Croom should not be hired for wrong reasons

By By Stan Torgerson / sports columnist
Dec. 1, 2003
If Mississippi State hires Sylvester Croom as their football coach because he is the best man for the job, that's the right reason.
But if the school hires Croom because someone has conviced President Charles Lee and athletic director Larry Templeton that hiring a black coach could mean State will attract more of Mississippi's best players, most of whom are black, that's entirely the wrong reason.
It doesn't work that way. Perhaps it did once but no more. Not too many years ago Jackson State had the pick of the black athletes because, among other reasons, they felt more comfortable there with their coaches, fellow students and teammates. Today their coaches struggle to sign a blue chip player. Race is no longer a factor. The blue chippers want to go where they can get national recognition, appear on television and, hopefully, attract more notice from the NFL. For some of them, those seriously interested in education, the courses offered by their school of choice makes the difference. The race of their coach is immaterial.
The drop in the quality of play in Division 1-AA is directly related to the change of attitude by high school stars when choosing where they will go to school.
When Ole Miss hired Rob Evans, the school's first black major sport coach, many people believed that would be enough to convince the state's quality basketball players, almost all of whom are black, to come to Ole Miss because of Evans. It didn't worked that way. Being black may have gotten Evans in the door of homes white coaches might not have been able to enter but it wasn't enough to make the sale.
Then there's James Green at Southern Mississippi. Same story. Black coach. No home state impact on his program. He has to settle for mostly red chip players from adjoining states whose own home state schools did not offer.
Tubby Smith at Kentucky is the Southeastern Conference's most successful black coach. But he would be the first to tell you kids don't want to be Wildcats because they will be coached by a fellow black man. They want to play for UK because of its basketball traditions and its year in and year out success.
Stan Heath at Arkansas is a black coach who followed a black coach but the Razorbacks have not been one of the league's powerhouses in recent years.
Rebels football coach David Cutcliffe said recently the one most important element in recruiting was to win games. He's right. Kids want to play for a winner, go to bowl games and see their name in a newspaper's headline. They want to know their friends and relatives will be in front of a TV set watching them play if they can't get to the game in person. Incidentally, of the 86 players shown in this year's Ole Miss media guide, 51 are black.
Winning is the handicap that Croom, or whomever gets the job, faces at Mississippi State. The team has not been winning and this year was particularly painful at 2-10. Kids watch television and read the papers too. They know that the Bulldogs are not going to turn the program around in one year and it is no fun to lose Saturday after Saturday after Saturday.
The best argument the new Mississippi State coach has is "if you sign with us chances are you'll be able to play right away. No redshirting unless you want to. The players we have now didn't get the job done so we're going to use a lot more freshmen next year. You'll be one and if you show you can help us, you'll be in there."
Sitting on the bench is not fun. Playing is.
There may be some of the "work with us and enjoy the pride of rebuilding the program from the ground up" but I don't think that argument sells.
There's also some merit in the legacy approach. "Your daddy played here and I know you've been a Bulldog since you were a little boy." That has merit but it depends on two things. One is your daddy and two is your athletic talent. The media gives a lot of publicity when a player follows in his father's footsteps but the truth is there aren't that many of them.
So what all this really comes down to is pure unadulterated salemanship. The next coach, whether it is Croom or someone else is going to have to sell kids on the school and the program while at the same time selling the alumni promises of a brighter tomorrow so please do not desert us now.
Every new coach attempts to sooth the alumni against future disappointments by telling them building a program takes five years. David Cutcliffe at Ole Miss did it and now in his fifth year he delivered. Tommy Tuberville did it at Auburn and one of the reasons for the heat on him as the season drew to a close was that 7-5 is not good enough in the fifth year of your announced five year plan.
Croom would bring a lot of credentials to Mississippi State. He spent 10 years as an assistant at Alabama and 17 years as an assistant coach in the NFL, the latest stint at Green Bay. There will be many factors that will contribute to turning that program around but just having a black coach won't be one of them.