The Sotomayor Nomination

Yesterday, I came across this in an opinion piece by Ilya Shapiro posted on cnn.com, criticizing President Obama's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court:

[I]n over 10 years on the Second Circuit, she has not issued any important decisions or made a name for herself as a legal scholar or particularly respected jurist. In picking a case to highlight during his introduction of the nominee, President Obama had to go back to her days as a trial judge and a technical ruling that ended the 1994-95 baseball strike.

Moreover, Sotomayor has a mixed reputation among lawyers who have practiced before her, some questioning her abilities as a judicial craftsman, others her erratic temperament, according to a piece by Jeffrey Rosen in The New Republic, which itself has come in for criticism.

Such anecdotal criticism is to be taken with a grain of salt -- while Justice Antonin Scalia's bench-side manner is more vinegar than honey, even his detractors recognize his brilliance -- but it does need to be investigated. So, too, do certain statements she made in presentations at Berkeley and Duke, respectively, the former arguing that a Latina necessarily sees the law differently than a white man, the latter suggesting that, at least to some degree, judges make rather than interpret law.

Am I correct in reading this to mean that Shapiro's primary beef with Sotomayor is her lack of "brilliance"? I mean, he shrugs off criticisms of her demeanor (apparently on the grounds that any failing of Antonin Scalia's must not be a failing at all), but huffs and puffs that she is no "legal scholar," "respected jurist," or "judicial craftsman." Seriously, how important is brilliance?

Here's a lesson from the real world and the practice of law: past a certain point, additional intelligence provides only short-term advantages. Being smart means you'll pick up the concepts more quickly than others. It means you might be able to come up with cleverer or more intricate arguments, more quickly. But over the long haul, those benefits never trump experience in the trenches. Yes, the Supreme Court is a very important post, and an impressive intellect is an asset; but an astounding intellect is unnecessary.

Secondly, there seems to be something hypocritical (or at least dissembling) about Shapiro's admonition that Sotomayor "has not issued any important decisions or made a name for herself as a legal scholar or particularly respected jurist." To me, this reads as follows: "Judge Sotomayor has failed to leave a satisfactory smoking gun evidencing her liberal activism, which makes my job difficult, since I'm supposed to call her a liberal judicial activist. Therefore, I will paint her failure to stake out such liberal positions as evidence of her intellectual lethargy." In other words, had Sotomayor staked out any clever, novel, or interesting legal positions, Shapiro would be criticizing her for having taken those positions, instead of criticizing her, as he does here, for not having taken them.

Thirdly, Shapiro criticizes Sotomayor for commenting that judges make rather than interpret the law. If you read Shapiro's bio, you will see that he is a lawyer with an impressive-sounding resumé. This is surprising, because he is apparently quite a dim bulb himself. I attended a state law school, where I was taught by outspoken liberals and outspoken conservatives. Not one of them, regardless of their political persuasion, would have denied that in certain circumstances, a judge has the responsibility to make the law. "Interpreting, not making, the law," is something the public likes to hear about its judges, but it has never been the whole story.

Imagine this scenario: a criminal defendant has been tried in state court and found guilty of first degree murder. The jury deliberates, and votes 11-1 to impose the death penalty. A state statute provides that an 11-1 vote is all that is necessary to impose the death penalty. The defendant objects, saying that the state statute violates the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which ought to be interpreted to require unanimity in order to impose the death penalty. All the Due Process clause says is "No State shall... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." So which is it? Does the Due Process clause require unanimity or is 11-1 good enough? Either answer is plausible, but you can't support either one just from reading the Due Process clause. Say yes or say no, but your decision is not extrapolated from the meaning of the phrase "due process"; your decision gives meaning to the phrase "due process."

The take-away point is this: when the drafters of the Constitution or the legislation punt, the judiciary has to pick up the ball.

Lastly (for now), Shapiro criticizes Sotomayor for remarking that a Latina and a white man necessarily view the law differently. I actually can join Shapiro in being a little riled by this comment. Obviously she's playing to crude racial stereotypes here. Behind it is something like the ethnic imaginings typified in Jennifer Lopez romantic comedies: Latinas are all sassy hotel maids, and white men are all running for the U.S. Senate. You might as well say that black men and Sicilians necessarily have different views on the law—but then how do you explain Justices Thomas and Scalia? These are oversimplifications that should make us all blush, and frankly they're offensive.

