COLLEGE BASKETBALL : NCAA ISSUES AND THE MEN’S, WOMEN’S TOURNAMENTS : Q & A / WITH RUDY WASHINGTON : Coach Takes On NCAA Over Issues of Equality

America didn’t have a clue about the Black Coaches Assn. until January, when the 3,000-member organization threatened to shut down college basketball with a nationwide boycott. In the time it took to issue the threat, the BCA suddenly became a major power broker in college athletics.

At the core of the BCA’s concerns is the belief that NCAA legislation and policies don’t have the student-athlete’s--more specifically, the minority student-athlete’s--best interests at heart. The boiling point was reached at the NCAA Convention in January, when the powerful Presidents Commission chose not to support an amendment that would have returned the men’s basketball scholarship level from 13 to 14.

The BCA, as well as the National Assn. of Basketball Coaches, thought an understanding had been reached with the university presidents regarding the scholarship limit before the convention. Instead, the presidents shot down the proposal, which ultimately prompted the BCA and its executive director, Drake Coach Rudy Washington, to talk openly of a boycott.

Frustrated by its inability to work within the NCAA legislative system, the BCA decided enough was enough. It and the NABC believed they had, in essence, been betrayed by the Presidents Committee. Rather than do what it usually did--nothing--the BCA demanded that the system be reworked . . . or else.

Among the BCA’s complaints:

--A decreased number of educational opportunities for minority athletes.

--Decreased access of coaches to players.

--A lack of minority hiring in the upper reaches of the NCAA hierarchy.

--Concern over standardized academic eligibility standards and NCAA research involving those standards.

The or-else strategy worked. Not long after the threatened strike, the Justice Department arranged for federal mediation between the BCA and the NCAA. Those discussions are ongoing.

For the BCA, which was formed nearly seven years ago by 29 coaches, most of them assistants, the federal mediation was a major triumph. For Washington, who has been with the BCA from its birth, it was simply another step in a long walk.

Washington, 42, grew up in Los Angeles and his resume shows stints at Verbum Dei and Locke high schools, USC, Compton College, Clemson and Iowa before he took his first head coaching job in 1990.

Washington recently agreed to an interview to discuss the BCA’s genesis and agenda at his Des Moines, Iowa, office.

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Question: How would you describe the BCA’s power base and why do you think the BCA can change the way the NCAA does business?

Answer: I think this is the first time there’s ever been any organized effort, especially in college athletics, to challenge the system. It’s very difficult to say what makes us powerful. Obviously the people make us powerful in the organization, in their willingness to participate.

We didn’t expect 100% participation and never did in terms of a boycott situation. But who cares if Appalachian State and East Carolina boycott? But if Duke and North Carolina boycott, then you get maximum results. The boycott wasn’t necessarily meant to hurt individual schools, which it would have. But it’s more to really get into the pockets of the NCAA and its member institutions because of the TV contract.

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Q: There was a recent PBS documentary on Malcolm X and near the end of the program someone asks Malcolm X . . .

A: . . . Are you militant?

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Q: That’s right. And he says . . .

A: . . . No, I’m Malcolm.

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Q: So then, are you a militant?

A: No. I think it’s just me.

I didn’t come up in a militant time. When the Watts riots broke out on 115th Street and Avalon, I lived three blocks from there. As a child of 13 or 14, I could sit on my porch and listen to the windows breaking. At the time, there was a place around the corner from me on 120th called Shop-Rite. The drug store was there and I . . . could sit on my front porch and (watch) people running up and down my street with couches and televisions. It was entertainment. It wasn’t even real life.

My mom and dad were both at home. We didn’t participate. We didn’t get involved in the riots at all. As a child, I saw the whole thing transpire. I watched the police come, the National Guard. I watched the looting, I watched the killings. That was at 14 years old.

You never realize what it is to be black until you have to live it, and you live it every single day. I’m reminded every day that I’m black. Somebody says something to me that reminds me that I’m black. I think it’s a uniqueness, particularly in my situation, that you have a foot in two worlds.

I’ve often told my white counterparts that my life is much more integrated than theirs. I have to live in their world. Yet, when I have to go back to my world, usually I’m just alone and with other blacks. When they go home, they’re simply in their own white world. Even though they reach out and try to touch us sometime, it’s a very difficult thing to do.

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Q: Do you think people truly understand what the BCA is trying to do?

