Clayton Pottinger has had tremendous success as a basketball coach for 14 years. His teams won almost 80 percent of their games.
But there was never an opportunity to train on the next level.
As a black head coach, he often wondered why.
“I don’t know 100 percent of the reasons for this. I don’t know it’s a race, but I don’t judge that,” Pottinger told CBC Sports. “I was interviewed for three positions, but overlooked – not even granted an interview dozens of times. It got to a point where I didn’t think it would happen.”
Pottinger’s story may sound like a story that is often told south of the border, but his story is Canadian.
He finally broke through in March of last year and got his first job at Canadian university when UBC-Okanagan appointed him head coach of his men’s basketball team.
The 49-year-old Pottinger joined a small group of black coaches who have achieved the highest management positions in Canadian university sports.
For decades, North American professional sports leagues have been flagellated in key positions in leadership and coaching due to the lack of black and black people.
An investigation by CBC Sports shows that the problem is widespread in Canadian sports.
A visual audit conducted by CBC Sports examined hundreds of key positions at all 56 Canadian universities that compete against each other under the umbrella of the U Sports national governing body, including the sports director and head coach of the school for football, basketball, hockey and football for men and women Track.
Of the almost 400 positions examined, only about 10 percent were occupied by black, indigenous or colored people (BIPOC). Only one of the 56 schools has a non-white sports director.
“You could go to any website at any university and you would see that one of the five principles or goals is diversity and inclusion, but you see the numbers in our studies, you see that [CBC’s] Numbers, “said Dr. Richard Lapchick, founder and director of the Institute for Diversity, Ethics, and Sports. The institute at the University of Central Florida was the first institute to begin creating racist breakdowns of hiring practices in the United States.
According to Lapchick, filling leadership positions at North American colleges is not always the result of overt racism, but rather a stubborn network of old boys.
“If you have a white sports director and a white one [university] President and you hire key people in your sports department. The people they know are most likely white, “said Lapchick.” So, in this selection process, they will turn to them, as opposed to whom [else] could be out there. “
The recent murder of George Floyd by the police in Minneapolis in May focused the lens on racial inequality in everyday life in North America. Hundreds of thousands of people have filled the streets of the city and called for an end to systemic racism.
Many companies and organizations, including the CBC, have been forced to recognize both the lack of diversity among executives and to combat systemic racism in internal and external management.
The world of sport has not escaped this test.
Leagues condemn racism
After Floyd’s death, professional leagues across North America made statements condemning racism and promised to do better. The players called for change. Leagues like the NFL, in which 70 percent of the players are black or black, promised to do more to reflect this in their coaching staff and leadership. And after NFL commissioner Roger Goodell had discouraged external signs of protest for years, such as kneeling during the U.S. national anthem, the circle closed and encouraged players to express themselves.
In Canada, the recently hired Pottinger says, there is still a long way to go. UBC-Okanagan is one of only three universities in Canada that has a head coach for both black men and women. He points to an undercurrent of bias when it comes to how leadership positions are filled.
“People with color are not necessarily seen as people with these skills. We can shoot tires, we can make baskets, we can play defensive games,” said Pottinger. “But if you ask us to lead a team, there are always a few question marks in my opinion whether you can or not.”
CBC Sports presented its results to representatives of U Sports and the four conferences that govern the Canadian university sports system.
Neither group rejected or denied the results. At the same time, however, little seems to have been done to formally track who is hired and why.
The NCAA, which is responsible for university sports in the USA, maintains a database in which the demographic data of athletes, coaches and administrators is recorded. U Sports don’t.
Most responses indicated progress in gender equality, but admitted that little was done to promote and promote more BIPOC candidates and attitudes.
Everyone involved in the upper reaches of Canadian university sports has recognized that there is still a lot to do in terms of diversity in leadership positions.
At the same time, U-sports officials claim that they are largely unable to change things.
“One of Our basic principles are institutional freedom. Therefore, the hiring is based on the personnel policies of the member universities in accordance with the provincial labor laws, “the organization said in its statement.
balancing act
The director of Atlantic University Sport (AUS), Phil Currie, called it a balancing act.
“The hiring of athletics directors or sports coaches / co-coaches is done according to the policies and practices of our member institutions, and as such, the AUS has no direct control over this process,” said Currie, who oversees athletics in the Atlantic provinces.
“CBC’s summary of the number of BIPOC head coaches shows this, and we recognize that these numbers are not where they need to be,” he said.
The lack of diversity in leadership is equally strong among Canada’s major Olympic institutions. CBC Sports examined the board of directors of the Canadian Olympic Committee and seven of the country’s largest national sports organizations: swimming, athletics, hockey, skating, basketball, volleyball and soccer.
Everywhere around 100 board members have the task of representing thousands of athletes. Only seven of these key positions are held by BIPOC. For example, the 17-member COC board consists of 16 white directors and only one BIPOC.
“Our considerations after last month’s events have confirmed that while we have made important advances in diversity and inclusion, we need to do more,” the COC said in a statement to CBC Sports.
“Although our board of directors reflects diversity in a number of key measures, including gender, LGBTQ +, language, etc., there is no denying that we need to make a significant effort to address BIPOC diversity on our board.”
The COC promised to change the composition of its board by taking a number of measures, including no longer just the public request to appoint board members.
Across the board, the national sports organizations contacted by CBC Sports recognize major shortcomings in the racist makeup of their key leadership positions.
Athletics Canada said it was “probably the most comprehensive sport in Canada in terms of racist participation,” but its board must “better represent what the sport looks like on the field.”
Basketball Canada also recognized a huge gap between players and decision makers.
“Our Canadian national basketball teams are among the most ethnically diverse in our country, but we recognize that our organization still has some executive-level tasks to do outside of court,” said a statement.
For some, the change was elusive. Hockey Canada said it had “worked in different phases to address areas of diversity in recent years,” but its entire board was made up of white men as of July 1st.
CBC Sports also examined 500 leadership positions in professional ranks and found that most of them reflect the results mentioned above.
CBC Sports has compiled data including team ownership, team president, general manager and head coach in seven major leagues: NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, CFL, WNBA and NWSL.
Only the NBA, in which more than 80 percent of the players are BIPOC, has reached nearly 25 percent of leadership positions filled by people who look like the majority of their athletes, according to studies by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports.
In the MLB, where 41 percent of the players are BIPOC, only seven out of 100 managerial positions considered are filled by colored people.
In the CFL, only about 10 percent of the league’s key leadership positions are filled by people who are not white. This is a clear departure from the racist composition of the league on the field.
One of the league’s two black head coaches is former quarterback Khari Jones, who has been head coach in Montreal since June 2019.
After an outstanding career in CFL, he worked as an assistant coach in Hamilton, BC and Saskatchewan for a decade.
Jones said he doubted he would ever become head coach.
“You see that so many African Americans are playing the game, but they don’t have the chance to train and play leading roles,” he told CBC Sports. “It never scared me. It’s just a sad thing, even when I knew I wanted to start coaching and I knew my goal was to become head coach.”
According to Jones, it will be difficult to make changes until more BIPOC employees have teams or leadership roles with the authority to hire.
“All owners are white, so they tend to go that route when hiring,” said Jones.
“It gets really daunting when you don’t think you have a real chance or when you don’t get a job that other people seem to be getting.”
