One More Football Followup

After this post and this post, a friend of mine sent me this article from ESPN, reporting that being in an interracial marriage is a barrier to Black coaches seeking top jobs in college football:

- Florida Gators defensive coordinator Charlie Strong believes race is a reason he hasn't been offered a head-coaching job during his 25 years in college football, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

Strong, a 48-year-old black man, shook his head affirmatively when an Orlando Sentinel reporter asked him if his interracial marriage was a factor in getting passed over for jobs, including one at a Southern school a few years ago. Strong, whose wife is white, said he heard that too many times for it to be rumor.

"Everybody always said I didn't get that job because my wife is white," Strong said at media day Monday, as the Gators prepare to face Oklahoma in the FedEx BCS National Championship Game. "If you think about it, a coach is standing up there representing the university. If you're not strong enough to look through that [interracial marriage], then you have an issue."

The same article reports that Turner Gill, the Buffalo coach who was the primary subject of my last few posts, also is married to a White woman.