A: No, they definitely don’t understand it. That’s what’s so difficult about what we’re doing. I think the public, when it’s on its way to work, a doughnut and cup of coffee, it simply centers around one word. Like this time it was, “They’re boycotting because they didn’t get the 14th scholarship.” And that became the issue. That’s easy for the American public to consume, but it wasn’t even close to the issue itself. As a result of that, people don’t take time to understand the issues and read, point-counterpoint. They simply take sides.

Supposedly in our legal system, it’s illegal to lead a witness to a conclusion. But the press does it every single day and I’m not so sure that the columnists and journalists who are writing this stuff understand it. That’s why it’s difficult for me to do TV interviews because they want to do a sound bite in two minutes or three minutes. I can’t explain . . . how it directly affects what we’re doing in the NCAA in three minutes. You can’t do it.

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Q: Did the BCA do a very good job of explaining those issues to America?

A: I think the issues are constantly being formulated. As a result of that, it’s difficult to say, “Here are the issues.” You can set down some issues, but you may have to expand on that.

You talk about academics. The first thing we were dealing with was, “Black coaches are against academic standards.” That’s ridiculous.

The problem is, when you’re fighting a billion-dollar corporation like the NCAA, and you’ve got coaches who don’t have the ability to have public relations people, press people and those kind of things, then there’s a good chance that (the NCAA is) going to sway public perception. They’re pros. I’m a basketball coach fighting for what I think is right.

But what has happened now because of a grass-roots support of the people, perhaps public opinion is beginning to balance a bit. But those people are pros and we just don’t have the manpower, the money or the time to battle them in terms of public perception.

Did we do a bad job? No, because we knew there was a particular problem and we wanted to address it. It’s important to mention that we also sent our representative for coaches (Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski) to the NCAA convention the year before last and he was literally laughed off the stage. I think at that point, white coaches started to realize that they didn’t have the power they thought they had, either.

Here you take a guy from Duke University, a prestigious academic institution, and you have a clean cut, non-controversial guy, Mike Krzyzewski--two national championships in America’s hotbed of basketball, North Carolina--and he comes to make a passionate appeal to America’s (university) presidents and they more or less toss him off the stage and discard him as just another person who wants to win a game. I think that’s when everybody started to say, “Hey, what’s going on here?”

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Q: Do you think Walter Byers or Dick Schultz (former NCAA executive directors) or Cedric Dempsey (newly elected NCAA executive director) appreciate the problems encountered by black coaches and athletes?

A: I think it would be very difficult and it gets back to the thing of having a foot in both worlds. I don’t think any white person can feel like a black person, or vice versa.

I do think, though, that there is a median for sensitivity for a particular problem. I thought Dick Schultz was good at that. I thought he tried to understand. I think Ced Dempsey will be excellent at that. I think Ced has had the experience of being an athletic director. He’s actually touched some kids’ lives, black kids in particular. He’s been at some very good schools. I think he’ll do a good job, but right now he’s in a tough political position.

He just accepted the job and you’ve got the African-Americans at one door knocking, trying to get in, and you’ve got gender equity at the other door knocking to get in. You’ve got cost containment at another door and you have the almighty Presidents Commission. He’s in a tough political position, there’s no question about it. It’s something he’s going to have to work out.

Now if this was still Dick Schultz, he would have had his network and political factions in order. He would have had his lobbying efforts in order. This catches Cedric at a very difficult time because he doesn’t even know who he can depend on for certain things.

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Q: Do you think the NCAA is inherently racist?

A: I don’t like to label anything and I’m not going to say the NCAA is racist. When you talk about the NCAA, we have to define what the NCAA is. Are we talking about the national office or are we talking about the individual institutions around the country?

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Q: We’re talking about that billion-dollar corporation you referred to.

A: I don’t think they’re inherently racist. I don’t think that’s it. I think a lot of the presidents and the people making the decisions have a mentality like this: If you want to get rid of poverty, let’s stop feeding the poor.

With them thinking like that, that’s how it directly affects us in legislative things that come down the pike. I can’t say if a person is racist or not.

If a white person disagrees with a black person, that does not make him racist. I don’t like to put that label on anybody. When white people get that label as racist, they can never get it off. . . . If you don’t like me because of me, that’s one thing. But if you don’t like me because I’m in a group of people, then that’s a whole different thing.

So I’m very reluctant to say that about the NCAA itself. I will say because of its makeup and structure, it is extremely difficult for them to be sensitive, whether it be women’s or minorities’ needs. They just don’t have the input they need. You can’t have, say, 15 white men (actually, 14) at the top of this organization, making decisions for women and blacks, and think they’re going to hit every sensitive point that needs to be addressed. It’s virtually impossible and it’s a lot to ask them.