On the other hand, by adding a little nuance, I don't think Sotomayor is very far from the truth. I think it's true to say that there are a lot of factors that influence one's view of the law (upbringing, religion, socioeconomic status, etc.), and many of those factors, statistically speaking, break along ethnic, racial, and gender lines. Because I am charitably-inclined, I'll spot her the benefit of the doubt, and assume that Sotomayor's comment was just ill-advised shorthand for the more nuanced version I've put forth.

Lip-Syncing and Musical Authenticity

It's not the sort of thing I talk about with you guys, but for the last three seasons, I have watched American Idol. This week was "Rock Week," but we can talk about "Whole Lotta Love" another time. What I'll talk about now is Paula Abdul's turn on the stage during tonight's elimiation show, performing a song called, "I'm Only Here for the Music." If you can YouTube it—well—I still couldn't really recommend it, but what you will see is a fairly intense dance number coupled with barely half-hearted lip-syncing. It's bad enough to make you wonder why she bothered moving her lips at all, when it was clear that the dancing, not the singing, was the focal point of the show. I got to wondering just that.

Why do artists lip-sync? Let's break lip-syncing down into it's two, even simpler components. Lip-syncing consists of: (1) not singing, but (2) appearing to sing.

There are perfectly good reasons why an artist might choose not to sing at his "live" performances. He might be sick. He might not actually be a very good singer. The choreography that the show demands might overtax his respiration, precluding vocalization. If you were a fan of a certain kind of music, and of the stage show that most often accompanies it, this last justification would be particularly forceful. Think about Britney Spears and her "Circus Tour" stage show.

But what purpose is served by appearing to sing? To the pop music concertgoer, is your enjoyment of the dance numbers augmented by the fact that the artist's lips are moving? To the afficionado of musical authenticity, would your opinion of Milli Vanilli be diminished if, instead of dancing and pretending to sing, they had just danced?

After Abdul's performance, No Doubt performed "Just a Girl," and Gwen Stefani was awkwardly as frenetic as she was in 1996: leaping, writhing like a tsunami was running up her spine, maybe almost actually throwing elbows at the audience as she made her way back up on stage after jumping down among them. Her painfully live vocals were not at all spot-on, but I can't help but feel like a part of her energy was inspired by the impossible-to-the-point-of absurdity "vocal" performance that Abdul had just given. It was a fuck-you. She was saying, "Here's what it really sounds like when you dance while singing."

This is why I love Mike Leach...

Aside from how much he whines, he might be more entertaining than Spurrier.

From Mike Huguenin at Rivals.com (story):

Third, Leach was incredulous that Texas A&M quarterback Stephen McGee – who was a reserve for much of his senior season – was drafted in the fourth round by Dallas (and Tech quarterback Graham Harrell – who led the nation in passing – wasn't drafted at all): "The Dallas Cowboys like him more than his coaches at A&M did."

Fourth, after Texas A&M coach Mike Sherman talked on back-to-back days about Leach's comments on McGee, Leach let fly again, with tongue firmly planted in his cheek: "I've always known A&M had great players. The fact that they have the luxury to put a third- or fourth-round draft pick on the bench, to me, identifies what a truly great team they are. It's an honor for us at Texas Tech to have the opportunity to play them. There are numerous players on our team that will never get a look or play a down in the NFL, so you can imagine how exciting it is for me and them to go play a team the magnitude of Texas A&M and look over there on the bench and see third- and fourth-round draft picks."

FCW: First Practise [Tag] Match

So, last Monday we had our first tag matches. For me, it was my first practise match. 10 minute limit. Steve would watch our matches and give critiques post-match.

I was working with three guys I never worked or trained with before. They were always in another ring. My partner was fine, but our opponents gave me a bit of worry. One of them was the moonsault guy and the other was the guy who may, in some ways, be the worst of the bunch. I've no doubt that he tries his best, he's just uncoordinated. Confusing his left with right. Positioning mistakes. Going waay too fast and not thinking fast enough to keep up with himself. We'll call this guy "J" to make this story easy.


