There’s diversity in sports that we regularly see, namely the players. But what about diversity in key areas where business decisions are routinely made?
Richard Lapchick, director of The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) located at the University of Central Florida, annually grades the various pro leagues and college sports’ racial hiring practices. “[TIDES] strives to emphasize the value of diversity to sports organizations when they choose their team on the field and in the office,” Lapchick says of his Racial and Gender Report Card (RGRC).
Minnesota Lynx Executive Vice President Roger Griffith asked me how I would grade his club. Following is my answer to him and to the other Twin Cities sports organizations:
The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) received an A for race for the seventh time in league history, says Lapchick. Sheila Johnson is the only Black woman to hold any ownership in a WNBA team — she is the Washington Mystics president and the only Black or person of color to hold such a role.
However, there are no Blacks on the Minnesota Lynx’s “dedicated” staff (the team shares operations with the Timberwolves). It’s therefore hard to give the local women’s team anything higher than an F.
The NBA has had the best grade (A) among the men’s pro leagues for race for two decades, reports Lapchick: one Black owner, four Black presidents, three Blacks in charge of day-to-day operations, 32 Black vice presidents, and 14 percent of senior administrators are Black.
However, a total of seven Blacks — four in basketball operations, one creative services manager, and two in client development — are in the Minnesota Timberwolves’ front office. This calls for an F grade as well.
Lapchick says Major League Baseball got an A in 2010, but only six Blacks are among the 100 individuals identified as front office staff in the 2010 Twins media guide. As a result, we give them an F grade.
The National Football League (NFL) achieved an A grade in racial hiring, which Lapchick claims was the league’s first such grade in this area: five Black general managers and 15 Black vice presidents with Blacks comprising 14 percent of senior administration positions and 10 percent of professional administration.
Yet, according to the Minnesota Vikings staff directory, 17 Blacks are identified as front office personnel, considerably more than their sporting counterparts in baseball. This earns the football team a D grade.
College sports’ key leadership positions nationwide, outside of Black colleges and universities, remain overwhelmingly White and male, says Lapchick. “We’re still underrepresented definitely in administration,” notes Maria Tyson, assistant director for academic support at North Carolina State University.
Locally at the University of Minnesota, we find only one Black associate athletics director and one Black head coach. This gives us no other choice but to award the school an F grade.
Lapchick’s annual reports, which he releases league-by-league throughout the year, tend to get at best a couple of paragraphs’ recognition in the local newspapers. Whenever local officials are asked about their diversity efforts, their response is usually the same old story.
Wolves and Lynx owner Glen Taylor offered no comment when asked.
“I don’t want to be defensive because I don’t think we have to defend ourselves,” claims Griffith. “When people do leave, we do focus on [diversity] and we do spend time on it. We do think about it.”
Chris Wright, Wolves president, says, “We look to develop a diverse work environment both on the players’ side, the coaching side, the basketball operations side and on the business side. We take that into account in every decision that we make.”
“I feel very strongly that we can do better, but I also don’t feel that we are failing,” says Wolves Basketball Operations President David Kahn.
“We are a very diverse organization, not just in the locker room but across the board in the organization,” says Vikings Vice President Lester Bagley. “We got front office executives Kimberly (Fields, the team’s civic and business affairs director) and Kevin Warren, our vice president and general counsel.”
Joel Maturi, U of M athletics director, says, “I think we are at least sensitive to it, and that’s the good news. The bad news is the numbers don’t show that we’ve made the improvement.”
Do these teams and the state’s largest university sports program take Lapchick’s report cards seriously? When the majority of players are Black, shouldn’t we expect something close to this majority in the front office as well? Our local teams and the university must be consistently challenged to improve their diversity, making it more than an afterthought, but rather a before-and-during thought as well.
Shouldn’t we expect our teams to see diversity as more than a couple of folk who look different from the majority of those in their administrative offices? Shouldn’t we see this diversity in the invaluable roles that impact the teams’ bottom lines?
“There may come a day when, I hope…we don’t have to do this anymore,” surmises Lapchick on his RGRCs. “But I don’t see that happening soon.”
To read Lapchick’s RGRCs, go to www.tidesport.org.
Charles Hallman welcomes reader responses to challman@spokesman-recorder.com.
