Terrific column denouncing racial discrimination at the college level, concerning the lack of black coaches, by former Auburn head coach Terry Bowden:

There are 117 colleges participating in Division I-A football and there are only three black head coaches. You don't have to be too smart to know how stupid this looks.

Let me lay it out for you:

Fifty percent black athletes leads to 25 percent black assistant coaches leads to 3 percent black head coaches.

Fifty percent white athletes leads to 75 percent white assistant coaches leads to 97 percent white head coaches.

A profession that so desperately seeks a level playing field offers nothing close to one for the black athlete who aspires to rise to the pinnacle of the college coaching profession.

Plainly and simply, folks, this is discrimination. More precisely this is one of the last and greatest bastions of discrimination within all of American sports.

In college football, we are winning games, building programs and making millions of dollars with the sweat and blood of African-American athletes. I should know. In the last dozen years, my family alone has made more than $30 million as Division I-A head football coaches.

At least once a day, I get asked, "When are you getting back into coaching?" Heck, schools don't need to hire me. They need to hire from the untapped talent that exists within the pool of black assistant coaches.

[link via Salon]