Pre-match, I wanted to just take it as it happens, but J was plenty nervous. So I came up with a beginning. Being the heel, I would play around a little bit. Once we lock up, J, being bigger than me, would power me around. Push me down. Back me into the corner, etc. When we locked up again, I would out chain wrestle him down and work on his leg as agreed upon. I also pointed out that we need to pace ourselves and slow it down.



So the match starts, I play around a bit. We lock up and J puts me into a headlock. Completely bypassing the opening setup of our characters. He then starts calling moves, something he said for me to do, and none of these moves involve me taking him down and working on the leg.



So I follow and the the opportunity arose, I put him in a top wrist lock and told him to work it (to make sure he didn't reverse it 2 seconds later). I took him to his knees and held the lock. I told him to keep it slow, work the hold. He looked confused as to why he shouldn't reverse. I then told him to slowly power up (making him look good). Once he he regained his footing, I took him down and worked the leg. Elbow drops to the knee. Leg grapevines. I then dragged him to my corner for the tag. My partner came in and worked him over.



At some point, my partner hurts his knee (for real) and limping jumps over to tag me back in. By the time I reenter the match, J's knee has magically healed (Hogan-style) and he's on a blind, God-knows-what rampage. It was horrible. I tried to lead him into moves but he was lost.



In one spot: he called for me to give him a fireman's carry, a move where I drop to my knees and flip him over my shoulders. I drop down and, instead of flipping over my shoulders, he falls with all his dead weight on my shoulders, neck and head, nearly driving my face into the mat.



In another spot, he takes me down and tries to apply the figure 4 leg lock, but gives up half way and expects me to sell it. I shoot a "What the...?!" look at the supposed leg lock, then to Steve, then back to the leg lock. A classmate called it a "Figure 4 Lay There". I grab his unlocked leg, flip him over, and transition from a leg lock to a headlock which got laughs and cheers.



In the final memorable spot: He shoots me into the ropes and I tell him to bend over. Bouncing off the ropes I flip over him and school boy him into a pin. Kick out. I call drop toe hold, where you drop down and trip up your opponents legs with your own. I drop down. Trip the legs. And J falls RIGHT ON TOP OF ME.



I sold the "splash" but J didn't know what to do. 10 minutes ran out and the match was stopped without a finish.

Steve directly critiqued everyone in the match but me. As of now, I'm taking that as a positive. I did try some different things. Saved some spots. And suffered for others. Now I just need to have hopefully better matches with better opponents.

Note this to facebook as well.

The Stir-Man's Mega-Update

So, I've been locked out of facebook since....whenever was the last time I posted on facebook. The computers keep crashing here at the apt complex and they decided to install a internet protection program (K9) which blocks facebook. Maybe even worse, I got an okcupid email (as told to me thru lsu.edu) but I can't open it. All I know is that she thinks I look nice.

So, if any one of you could, please upload this entry to facebook and attach the usual names as my past posts. I think the only friend we don't have in common is Tommy Garza. Add'em and slap 'em on there. You can leave out the okcupid part.

FCW

So, our class has finished learning all the moves from the wrestling move/hold worksheet. Now we are either reviewing, cutting promos, and/or starting to have practise matches. Last Monday was our first practise match session. 6-minutes in length. Steve's only direction was show what you've learned. I didn't have a chance at a match along with a few other (ran out of time), but I saw some interesting stuff.


One guy tried to do a flipping springboard moonsault off the ropes onto another guy. The moonsaulter ended up landing on the guy on the back of his head/neck (he didn't completely flip over). It looked sick, but it seemed everyone was ok. The next class I found out the guy who got landed on broke off a part of his rib. The moonsaulter wasn't in class that day. I don't know what the hell that guy thought he was doing. It was the first practise match of a beginner's wrestling class. Some guesses are that the guy was/is a closet backyard wrestler. Completely stupid that the guy would take a chance like that, fuck it up, and hurt the other guy. As for the hurt guy, don't know if he'll be able to finish the class or not.


Protect your opponent. It's a law that's posted around the arena. That guy just wanted to look good, failed at it, and hurt someone. If I get paired up with this guy and he tries that shit, I'm moving. He lands on the back of his head in the ring and breaks his neck, I'll feel kinda bad but I'm not getting hurt cause of some guy with a reckless attitude.