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Q: Are you worried about your job security if there’s a boycott?

A: I’m not as secure as my three counterparts (Temple Coach John Chaney, USC Coach George Raveling, Georgetown’s John Thompson). They make a good dollar. I don’t make six figures.

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Q: So you have more to lose.

A: Absolutely. There’s no question about it. But I probably have more to gain, because I’m younger. If you’re talking about public perception and all that, I’m probably just starting my career. I feel strongly enough about the issue that I need to fight that. Unfortunately, most of our people, meaning African-Americans, will die like they lived their lives: asleep. They never know what’s going on around them. I just felt a real need to take a step and make some things work for us.

I’m younger than them, I’m a protege of theirs and I’m learning a lot. I think all of them will retire at their particular institutions. I don’t think Chaney, Thompson or Raveling will be going anywhere else. They’ll stop right there, where I’m looking to move. Now, taking this position might set me back, but I’m very comfortable with that.

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Q: How do you respond to the people who say, “Here we go again. The black coaches are complaining about something else.” What makes this movement so different?

A: We have the ability to stop work now. I was just thinking about that. This is no different from a man ignoring his wife, and his wife wants a new pair of shoes. So she asks for them for six months, and one day the husband comes home and nothing is done that was usually done and it becomes a crisis. So he takes her out and they go buy the shoes. . . . She creates a crisis. This is no more than that.

We’ve been talking about these things for years and the NCAA kept saying, “Yes, we’ll put a committee together. We’ll study it. We’ll do this, yes, yes.”

And then we say, “Well, we’re not going to play any basketball. You’re not going to make any money. This thing is going to stop until something is done.”

Call it a crisis, a dramatic gesture, if you will. As a result, we get the attention to deal with these avenues. We were forced to do this. This isn’t something we wanted to do.

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Q: Is there disagreement within the BCA on the wisdom of a boycott?

A: Sure there is. I think one of the worst things in the world is that people think all blacks think alike, that we should all be in lock-step with one another. When the (NCAA convention) vote was 191-119 (against restoring a 14th scholarship for men’s basketball), there were a lot of whites that agreed, but didn’t agree. It’s no different for blacks. We all have our own individual problems on our own individual campuses.

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Q: What do you see as the future of the BCA?

A: The organization has taken on a life of its own. I got a letter from a young lady in the Pac-10 who feels like she’s being discriminated against. We’re getting more and more requests for somebody to stand up, whether it be students, coaches, whatever. We’re kind of being looked on by black people as somebody they can turn to, have a sympathetic ear and defend them if necessary. I think that’s where we’re headed.

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Q: Do you feel like a martyr of sorts?

A: To be honest with you, I get scared like everyone else on different issues. But what I’m doing, I believe in. It’s easy to continue because it’s what I believe in. I’ve never seen myself as a martyr. I’m the last guy to go up front. I’m the kind of guy who likes to stay in the back.

When we went to Washington D.C. the first time, I stayed in the back. When we have our conventions, I never go to the microphone. I always let someone else handle the process up there. I kind of enjoy being in the background. But I do know there are times when I do have to stand up front and be a leader.

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Q: Do you think your role in the BCA could hurt you professionally?

A: It could. It might. There’s people out there who . . . either like me or don’t. That’s good with me. At least, there’s no gray areas. That’s OK, because I have a problem with people who are neutral. I think people who like me will give me an opportunity. People who don’t like me, that’s the way it is.

If you’re an insecure athletic director, would you want this so-called 53rd most powerful person (according to a 1993 Sporting News ranking of sports figures) in the country on your staff? Am I somebody you can work with? That’s something you’re going to have to ask the athletic directors.

I know that siding up with me is dangerous for some people. You find very few athletic directors and presidents who are willing to side up with the coaches. They might agree with them behind closed doors, but in order for them to take a public stance, that’s a tough thing for a lot of them.

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Q: It appears your job might have been in jeopardy had you participated in the boycott.

A: I realized that, but (Drake administrators) never told me that. They never sat down and outlined that and I appreciated that, not issuing an ultimatum. I think you never go to war without having casualties. Is this something that is that important to me? My answer is yes, it is that important to me. I don’t think there’s a parent out there who wouldn’t give his life to give a better life for his child. That’s the way I feel about that. I’m committed.

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Q: It’s also true you received death threats because of your involvement with the BCA, isn’t it?

A: I got some good advice from George Raveling not long ago. He said, “Listen, have your secretary get all of your hate mail and death threats, take them out of the envelope and don’t read them.” He said all it does is depress you. When I first started this job, it really used to bother me. But now the more and more death threats I get, the less it bothers me.

