy seven twelve foreign black america's technical producer of our growth i'm john hanson join us next week you've been listening to in black america reflections of the black experience in american society in black america is produced and distributed by the center for telecommunication services at ut austin and does not necessarily reflect the views of the university of texas at austin where this station