The "main event" was between 2 guys who wanted to tear the house down, but tried waaay too hard and failed. They didn't communicate. Constantly got lost. One of these guys was Austin "The Mayor" from Canada. His practise match was alot like his training. Too intense. Too fast. Though he seems nice, he wants to be the best and prove it to everyone. But with all his intensity and selling, he forgets to communicate and even how to properly do moves. I'm a bit worried to work with this guy as well.


A couple Mondays ago, I was in class and, upon landing from a leapfrog, I must have rolled my ankle. Right afterwards, I knew it was hurt, but I thought it must have been only a slight sprain as it didn't hurt much. I redid the spot and continued. Once I stopped training and the adrenaline wore off, my ankle started hurting big time. I could barely put any weight on it and the walk back to the car was a long one. This was probably the worst pain I've ever been in. Now, for the most part, it's healed. Though I do still have some slight pain in certain positions. Back in action, I now wear an ankle support.

Three Thursdays ago, I made my FCW TV [taping] debut in a non-wrestling, acting role. I was a member of a protester mob against Steve and for a wrestler called Abraham Saddam Washington, who's working a heel/bad guy Barack Obama character. Washington was having a debate with Steve. Washington would answer his questions, but, when Steve tried to answer his, our protest group busted in the FCW arena and chanted "Washington!" throughout Steve's 30 seconds of response time. Rinse. Repeat. At the end, Steve confronted Washington face-to-face and Washington dropped acting as if he'd been shot. Our group pulled Washington out of the ring and towards the backstage area while chanting something.

A funny side story on this: 4 members of our group got to hold signs. During the end part where Washington is being pulled to the back by his secret service and us the protesters, I stole the sign from another protester (the blonde from class) and kinda charged the ring, pointing at Steve, yelling, "GET HIM BACK!", etc. I then made my way backstage holding the sign above my head, reversed so it could still be read.

Another side story: Afterwards, I looked at the sign I stole and saw that it said "Veto Keirn!". I crack a little smile as I realized that, with the little show that I put on, I did it with an incorrect protest sign. I'm pretty sure it should be "Impeach Keirn!". It would seem that I was up in arms about some bill Steve wanted to pass, I suppose the "Keirn Bill", and I wanted it vetoed.


The episode will air this coming Sunday at 6/5 central on Bright House Sports. If I can find someplace showing it online, I'll let you know.


The TV taping lasted from 7:30 till 10:30. They taped 3 episodes. I was there from 4:30 till as they wanted us there early to practise our roles. While waiting, I watched their heavyweight champion tape a promo. Took 2 tries. The first lasted 57 sec and the second was 1min 2 sec. The goal is to get as close to 1min.


Backstage were all the FCW wrestlers and several WWE/ECW wrestlers who still do the FCW show. Nattie Neidhart (Jim Neidhart's daughter). Alica Fox and DJ Gabriel. Harry Smith (son of the British Bulldog Davey Boy Smith), Tyson Kid (adopted Hart family member), Katie Lea, etc.


Afterward the taping ended, I was backstage shaking hands and watching some video of the taping (the wrestlers were watching their matches to review themselves). Harry Smith was showing some holds to another wrestler and asked me if I could help out, meaning have to holds put on me so the other guy could see the positioning. I said ok. He asked me if I was a wrestler. I just responded that I was in Steve's class. The holds were pretty tight and nothing that hurt much. I shook Smith's hand afterwards and went back to watching the video. A few minutes later, Smith came up to me and asked my name. I told him and he thanked me for helping out.


From reading wrestler books, I knew that letting another guy put holds on you is an iffy situation. The guy can push the limit, hurting you to make you "humble". While in a hold, I saw a guy walk by and shake his head, giving me that look that I was stupid to put myself in this position. Maybe I was, but Smith was a nice guy and didn't hurt me, even asking if I was ok. I'd like to think that by voluntarily asking for my name, that I got a little respect for myself from Smith.

Don't know how long I'll be out of facebook. Most likely a while as the liberry has it filtered as well. I know this is not what this site is for, but I'll try to keep updated through here (unless that's a problem). Whoever post this to facebook, maybe forward either the comments and/or the readers here so I can read them/respond. Also if everyone can keep me updated about everyone else as no facebook pretty much leaves me out the loop.

