Titan Coach Weary, Wary of Hidden Bias

Jerry Brown, the very talented black assistant football coach at Cal State Fullerton, has replayed the infamous videotape again and again, hoping each time to find an excuse for Al Campanis.

Brown has dissected the tape down to the last syllable. He has studied the sentences and the syntax. He has stared long and deep into Campanis’ eyes. And each time, Campanis stares back.

“I watched his face,” Brown said. “And those were very real answers. He wasn’t choosing his words.”

It has been nearly two weeks since Campanis appeared on ABC’s “Nightline,” an appearance that ultimately cost the longtime Dodger executive his career and his reputation.

His comments about blacks possibly lacking the “necessities” to hold upper-level positions in sports have been well-documented.

Brown and others in his position are left to wonder how pervasive--and how powerful--Campanis’ frame of mind is. What was displayed on national television was a racism not of white hoods but of white collars, a strain of prejudice that for more than 40 years, in Campanis’ case, was veiled in subtlety.

And which is more damaging?

“The hidden kind is the worst,” Brown said.

As his career creeps forward, Brown, 37, knows this. For seven years, he has been the right-hand man of Gene Murphy at Fullerton. He was the Titans’ offensive coordinator for three years before being named associate head coach last season. Murphy calls Brown his “security blanket,” a man so valuable that Murphy would be in “a world of hurt” without him.

In 1984, under Brown’s guidance, the Titans broke the college record for points with 337. In 1985, Brown helped develop one of the most talented groups of wide receivers in the nation in James Pruitt, Corn Redick, Wade Lockett and Allen Pitts. Only Lockett failed to sign with an NFL team.

Brown has paid his coaching dues. Brown, who was an All-Big 10 defensive back at Northwestern and a ninth-round draft pick of the San Francisco 49ers, coached for four years at the high school level in his home state of Ohio.

He then worked for three years at Eastern Illinois University before going to Fullerton, where he has slowly worked his way up coaching’s chain of command.

Murphy says Brown is ready for bigger things. But is the world?

“He could be a head coach at any Division I school in the country,” Murphy said.

Despite his qualifications, Brown has not received any head coaching offers. In fact, he says his chances of becoming a head coach at a college other than Fullerton in the next 10 years are very poor.

“I really feel that,” Brown said. “I think society is changing, but it’s not changing that fast.”

Brown has the numbers to support his feelings. There are no black head coaches in the National Football League. And there are very few in Division I football. How many? Well, the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. doesn’t keep those statistics. But, of the 105 Division I schools that play football, Brown could think of only three black head coaches: Wayne Nunnely of Nevada Las Vegas, Cleve Bryant of Ohio University and Francis Peay of Northwestern.

Brown’s only real shot seems to be Fullerton, where his talent and character have been on display for years.

Murphy has had several offers to leave Fullerton in the last few years. If he ever should, Brown is widely viewed as the most likely replacement. Or is he?

When Murphy was contemplating a move to Washington State last season, Brown said he sent out some feelers in the Titan athletic department to see exactly where he stood.

“I received some feedback,” he said, “but it wasn’t the type I thought I would get. It was more of, ‘We’ll put your name in the hat.’ If they really thought I was a viable guy, I don’t need my name to be thrown in a hat. I remember things like that.”

Should there be an opening at Fullerton, a national search likely would be conducted for a replacement, with Brown as one of the candidates.

And it’s really hard to figure. Fullerton already has several prominent blacks on its faculty, including President Jewel Plummer Cobb and basketball coach George McQuarn.

Although there at least have been some blacks at top positions in basketball and baseball at the collegiate and professional levels, football lags painfully and disproportionately behind.

Can anyone explain why?

“I have no idea,” Murphy said.

All that’s left for Brown to do is continue to coach and teach and impress, in the hope that someone wearing colorblind glasses might notice.

When Brown saw the tape of Campanis, his initial response was one of rage. He vowed at the time never to attend another Dodger game in his life. The subsequent firing of Campanis has tempered Brown’s feelings. He thinks now that the episode might lead to a raising of consciousness.

“It’s either going to be good or bad,” Brown said. “Maybe we’ll get a throwback to the 1960s and ‘70s, where there was much more black public awareness and black pressure.”

And maybe, one day, one man will get a job he deserves.

“The can of worms is open,” Murphy said. “Maybe it’s good that we face it.”