College Basketball / Robyn Norwood : Blacks Coaches Assn. Making Inroads

Nearly 200 schools play Division I basketball, and 46 of them have black head coaches, according to a survey by the Black Coaches Assn. Among schools with predominantly white student bodies, the survey determined, there are 27 with black head coaches.

In August, Rudy Washington, an assistant coach at Iowa and a former USC assistant, founded a 30-member organization whose goal is to assist black coaches in moving into head coaching and administrative jobs. Membership has grown to 300.

Washington, the executive director, would be happy not to be a member of the group for long. Intent on focusing its efforts on assistants and high school coaches, the group does not allow head coaches as members.

“Without question, as soon as I get a job, someone else is going to have to take over as executive director,” Washington said.

Washington said the group plans to start a resume bank, from which athletic directors can draw when they have an opening.

“Part of the problem is networking, and minorities not being in these circles,” Washington said. “Most people hire people they are comfortable with, and most blacks don’t move in those circles.

“There are always hidden pools for jobs. A job opens up, and there’s a hidden candidate pool. An AD calls three people, and asks them to apply.

“Our target right now is to have a bank of resumes in the hopes that ADs will write us, give us a call or send us a job announcement. Then we can send five resumes that fit their needs. . . . At least that would involve more blacks in the interview process.”

Although there are prominent black coaches at Division I schools--John Thompson of Georgetown and John Chaney of Temple among them--Washington says the numbers are “drastically lower” in Division II and Division III.

And although there are three black head coaches at Division I programs in the Los Angeles area--Walt Hazzard at UCLA, George Raveling at USC, and George McQuarn at Cal State Fullerton--Washington said the situation is not very good in area high schools.

“Southern California is one of the worst,” Washington said. “You might have 25 black head coaches out of approximately 600 schools we surveyed.”

Although the Black Coaches Assn. focuses on basketball coaches, Washington said it is intended for coaches in all sports, at many levels.

Washington, in his third year as an assistant at Iowa, graduated from Locke High School and the University of Redlands. He coached high school basketball at Locke and Verbum Dei, and has been an assistant coach at Clemson, besides USC. He also worked as an administrative assistant for the Lakers.

When Maryland upset Duke, 72-69, at Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium Saturday, it marked the Terrapins’ first Atlantic Coast Conference victory away from home since Bob Wade became coach. The last time Maryland had won an ACC game outside of Cole Field House, Len Bias was on the team and Lefty Driesell was the coach.

Maryland, which went 0-14 in the ACC last year as it struggled through a trauma-plagued 9-17 season, beat Wake Forest and Clemson in College Park, Md., earlier this season, signaling a resurgence for the team. But the victory over Duke, ranked seventh in the Associated Press poll, signaled something considerably more significant. Around the country, people spoke of the Terrapins’ return to prominence.

Talk of Maryland contending for the ACC title, however, is probably premature.

“I don’t think we’ve changed anything,” Wade said, commenting on expectations that Duke and North Carolina will battle for the ACC title. “They are the front-runners in the ACC. We’re just a team trying to find a place in the ACC.”

He wasn’t about to belittle the victory, however.

“The victory was very, very gratifying,” Wade said. “It was very, very important for our program. To go down into Cameron Indoor Arena and beat a team like Duke University, coached by a fine coach like Mike Krzyzewski, that’s a tribute to the kids.”

Eddie Bird, whose career at Indiana State began inauspiciously this season, has turned things around, and comparisons to his brother Larry have ceased to focus entirely on his impish looks.

Eddie was at his lowest point in a December game at Boston University in which he went 0 for 11 from the field before a Boston crowd that included his brother. Larry, of course, led Indiana State to the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. final in 1979 and is the Celtics’ ranking hero.

A 6-6 freshman who lost his starting position early in the season, Eddie has become the Sycamores’ leading scorer with a 12.7 average. In a victory over St. Ambrose earlier this month, he scored a career-high 28 points, making 12 of 18 shots--including 2 of 5 three-pointers--and both of his free throws. He also had 4 rebounds and 4 assists.

In his last five games, he has scored 28, 24, 10, 19 and 24 points. His 22.3-point average in Missouri Valley Conference games ranks him as the third-leading scorer in the conference. Bradley’s Hersey Hawkins, the national scoring leader, is first.

One thing Eddie hasn’t been able to do is help the Sycamores win. They are 4-11, 0-3 in the MVC.

The son of someone famous: Scooter Barry, a substitute for Kansas who rarely plays, found himself in an unusual position in a recent game against Missouri. With six seconds remaining and the Jayhawks clinging to a narrow lead, Barry was on the free-throw line.

“I was hoping they would foul me,” Scooter told reporters after the game. “I’d never been in that situation before, even in high school.”

With his father Rick Barry, the National Basketball Assn.’s all-time best free-throw shooter, watching from the stands, Scooter sank two shots--in the conventional style--helping to preserve a 78-74 victory.

Rick Barry, who made 90% of the 4,243 free-throws he took during his NBA career and who employed an old-fashioned underhand shot--a granny--needn’t have heard what came next.

When a reporter asked Scooter if he considered taking the shots in the style of his father, the reply came quickly:

“No way.”

Wyoming’s downfall has been swift and sure since the team began Western Athletic Conference play.

On Friday, Jan. 8, the then-undefeated, fifth-ranked Cowboys were upset by Texas El Paso in UTEP’s Special Events Center, capacity 12,222. On Saturday, Jan. 9, they were beaten by New Mexico in the Pit, the 17,126-seat arena where the Lobos earlier upset top-ranked Arizona.

Still, losses on the road are nothing unusual in the WAC and its numerous notorious arenas.

The worst setback, though, might have been Friday, when the Cowboys were beaten by undefeated BYU in Wyoming’s own Arena-Auditorium, a 15,000-seat layout known as the Dome of Doom.

Benny Dees, the first-year Wyoming coach who has joked about the pressure of taking over this highly regarded team, got in the spirit enough to pose for a Dome of Doom poster. It pictured the arena in the background and Dees in the foreground, sporting an Indiana Jones hat and leather jacket.

After the loss to Brigham Young, Dees dejectedly indicated to reporters that he has had enough of such talk.

“The only doom,” Dees said, “is my doom.”

Wyoming (12-3) is ranked 17th in the Associated Press poll.