Too Many Friends

Stosh,

We were talking a little while ago about the extent to which going away to college does or doesn't provide an opportunity to reinvent oneself. I came across an article today in the New York Times Magazine proposing that social networking sites might actually make this more difficult, since it's harder for, say, a Facebook user to make a clean break with his high school buddies.

I quote liberally from a passage that resonated strongly with me:

As a survivor of the postage-stamp era, college was my big chance to doff the roles in my family and community that I had outgrown, to reinvent myself, to get busy with the embarrassing, exciting, muddy, wonderful work of creating an adult identity. Can you really do that with your 450 closest friends watching, all tweeting to affirm ad nauseam your present self?

As Sean rightly pointed out, the pressure of one's past can be shut out from the present just by unplugging from one's old friends. I think the reason why in practice nobody ever does this is because, unlike friends who fade away in the real world just because you fail to contact them, Facebook friends hang around until you take the affirmative step of un-friending them. Nobody wants to have to take a step to affirmatively sever a social tie, except in extraordinary circumstances.

So is the mythos of college as a place for self-reinvention totally contingent upon the inconvenience of keeping up with one's old friends? And do social networking sites disrupt that inconvenience to such an extent that self-reinvention becomes too onerous to consider?

Bride of Pseudoscience

It's in my nature neither to pay attention to, nor to write about stories as sordid and rubbernecky as this Rihanna-Chris Brown domestic violence story. But upon encountering this gem of a study, I couldn't help but bring it to your attention for your collective ridicule.

The Boston Public Health Commission surveyed 200 Boston youths between ages 12 and 19, "using the Chris Brown-Rihanna case to gauge their attitudes toward teen dating violence." All of the study participants had heard about the incident. Here are some of the results:

• 71% said arguing was a normal part of a relationship
• 44% said fighting was a normal part of a relationship
• 51% said Chris Brown was responsible for the incident
• 46% said Rihanna was responsible for the incident
• 52% said both individuals were to blame for the incident, despite knowing at the time that Rihanna had been beaten badly enough to require hospital treatment
• 35% said the media were treating Rihanna unfairly
• 52% said the media were treating Chris Brown unfairly

A few of these numbers are troubling. For example, how is it possible for 51% to think Brown is responsible, and for 46% to think Rihanna is responsible, but somehow, for 52% to think both are to blame? Mathematically and logically, it's impossible for more people to affirm the proposition "A & B" than the proposition "A." Does this turn on a subtle connotative difference between "responsibility" and "blame"? Or did the interviewers just ask one too many questions?

Secondly, how is the extent of a person's injuries relevant to determine their responsibility for them? I am right in reading that implication into the fifth statistic, aren't I? I didn't have to go to law school to figure out that the two issues are independent, but I did gor to law school, and we had this pointed out to us a lot of times in Torts. Just commonsensically though, if you step off the curb in front of an oncoming car, your injuries are your responsibility whether the vehicle runs over your foot and breaks your toe, or whether it sends you flying twenty yards and lands you in a full body cast. Liability and damages are independent issues.

Thirdly, and more in line with the presumed intent of the study, who are these 98 idiotic Boston teenagers wandering the streets thinking that a person isn't really to blame if he beats another person so badly that they wind up in the hospital? Are you kidding me? Newsflash, in case any of you happen to be reading: you actually are in control of whether or not you curl your hand into a fist, and hurl it with a high velocity into another person's cheekbone. Strange but true.

As irate as I am about this last statistic, you'd think somebody in the media would be talking about it as well. Wrong. See here and here. What's the most cited statistic culled from the study? I thought you'd never ask:

Of those questioned, ages 12 to 19, 71 percent said that arguing was a normal part of a relationship; 44 percent said fighting was a routine occurrence.

This is the news that has us fretting thusly?:

The results of the survey, conducted by the Boston Public Health Commission across the city and equally among boys and girls, are startling for local health workers who see a generation of youths who seem to have grown accustomed, even insensitive, to domestic violence."

I think you'd have to be pretty jaded if you weren't startled by it," said Casey Corcoran, director of the health commission's new Start Strong program.

I'm appalled. I'm appalled by the implication of these supposedly responsible adults that it is not "normal" to "argue" when you're in a relationship. Conflating disagreement with domestic abuse? Somebody should be ashamed. Woe to the teenager who buys into this crock of shit.

