Hill Doesn’t Have Clout, but He Has a Conscience

Fitz Hill didn’t wait for his seat to get hot. It’s as if he decided to walk straight past the La-Z-Boy and plop down on a Weber grill.

Hill is beginning his first season as San Jose State’s head football coach with today’s game against USC at the Coliseum.

At a school with a history of modest success (its last bowl appearance was in the defunct California Raisin Bowl in 1990) in a profession with high turnover (try five coaches at his school since that bowl game), Hill has poured on the lighter fluid by speaking out on the always volatile subject of race.

He is an African American, one of only five among the ranks of the 116 Division I-A head football coaches. And he doesn’t shy away from addressing the puny numbers. He has appeared on “Nightline” and HBO’s “Real Sports.” He has talked about it in numerous newspaper interviews.

The football world doesn’t like people who challenge the status quo. As if his first head coaching job weren’t enough, Hill has taken on the additional pressure of becoming a leading voice on this sensitive issue.

“My deal is, what are we going to be known for when we leave this earth?” Hill said. “I have a 1-year-old son. I’m only blessed because of people like Dr. Martin Luther King. He sacrificed his life, basically, for people like me to have this chance. I hope, when [my son] comes of age, him being the first [African American] head coach of Notre Dame is a reality and not just a dream.

“My approach is to educate people about the situation. My thing is to create dialogue, not a divide.”

Traditionally, the flag bearers for minority causes in sports have been those who were the most firmly entrenched. John Thompson, for example, had already established his Georgetown basketball program as a power and won a national championship before he staged his famous two-game boycott in 1989 to protest the NCAA’s Proposition 42, which prevented partial qualifiers under Prop. 48 from receiving financial aid. (Prop. 42 was rescinded the next year). Thompson used to tell other black coaches to let him do the talking and attract all of the missiles, because he knew he was bulletproof. .

Hill doesn’t have that kind of clout. Oh, he has the credentials to speak knowledgeably on the topic--he wrote a doctoral thesis exploring the difficulties facing black coaches in the hiring process. But he doesn’t have the track record to insulate him. That Ed.D in higher education he received from the University of Arkansas won’t help if he puts together a string of 3-8 seasons.

Just as Hill doesn’t shrink from the topic of hiring, he isn’t afraid to be judged on his record. He loves accountability. As a military man--he joined Army ROTC while at Ouachita Baptist University and served in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm--and a football coach, that’s the only way he knows.

“The greatest thing about being in this position is, it won’t be subjective,” Hill said. “It will be objective.

“If I can’t coach, I can’t coach. If we can’t execute, we can’t execute. That will be a direct reflection of me.”

It’s pretty much the opposite when it comes to getting a coaching job for African Americans.

Hill got a quick lesson in the way things work when he started off, as a graduate assistant at Northwestern Louisiana in 1988. He was at a coaches’ convention when a recently hired head coach walked by. Hill said he wanted to approach him about joining his staff. That brought a quick rebuke from Hill’s peers.

“They said, ‘He’s already hired the black coach he’s going to hire,”’ Hill said. “‘How long have you been coaching? I can tell you haven’t been in the profession a long time, because you don’t understand how the profession works.”’

So Hill studied. He read articles by Richard Lapchick, the director of the Center for the Study of Sport and Society. He conducted his own research.

He found that the same patterns emerged, over and over, for African American coaches. The onus is on them to make their potential supervisors feel comfortable. They are valued for their ability to recruit in the ‘hood, not their teaching skills. They are judged collectively, not individually (i.e., if a black coach failed, the chances of hiring another black coach to replace him dropped dramatically).

But above all, there are the numbers. The sad, sorry numbers. About half of the Division I-A football players are black, but only one-fifth of the assistant coaches are black. Of the 25 head coaching positions that opened in the off-season--including the prized USC job--only the one at San Jose State was filled by an African American.

And when African Americans are hired, it’s almost always to the least desirable positions, such as Wake Forest or Temple. Schools with built-in success rates, such as Notre Dame and Michigan, remain off-limits.

“I’ve never pointed the finger at anybody,” Hill said. “All I’ve done is research the material and put it out there.”

Spreading the word has become Hill’s passion.

“I’ve been mesmerized by it,” he said. “I don’t play golf; research is my hobby. I love to coach and be with my family and read and write.”

He isn’t too professorial; the cover of the San Jose State media guide shows him sitting on a couch with running back Deonce Whitaker and offensive lineman Chris Fe’esago, playing Sony PlayStation in a potato chip-covered apartment.

Although he considers himself a “sports sociologist,” Hill would love to be a simple coach. He wants to take up golf. He wants to spend interviews talking about the game, a subject that didn’t come up once when we talked this week.

But for now, exposing the injustices and working for change is his top priority. Too many people made sacrifices for him to get this job. Too many people before him were denied the opportunity.

“How long will I continue to do it?” Hill said. “When you stop asking. That would mean there’s no longer a problem.”

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J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: j.a.adande@latimes.com.