Frustration Stirs Blacks to Boycott

“If we were in a war,” USC’s George Raveling said, “we wouldn’t tell the Russians our troop placement, would we? We’re fighting a system, a system that’s about to legislate us out of business.”

And there, in abridged version, is the new and aggressive attitude of the 3,000-member Black Coaches Assn., which announced the other day that its members will boycott a basketball summit scheduled to begin Monday in Charlotte, N.C.

The BCA also has hinted that its future actions, with the blessing of players and parents, might include boycotting regular-season games.

At issue is what the BCA considers a long-standing indifference to minority coaches and athletes. Particularly upsetting to the organization, Raveling said, was recent NCAA legislation that mandated a reduction in available scholarships, from 14 to 13, as well as a reduction in the size of coaching staffs.

The BCA also is frustrated by the low number of minority female coaches in Division I women’s basketball and the inability of minorities to secure positions of importance within the NCAA or USA Basketball hierarchy.

“I think what has happened is that we feel we’ve worked within the (NCAA) system all of our coaching careers, and here we are at a juncture where we’re stepping backwards instead of stepping forward,” said Raveling, who will be in a BCA contingent that plans to meet with the Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday in Washington. “We’ve been inside the system and the system has been failing us. When the system fails you, intelligence tells you to look elsewhere for some other recourse.”

It was Raveling, a member of the National Assn. of Basketball Coaches’ board of directors, who called Jim Haney, NABC executive director, and told him that the black coaches would be summit no-shows. In all, 100 BCA members had been expected to attend.

The BCA is concerned enough to consider a boycott of games, which, if it happened, would send shivers down the spines of NCAA and television executives everywhere.

Rudy Washington, BCA director and coach at Drake, has been purposely vague about the organization’s plans. But Raveling said, “We have a well-designed calendar of action that we’re going to use throughout the year.”

In an effort to head off trouble, the Joint Policy Board of the NCAA sent a letter Friday to Washington, seeking a meeting with the BCA.

Greg O’Brien, chairman of the NCAA Presidents Commission, said the letter, which also addressed the association’s concerns, will be released along with a statement Monday.

“We are expressing the desire of the Joint Policy Board to meet with Coach Washington and the Black Coaches Assn.,” O’Brien told the Associated Press. “We take these issues very seriously.”