"Fight"? I just can't get too excited about 44% of youth thinking it's normal to "fight" with your significant other, in light of how broad the meaning of "fight" can be. It runs the gamut from simple disagreement, to heated argument, to knock-down-drag-out, to hurling a vase at the wall, to giving your better half two black eyes, and beyond. This continuum spans both acceptable and unacceptable behavior, so it's not very surprising that some kids think fighting is normal. If 44% had said that "physical violence" was normal in a relationship, I could see myself joining the chorus. But that's not what happened here. This study is plainly the unholy spawn of pseudoscience and tabloid publishing, so why are there people taking it seriously?

Sexting, Suicide, and So-called Sluts, but mostly just Sympathy

Three weeks ago or so, I posted a critique of Dahlia Lithwick's Slate opinion piece about teen "sexting." Today, MSNBC reports that a high school girl has committed suicide following her decision to send a nude photograph of herself to her boyfriend. Apparently, after Jessie Logan sent the picture, her boyfriend forwarded it to others, and it eventually made the rounds to literally hundreds of students. Jessie was harassed at school for months, and eventually hung herself in her closet.

I feel bad about this, I really do, but isn't it totally predictable? This is what teenagers are like. The idea that this "private picture" would have remained private is hopelessly naive. Boys who possess nude pictures of girls show them to their friends. This I know from experience, except that in my case, it was just a seventh grade friend of mine sneaking a Playboy into the back of the electronics lab. Teenagers love a victim, and they particularly love to call slut when it stands a chance of doing real damage.

Maybe there was a time when a girl could get away with this without major fallout. Like in the age of Polaroids. She could have snapped a photo and slipped it in her boyfriend's locker. Still, it might have been passed around among his friends, but no way it would have been seen by hundreds. It might have passed by word of mouth, but it would have just been plankton floating in the deep blue sea of the high school gossip, and most importantly, it would have been hearsay. She would have been teased, but she'd be able to plausibly deny having done it, and it would all blow over.

Digital media makes this sort of thing that much more dangerous because it's so easily copied and transmitted to others (and without sacrificing one's own copy). Furthermore, the ease of duplication makes the meme practically immortal for anyone who wants to get his hands on it.

What distressed me most was this passage:

The school resource officer at Sycamore [High School] said he tried to do something about Jessie’s case. He said he confronted the kids who were harassing Jessie and even took Jessie's case to the prosecutor to see if he could press charges. But he said that because Jessie was 18, there were no laws to protect her. He said he'd like to work with the Logans to have the laws changed.

She was eighteen. She was so close to college, the part of your life where you really can, if you want to, reject everything that was ever said about your high school self, and start over fresh. You can reject the prudish but titillated clique that would torture you for something like this. You can lay down roots where they've never heard of you before. And you can conduct your naive, not-even-debauched forays into sexuality with relative impunity. Put it this way: I knew sluts in college, but I didn't know anybody with "a reputation." Even if a girl was objectively easy, she wasn't a victim of that fact; she owned it, and this was true to such a degree that (since, for me anyway, the centre hasn't held) it often registered more as a strength than as a weakness. Not in every case, but often enough to warrant my saying so.

---

Unrelated, but I wanted to welcome a new contributor, S. Not sure if you're going for anonymity or style on the name front. If it's the former, I need you to say so, because I don't want to accidentally "out" you by using your name, which I will most assuredly do eventually in the absence of specific instructions otherwise.

Also, good luck to Stirling at FCW.

Four reasons to wonder whether race plays a role in head coach hiring decisions

Sean,

Just throwing out a few reasons why I think it's plausible that racism plays a significant role in keeping black head coaches out of head coaching positions in FBS college football.

1. You're right that the kind of probabilistic reasoning that I was engaged in will never prove that a particular decision not to hire a black man is racially motivated. The fact that African Americans are represented in lower numbers among the ranks of FBS head coaches than they are among the population at large doesn't prove anything. But it does lead us to ask for reasons why such a disparity might exist. It could be that white guys generally possess qualities that would make them better college head coaches, just as nobody seems to bat an eyelash if you draw a conclusion that young black men must generally have qualities that make them better football players than young white men, since they are overrepresented on the football field. But I don't think that my concern has been answered just because other possibilities are plausible. Speculation is all we have at this point, but I'd prefer to answer the question with data, if it were available.

