“General Managers are starting to understand that minority
coaches can organize, prepare, and teach just as well as anybody else. I think our whole society is learning
that.” Lionel Hollins, Head Coach,
Memphis Grizzlies
Watching the NBA playoffs brings to mind a mark of progress
and the key role of a father and son in making the progress become reality.
One of basketball's first iconic figures was Joe Lapchick, a
Hall-of-Famer who starred for the original Celtics and coached the New York
Knicks and St. John's University. It was Joe Lapchick who signed Nat
“Sweetwater” Clifton to a Knicks contract in 1950, making Clifton the first
African-American to join an NBA team.
Throughout his distinguished career, Coach Lapchick made a
point to foster opportunities for African-Americans in basketball as players
and as coaches. His son, Richard, Founder and Chair of the DeVos Sport Business
Management Program at the University of Central Florida, is one of our nation's
leading civil rights and sports activists. Richard has dedicated his life to
bringing about equality in sport and society. The annual Racial and Gender
Report Card issued by the DeVos Program is the most influential assessment of
the professional and amateur sports leagues as well as sports organizations in
the United States.
Of the thirty NBA head coaches, 14 are African-American.
Portland Trail Blazers’ Kaleb Canales is the league’s first Mexican-American
head coach and the Miami Heat’s coach Erik Spoelstra is Filipino-American. Seven of these coaches led their teams to the
2012 Playoffs.
The likes of Doc Rivers of the Boston Celtics and a future
Hall-of-Famer, Mike Brown of the Los
Angeles Lakers, and Mike Woodson of the New York Knicks remind us of what can
happen when able professionals are given the opportunity to lead.