Rose Parade Critics Step Up Pressure : Protest: In a news conference at Tournament headquarters, 28-year volunteer Daniel L. Towler questions why he or other minorities were never appointed to top committee.

Former Los Angeles Rams running back Daniel L. Towler said this week that his 28 years as a volunteer with the Tournament of Roses had produced fond memories but, suspiciously to him, no promotions to leadership positions in the volunteer organization.

“I have never received a direct answer as to why I and other minorities have not been promoted,” said Towler, 65, who is black.

Towler, a Methodist minister serving as a chaplain at Cal State L.A., joined a group of community and church leaders who charged the tournament with racism at a news conference Tuesday in front of Tournament House on Orange Grove Boulevard in Pasadena.

Members of the Coalition Against Racism, threatening to disrupt the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day, are demanding that the tournament appoint four new minority members, including Towler, to its executive committee--which is composed of nine white men.

“They have said to us point-blank that the reason they cannot do this is because there are no African-Americans who are qualified,” said Brotherhood Crusade President Danny Bakewell, a leader of the protesters.

Group members, who have vowed to hold a “counter-parade” Jan. 1, introduced Towler as an example of one who they believe is qualified for the tournament’s executive committee. Towler is a former member and president of the Los Angeles County Board of Education and the holder of a Ph.D. in education from USC.

A tournament official said Towler is a good member of the tournament but that he had not devoted the kind of time required of the organization’s top leadership.

“It’s not just giving 100% but 150% or 175%,” said William Flinn, the tournament’s associate executive director. “It eats into business and family life.”

Flinn denied that tournament officials had told leaders of the coalition that no minority tournament members were qualified to be on the executive committee.

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Towler, known as “Deacon Dan” when he was plowing through opposing lines in the early 1950s, said he had served on 15 tournament committees during his years as a volunteer. But when it came to appointing committee chairmen, he said, the tournament’s predominantly white leadership had consistently bypassed him.

“I think it’s like a lot of other organizations,” Towler said. “It becomes inbred. The leaders only look to the people they know and associate with to be part of the leadership group.”

Towler scoffed at the notion that he had not put in enough time to become a tournament executive. Though he has been active for years in education and community affairs, he said, he has completed all the tasks asked of him by the tournament.

“You never ask a person who’s not busy to do significant work,” Towler said.

Towler, who as a 65-year-old is required by tournament bylaws to retire next year, added that he did not share the coalition’s view of the tournament. “I’m not in conflict with the tournament, just as I’m not in conflict with the U.S. government, though I don’t believe it lives up to the Constitution of the United States,” he said.

Towler said that on New Year’s Day, he will be manning a post along the parade route as a member of the tournament’s Guest Committee. “I’ll be right up there on the corner,” he said, pointing down Orange Grove Boulevard.

Flinn defended the tournament’s membership practices, listing a series of measures enacted by the tournament to bring more minorities into its ranks and to diversify its leadership. “Charges of racism at the Tournament of Roses are absolutely untrue,” Flinn said.