Coach should not have to battle to get head position

By Jeff Christian

Published: November 29, 2008

When you hear something like this, it makes you want to scratch your head and just wonder how it can happen in this day and age. It is 2008, right?
In 1978, John Williams, an African-American, had to go to federal court in order to get the right to coach a high school football team — Hammond High School. He won that battle.
In March of this year, Alden Foster had to do the same in order to gain the right to coach at Amite High School in Tangipahoa Parish, La.
Foster took over a team that finished 10-3 last season, falling in the semifinal game of the Louisiana High School Athletic Association Class 3A state playoffs.
Foster guided this year’s team to a 9-0 regular season mark, won the district title and won their first two playoff games.
Friday night, the run came to an end as Lutcher eliminated Amite, 30-22.
The Warriors outscored their opponents 435-146 on the season.
“Time is the healer of all things,” Foster told the Associated Press. “Winning helps, too, but kids sometimes have to show adults how to get along.”
It’s just unbelievable that something like this can still happen.
Foster played his college football at Southern University and was head coach at St. Helena Parish when he applied for the job.
He was passed over by the Tangipahoa Parish school board in January 2007, and assistant coach Mark Vining was hired.
Foster sued over what he felt was racial discrimination.
In an ignorant move, the district said it used a court-approved set of objective criteria and it determined Foster wasn’t qualified to take over as head coach, according to the Associated Press report.
Also according to the same report, school officials said the parish had grown progressively whiter since the 1975 order, while its pool of black applicants had dwindled.
Foster, however, won his case in Federal Court and is now the head coach of the Warriors.
Finishing 11-1 in his first season, where he lost only one white player from the team from his being hired, should show the community that he knows what he is doing and they should do nothing short of supporting him and his players.
The color of someone’s skin shouldn’t matter. If he, or she, can do the job that faces them, they should be allowed to do that job. Whether it’s coaching, or running the United States of America, everyone has the right to pursue their dream and that is exactly what Alden Foster did.
For those who fought Foster should really take a look at themselves and remember, it’s not the 1950s any longer.
Most of us have matured and opened our minds from those foolish beliefs. And for those who haven’t your ignorance will continue to show.
AND FINALLY, Mississippi State head football coach Sylvester Croom resigned Saturday. The first African-American head football coach in the Southeastern Conference finished this season at 4-8, after a 45-0 loss Friday to Ole Miss.
Jeff Christian is the assistant sports editor of the News & Messenger. He can be reached at .