. . . I’ve found when I do read some of the negative mail it’s because the people don’t understand the issues. That’s what makes them react the way they do.

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Q: OK, let’s go through the issues.

A: There are four major issues.

The first one is academic standards for eligibility. In that arena right there, there is obviously apparent conflict between NCAA data and increasing academic standards. I think that we need to revisit some of these because it (disproportionately) affects minorities. That’s it in a nutshell.

Also, I think we should reconsider freshman eligibility. When you try to judge someone on test scores and grades, it makes it very difficult. I think the only way to judge whether the kid can do the work or not is let the kid do the work.

No. 2 is gender equity. How will it affect African-American females. Once black women fight for gender equity, they have to turn around and fight for racial equity. We’re simply saying, “Take a good hard look at that, because you may not want to fight for gender equity. Because while you’re running around campaigning for gender equity, well, once you achieve that, racial equity is the balance.”

People don’t hire black women because they’re women, it’s because they’re black. When white women get a job, it’s because of gender equity. It (disproportionately) affects them.

It’s difficult to explain to people in basketball and football who are black how you can increase sports on one side of the ledger for women, but decrease them in two major sports that black men make up a large percentage of. So it does affect African-American males. But we support gender equity. We just want to make sure it doesn’t hurt anybody.

We support academic standards, but we don’t want to hurt anybody. We believe in individual assessment when it comes to academic standards. Because high school education isn’t standardized, how can you do it in college? What they’re learning at Jordan High School in Watts, they’re not teaching at Valley High School in West Des Moines, Iowa. Two different worlds. Yet, those two different kids could end up in the same class next year. They could both be at UCLA or USC in history class, sitting side by side, coming from two different worlds.

No. 3, accessibility to student-athletes is another issue. The rules just preclude coaches from being role models. It doesn’t give us access to our own kids on our own teams on our own campus in our community.

The last one, of course, is the issue of hiring minorities. I was told once there are no exclusionary tactics going on. But when you have three football coaches, six athletic directors, one is a woman, 20 women basketball coaches, 40 men’s basketball coaches, no black commissioners in the country, in the top 35 conferences--you’re right, exclusionary tactics might not be taking place, but I’m paranoid as hell about the whole thing. Makes you think a little bit about what is going on.

There’s not one African-American in the top 15 of the NCAA national office. They couldn’t find one to make the final five in the executive director’s job.

If I told you 30 years ago that in 1994 the Palestinians and the Israelis would be in Washington talking peace and living in the same hotel . . . that the Berlin Wall would be down . . . that black and white South Africans would be shaking hands and talking in an effort to unite their country . . . and that Russia would no longer be as we know it . . . but in America in college athletics we’re fighting for opportunities and access, you’d have me toted away in a strait jacket. Yet, here we are today and those things are happening.

It’s a sad state right now that we’re in. Something has to be done.

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Q: In your own BCA literature, you quote Arthur Ashe. Didn’t Ashe share some of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s (recently stated) feelings, that blacks shouldn’t be afraid of the academic bar being raised?

A: I think Arthur also did mention, too, that his battle with racism was tougher than his battle with AIDS. People never talk about that. We’re not against standards. We’re against denial of opportunities. That’s where this argument comes in. We’re not saying, “Don’t raise standards.” But if you raise the standards, that’s one thing, but don’t deny opportunities based on those standards.

People are doing this for freshmen in college. But the problem isn’t when we get them. The problem is before we get them, at the elementary, junior high and high school levels. Any reasonable man will support standards. But when you start talking about specific standards and where people fall, it becomes very dangerous.

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Q: Former Marquette coach Al McGuire (who once served on the BCA’s advisory board) recently said that the BCA’s involvement with politicians isn’t altogether wise. His reasoning was that politicians are attracted to what he called, “bright lights,” that as soon as another hot issue arrives, the BCA will be left without a guardian angel.

A: One thing we do have is the Congressional Black Caucus. We have a permanent task force formed with them now, which gives us government intervention if we need it. I would think that Al is probably right. The NCAA is capable of devouring us and doing whatever they want. But they can’t take away the fighting spirit from us. I don’t think this fight is over. It will continue until something is done that people are comfortable with.

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Q: Give us the worst-case scenario and a best-case scenario involving your dispute over policy with the NCAA.

A: I think the worst-case scenario is there’s a boycott and coaches and players lose scholarships and jobs.

The best-case scenario is sitting down at the table and working toward a solution.