2. You write that you can't think of a single instance in which a head coach hiring decision stuck out to you as being racially motivated. I think it would be surprising if one had. Your observation is salient for what it is, but it doesn't preclude use of race as a "tiebreaker." That is, assuming that a black candidate and a white candidate are relatively equal in terms of merit, a hiring committee still might systematically choose the white candidate. As long as the true basis of the decision is hidden, no one could reasonably accuse that particular hiring committee of racism. But if the same methodology is applied at a number of schools, the numbers would begin to look suspiciously like the ones we in fact encounter.

3. Racism could be outsourced to smaller schools or less pressworthy positions. Everybody knows that hiring a new head coach at a major conference school attracts lots of press scrutiny. This is less true at mid-major schools or in the FCS, and also of coordinator positions, position coaches, and the rest, on down the line. If race is used as a factor at those levels, it is less likely to be detected since people are less likely to crunch those numbers. But the results would still be felt at the head coach level because policies like these would yield fewer qualified black candidates at the coordinator level, or as head coaches at mid-majors.

4. You write that it's inconceivable to believe that anything matters to a hiring committee more than W's. Actually, I think you mention something that could matter more to them: $$$. You write as though there's a one-to-one correspondence between wins and profits, and certainly that correlation is very strong. But money comes from other places; in particular, from booster fund raising. If the hiring committee fears that the boosters will not take well to a black head coach (which would not be an unreasonable concern here in the South), then they might pass over a more qualified black coach on that basis alone, unless the expected profits from his greater number of wins would outstrip the losses the school would suffer from decreased booster support.

More on racism in college football.

Much has been made of the relatively small numbers of black head coaches in NCAA 1A football. While I remain skeptical of how much racism is a factor, I certainly concede that it's a possibility, and despite my skepticism, I generally don't make much of this discussion. The big difference between this case and the Auburn case is that even though fingers were pointed in both, nobody was targeted specifically, and since there's no target, it's hard to make a case one way or the other.

As evidenced by the last three Super Bowls, there are clearly good black head coaches (although it might be a stretch to assuming good NFL coaches are roughly equivalent to college coaches). Like the Auburn case though, I started looking for other instances in which possibly more qualified black coaches were overlooked. Several web searches later, I hadn't come up with anything substantial.

About 25% of Americans are black, so you'd expect around 30 black coaches based solely on that. Furthermore, only six coaches in division 1A haven't had college playing experience, and easily more than 25% of college football players are black. It wasn't always this high, but in 2001, over 55% of college football players were black. Honestly though, it's a little strange to be talking about racial breakdowns at all in my opinion. If it were that simple, we could also say that black players actually benefit from racism. Saying that blacks are more fit to become football players isn't entirely different than saying whites are more fit to become coaches.

Being an SEC fan, I rarely pay attention to up and coming coaches. Most SEC schools don't have the patience to take chances on unproven coaches, although it happens on occasion. Looking just over the major conferences, no recent coaching hires have stuck out to me, at least from a racial perspective. Most schools take a conservative approach and hire the most successful head coach they could land from Div 1A. Occasionally, a top coordinator gets a head coaching shot. For the most part though, new coaching blood comes from the non-BCS conference schools, and I don't really know where those coaches are coming from.

One thing that I have noticed though is that there haven't been many decent black coaches in the mid-major schools lately. I can list several of the most successful mid-major programs of the past few years, and none of them have had black coaches. On top of that, perhaps the two black coaches with the most impressive resumes were fired last season. I think I'd still rather have Tyrone Willingham or Sylvester Croom than Turner Gill.

Perhaps I'm naive, but it still seems strange to me that head coaches could be chosen by any other criteria than the number of games they would be expected to win. I know there are academic considerations, but race has nothing to do with that. If I'm an athletic director, the one thing I'm asking is, "How many wins can you get for my program?" With most football programs more than paying for themselves, more wins equals more money and more prestige for the university. If there's a coach that can get one more win every couple of seasons, or even every fourth season, than the next best guy, I don't care what his race is. As far as I'm concerned, if he's black, you even get good press coverage as a bonus.